WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Hunt for Wolverine: Claws of a Killer #1-3 by Mariko Tamaki, Butch Guice, Cam Smith, Mack Chater, Dan Brown, and Joe Sabino. 


In preparation for the return of the original Wolverine, Marvel has spent the last four months releasing a line of miniseries about various Marvel characters close to the X-Man hunting him down and figuring out when he came back to life and what he's been doing since then. Whereas Mystery in Madripoor, Adamantium Agenda and Weapon Lost all feature characters who loved and fought alongside Logan, Hunt for Wolverine: Claws of a Killer by Mariko Tamaki, Butch Guice, Dan Brown and Joe Sabino takes a different route.

Claws is all about the people who hate Wolverine with a burning passion. Taking part in the search are his biological son Daken, who Logan fought and killed years ago; Sabretooth, ostensibly Logan's archnemesis; and Lady Deathstrike, who believes killing Wolverine will restore the honor of her family. For them, looking for Logan isn't about bringing him home or finding answers so much as it's about putting him down and finally getting some closure in their lives.

It's not all that surprising that the three of them have yet to let go of Logan and their slights against the X-Man. Sabretooth and Deathstrike are both members of Weapon X team featuring Old Man Logan, but that's a partnership that's on the verge of collapsing, and Daken can barely get along with any of his siblings.

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Thanks to the other miniseries and Laura Kinney's stint as Wolverine, it's easy to forget how many people absolutely detest Logan. Like any "bad" relative, the actions of what he did to each of them over the years looms over their conversation about hunting Logan down, a conversation full denial and resolve.

Even without complete details of what happened to each of them, the brief glimpses of Logan's fights with them all paints as a clear a picture as needed. This isn't a story where they're sympathetic; in fact, the glimpses of their past only paint Daken as a victim because his father drowned him, while Sabretooth and Deathstrike's show them as the aggressors in their respective fights against the resurrected mutant hero.

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The trio's search takes them to a small Arizona town where Logan was staying a week prior. Things quickly go south when they discover what Logan was in town for, and that was to rig a device that would convert the townspeople into zombies, prompting a genre switch from revenge tale to horror movie. Like anything featuring zombies, the horde is terrifying and overwhelming; Daken and Sabretooth get bitten almost immediately after coming in contact with the undead horde, and all three of them find their healing powers won't work while in town.

Needless to say, it's a bad situation, one that Daken is all too happy to complain about.

Not content with just being about the horror of overwhelming odds, Claws' third issue reveals a second trick up its sleeve; the two military men that are studying the zombified townspeople are Sabretooth's son Graydon Creed and Deathstrike's father Kenji Oyama, both of whom had been dead since the '90s... until now. Thrown into shock at seeing their once dead family members, Deathstrike and Sabretooth are easily dispatched, and now all three of them are close to death.

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Claws is an interesting read in how it shows that the three clawed foes are forever stuck in the past. Meanwhile, Laura's X-23 book, also written by Tamaki, is showcasing Laura's attempts to move forward and have a better future. Laura was only able to get to that point because she was able to forgive Logan and kept moving forward with her life.

Even beyond Laura, Marvel's two other prominent Wolverines have been able to let go of the baggage of the original Logan. The time and dimension-displaced Old Man Logan has had to learn to keep moving forward and not let his past define him. Jimmy Hudson, the son of the Wolverine from the Ultimate Universe, doesn't even seem to mind that he never got to meet his dad, and the three of them are all reasonably all the better for not letting their baggage consume them.

What Claws of a Killer lacks in plot momentum -- all this seems to be taking place in the same day -- it makes up for with the character dynamics and putting the three in a situation where their desire for revenge has unearthed the more shameful parts of their past. Daken, Sabretooth and Deathstrike are all people that can never learn to forgive Logan, and the appearance of their deceased family only will only make them hate the X-Man even more just by association. When Wolverine returns, he'll have to make amends with his family members -- because they clearly won't be doing that with him.