“I’m a loner,” Logan says, as he video chats with his bff Nightcrawler (or Elf, as he calls him) from the headquarters of one of the 17 non-x-men teams he’s on, mid-conversation about the health and progress of various teammates and students. His phone rings. It’s a picture, from Jubilee, of a squirrel that reminded her of him. He replies with an ‘unamused’ selfie, but his day is made.
this is the squirrel
Ok, but this is one of my fave Wolverine comic pages ever and this post always makes me think of it:
It’s from Avengers Arena #13.
Logan starts off the conversation all ‘I used to be a tough guy and sleep in the woods and answer to nobody I’d be such a loner without this stupid school.’
This is already pretty rich, because this is a school he insisted on starting himself because he didn’t like the way Cyclops was running the other school and wanted to look out for the children.
But anyway, he starts that way. Tough loner. Drinking beer. Lamenting that he can’t go running around wild like in his youth
He immediately messes it up. “Doesn’t it bother you that you haven’t heard from your daughter?” Ant-man asks. And his answer. His answer. “Nah. She texts Jubilee whenever she’s somewhere that has reception.” AKA: ‘Actually, she texts my other surrogate daughter who I’m apparently in frequent contact with. There is actually an entire system of teenage girl communications and I am part of it, so no worries, the teenage girl text chain says she’s ok.’
And then he keeps going. “Said something about a fight with a friend, wanting space. I get that.” AKA: ‘Also I’m aware of her emotional and social life and I trust her to handle herself and I’m just trying to respect her boundaries here. Sometimes teenage girls need space for teenage girl problems but if she needed me probably she would come to me because she already told me what was going on I’m very involved.’
Are we even surprised, when the perspective shifts from Ant-man looking at Logan on a screen to Logan’s actual office, to find out that behind him and his beer and his loner-ness there are kids just randomly hanging out in his office? No. We are not. We are not surprised.
And then the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, is that bottom long panel. When asked if he has any other missing students, he says no, he just keeps getting more, and he wishes it would stop. It’s like a lunatic asylum in here, he says. In a room full of children. Who clearly do not think they have any compelling reason not to be in his space purely on account of its being his office. And then. And then.
“I did hear something about some’a Captain Britain’s kids. Sounded like yer basic truancy, though.” He’s also looped into the system of teachers/principals. Logan’s obviously a tough loner and he has too many kids at this damned school that he started himself and he’d like them to stop showing up but also he knows the difference between garden-variety truancy and kids going missing for serious reasons and sits around talking about that with other principals and probably somebody at Captain Britain’s school has heard all about his problem children, because he has heard about theirs.
This is the only page Logan is on for the whole issue. Logan’s whole job in this entire issue is to pass on information from teenage girls and gossip sessions with other teachers. That’s his whole job. His entire role in the comic. I love it.
Stardust and Sinew 