SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Hunt For Wolverine by Charles Soule, David Marquez, Paulo Siquiera, Rachelle Rosenberg, Walton Wong and Ruth Redmond, on sale now.
Last year's Marvel Legacy #1 introduced many mysterious that would begin to unfold across the Marvel Universe over the next several months. High on that list of mysterious was the return of Wolverine, who somehow came back to life and escaped his Adamantium tomb, only to reappear with the Infinity Gauntlet's Time Stone.
A scene from Marvel Legacy #1 that left many scratching their heads involved the time-displaced young Jean Grey standing in front of Logan's empty, cracked Adamantium statue. Did Jean somehow know Wolverine was already alive? Did she have a part to play in bringing the X-Man back alive? And how did Jean know to go to that exact location?
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That question (and more) has been answered in Hunt For Wolverine, which took us back a few minutes before Jean enters the cabin in Marvel Legacy #1.
Missing Persons Report
The first half of Hunt For Wolverine shows readers how Kitty Pryde phased Logan's corpse out of his Adamantium shell. While the statue was left as a memorial to the fallen hero, Wolverine's body was secretly buried in a pasture overlooking mountains, in a private ceremony held among his teammates and friends.
However, the cybernetic mercenaries known as the Reavers discovered the location of Wolverine's memorial statue, they tried to seize it to sell on the black market. Of course, the X-Men were able to stop the villains, and Kitty Pryde returned to Wolverine's gravesite to tell him all about it. Before she leaves, Kitty notices a blanket with the X-Men logo blowing in the wind. This is the same blanket Logan was buried in, which means he somehow escaped his resting place.
Once Kitty realizes what's happened, she sets out to quietly alert Wolverine's former allies to garner their help in his search, as the second half of the one-shot focuses on meetings with Tony Stark, Daredevil and her X-Men teammates Storm, Rogue, Psylocke, Jubilee and Jean Grey.
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These individual stories will continue in four spinoff miniseries titled Weapon Lost, Adamantium Agenda, Mystery in Madripoor and Claws Of A Killer, with the last series focusing on Lady Deathstrike bringing together Sabretooth and Daken for their own search. Mystery in Madripoor will star the X-Men women listed above, minus Jean Grey, who has her own obligations as the leader of the X-Men's Blue team. And as Jean notes, it was her older half that had a connection to Wolverine. Even so, Jean still has a feeling that Wolverine is alive.
Welcome Back
After the Mystery in Madripoor crew takes off in a Blackbird jet, Jean makes her way towards a small cabin, as her scenes from Marvel Legacy #1 begin to play out in Hunt For Wolverine. We're soon greeted with Paulo Siquiera's version of the Jean Grey/Wolverine statue from Marvel Legacy #1, which was illustrated by Mike Deodato.
While the context of Jean Grey visiting Wolverine was unclear in Marvel Legacy #1, we now know she only went to Logan after Kitty told her that he went missing. Of course, Jean is one of the world's strongest telepaths, so this could have been explained away by using her powers to "sense" Logan was alive, Hunt For Wolverine chose a more simple method.
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If you want to be a stickler for small details, one could compare the word balloons used in Marvel Legacy #1 to what is revealed in Hunt For Wolverine and call out the inconsistencies. For example, the former begins with, "She tells herself she's come here to the remote wilds of Canada in order to visit the grave of an X-Man." From there it says, "But deep down, Jean Grey knows that isn't what she's going to find." However, we see Kitty call the X-Men together because Wolverine is missing. Jean is already aware that Wolverine isn't inside the Adamantium tomb. She doesn't have to dig down deep if she's already aware of what she's going to find inside the cabin. Small details like this can be chalked up to Jason Aaron writing Marvel Legacy #1, with Charles Soule penning Hunt For Wolverine.
Inconsistencies aside, synergy inside a shared superhero universe is very much appreciated. It's a good feeling to know that something introduced in one title will be picked up and explained in another. Things like this are what the continuity faithful live for, and when important stories like Marvel Legacy #1 and Hunt For Wolverine utilize them, they become even more enjoyable.