WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Wolverine #8 by Benjamin Percy, Adam Kubert, Antonio Fabela, Viktor Bogdanovic, Matthew Wilson & VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.
James Howlett, the mutant better known as Logan, has spent his long life going through multiple different personas, including his most famous role as the X-Man called Wolverine. One of his most famous alternate identities has been pulled back into rotation lately, and it might help him hunt down a former ally turned potential enemy.
In Wolverine #8, Wolverine has just resurrected his Patch persona back out for a secret mission to Madripoor to find out what's happened to his old teammate, Maverick, and his connection to the mysterious Legacy House.
Wolverine and the rest of Krakoa's X-Force have been dealing with some unexpected problems arising from Wolverine's Team X partner, Maverick. With Maverick now leading the mercenary group known as the Mercs and working for the black market auction known as the Legacy House, it's on the Krakoan heroes to try and bring the Mercs to justice. Thanks to his plentiful experience in dealing with Madripoor, Wolverine is sent undercover as a potential buyer for goods from the Legacy House. Thanks to Sage's experience in dealing with the dark web, Logan is granted an invitation to the Legacy House and sent to observe what's happening in the black market first hand. To keep the X-Man's involvement hopefully unnoticed, he even pulls out his old Madripoor based identity, Patch.
Wolverine first took on the Patch persona during a period where he and the rest of the X-Men were believed dead by the rest of the world following "The Fall of the Mutants." Called to Madripoor to settle his debt to a dying man, Logan was forced to interfere in the criminal underworld of the small island nation. To keep his identity a secret, Logan donned an eye-patch and assumed the identity of Patch, giving him the ability to interact with the criminals on the island without exposing the X-Men as being alive.
While disguised as Patch, Logan found himself dealing with enemies like the Silver Samurai, rivals like Joe Fixit, and allies like Psylocke. He even made some unlikely friends with the international law agency Landau, Luckman & Lake. The Patch persona has reappeared multiple times over the years, often being one of Wolverine's default strategies to employ when dealing with whenever he needs to work undercover. He even helped the New Mutant Karma deal with her uncle, who was a power player himself within the crime-riddled ecosystem of Madripoor.
Patch has always given Wolverine a certain amount of autonomy, even allowing him to somewhat escape his responsibilities as an X-Man and go undercover. But it's also become one of the ways Logan has interacted with other heroes from across the Marvel Universe. He's even encountered other Marvel figures such as Joe Fixit and Black Cat while disguised as Patch. Coupled with recent other missions involving Logan -- such as his brief stint joining the Fantastic Four in Empyre or working with the Avengers in the currently-running "Enter the Phoenix" storyline -- Wolverine has been proving that even if he's ultimately loyal to Krakoa and the X-Men above anything else, having something like Patch in his pocket allows him to continue to interact with the greater world.
Even in a modern era of united X-Men, Wolverine has a certain amount of independence from his teammates. It makes sense for the character, who has always been something of a lone wolf, despite his status as a longtime member of the team. However, it also means at least one X-Man is keeping strong relations with the other heroes of the world, regardless of Krakoa's status.