Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

These days, Wolverine’s solo title is a bit of a mixed bag, offering rotating creative teams telling self-contained arcs. Fair enough - it’s not like you can’t get plenty of Wolverine elsewhere. Still, back in the day, Wolverine’s solo title actually felt like a solo title. It had its own supporting cast, and a long-term creative team, and it was generally pretty good.

Back in 1993, the Fatal Attractions crossover had left Wolverine stripped of his adamantium skeleton by Magneto. After taking an absence from the X-Men, Wolverine had finally come to terms with his new situation, which included not-quite-indestructible bone claws and a healing ability that was now working at full-pelt, no longer having to deal with having a metal skeleton. Unfortunately, a side-effect of this was that his unchecked mutation was now causing him to become more and more animalistic, and he found his humanity harder to hold onto than ever.

All of which made for fairly entertaining reading. Of course, fans knew that the adamantium was coming back one day, and Wolverine #100, complete with holographic foil cover, seemed to be the place. Cable’s wayward son, Genesis, hoped to return the metal to Logan, then brainwash him to serve as a disciple of Apocalypse. With the help of the latest X-Men graduate, Cannonball, Logan manages to escape the bonding process, rejecting the adamantium. Unfortunately, as a side effect, his healing factor fully mutates him into a barely-human animal, who kills Genesis then leaves, even as Cannonball discovers that Genesis’ other project - the resurrection of Apocalypse - might just have succeeded.

The artwork comes from Adam Kubert, who was always one of the better 90s superhero artists, and the series clearly benefited from his involvement. While Larry Hama’s writing took a serious downturn in the late 90s, here he shows a good grasp of the serial medium, bringing together several long-running plot threads and offering a remarkably satisfying alternative to “Wolverine gets his adamantium back” (which he eventually would, as depicted in flashback in Wolverine #145.) The ending was, at the time, quite an unexpected twist, and it’s almost inconceivable to imagine Marvel sending one of their most bankable properties on such a strange personal journey - although back then, he wasn’t quite as ubiquitous as he is now.

The title would eventually see Wolverine gradually regain his lost humanity, and it turned out that Apocalypse was indeed back. The focus on Cannonball is quite odd for an anniversary issue of Wolverine’s solo title, but when the lead spends most of the issue strung up and dehumanised, it makes sense to provide a POV character. Despite the gimmick cover, the banner proclaiming “Anniversery Event!” and the fact that it appeared smack-bang in the middle of one of comics’ weakest periods ever, the issue was actually quite a decent event for Wolverine readers, tying up a large number of plots, but launching as many - it’s something you don’t really see these days, thanks to the current trend of trade-focused pacing. For better or worse, they don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

During the “Heroes Reborn” event, the Hulk title was reportedly scheduled for cancellation so that the character could be used by the Image guys in those comics. At the last minute, the book was saved and Peter David’s legendary run on the character was given a stay of execution, although he was now writing a version of the Hulk who had been split from Bruce Banner by Onslaught’s reality-warping power, so as to leave Bruce free to become the Hulk in the Heroes Reborn universe.

By all reports, David hastily came up with a bunch of stories to fill the gap, re-inventing the Hulk’s personality once again as a thuggish loner unable to contain his own power. In what one expects might’ve been an attempt to bolster sales of the almost-cancelled title, David was eventually teamed with former X-Men/Wolverine artist Adam Kubert and immediately used the opportunity to bring the industry’s most popular characters in for a short guest-run.

Following a fight with Wolverine in the Savage Land, the Hulk’s unconscious body has been brought back to the X-Mansion. David’s mastery of comedy takes prime position during the issue, as the X-Men present are individually shown realising what’s going on and Wolverine has to explain his decision.  Eventually, the Hulk wakes up and tries to escape, and the X-Men’s plan to contain him in the Danger Room fails. In the ensuing fight, the Hulk is faced down by Forge, who has a weapon he believes can harm the Hulk. Forge shoots him, and as he does the Hulk disappears. As Forge explains to a horrified Storm that the weapon isn’t possible of disintegrating him, it’s revealed that Hulk has, in fact, been teleported to safety by… Apocalypse!

Peter David’s Hulk run is full of enjoyable action-comedy issues along these lines, and David manages to nail the X-Men’s characterisation in a few short scenes. The humour mixes perfectly with the action, and Kubert’s depiction of the same is faultless. The later years of David’s turn on the title are often forgotten, but the short X-Men related run which began with the Savage Land fight and included run-ins with both Apocalypse and Juggernaut, before it ended with Hulk accidentally crippling Rick Jones a few issues later, is a particularly enjoyable arc in a classic Marvel tradition. The amount of X-Content does make it fairly certain that it was designed to grab a few extra readers, but when the stories are that memorable purely on the strength of their writing, it’s easy to forgive such a gimmick.

The run begins with Incredible Hulk #454, and is well worth tracking down - especially if you’re looking to read some great Hulk stories and feel like saving a little cash on all this Red Hulk nonsense.

Continuity, they say, can be both a tool and a trap. But whether or not you’re the sort of person who will just write what they please and hang trying to make it tie in perfectly with everything that’s gone before, there are certain rules that everyone knows to stick to. Such as - don’t contradict anything less than a year old, and certainly not any stories that are currently happening.

Sadly, that’s exactly what the ludicrously-delayed final part of Geoff Johns, Richard Donner and Adam Kubert’s Last Son storyline has done. Originally intended to come out almost a year ago, the story wraps up the tale of the escaped Phantom Zone Kryptonians, among them Chris Kent (the son of General Zod and Ursa), all of whom end the story by being pulled back into the Zone. There’s just one problem. For the last year’s worth of stories, Chris has been living as the adopted son of Clark Kent (er, hence the name) and Lois Lane. But this issue picks up at the exact moment at which the last part of the story ended some time last year. So, er, just when were all those stories with Chris supposed to happen?

The answer, of course, is that there isn’t an answer. Chris had to be featured in Busiek’s Superman (Johns’ own Action Comics sidestepped the problem with an interminably long story set in the 31st Century), because to not have him around would have spoiled the intended ending of Last Son. But once it became apparent that this was going to happen, was it really not possible to think about a rewrite? Never mind the writing, at editorial level this is a massive, massive screw-up - and it renders this storyline almost entirely pointless and unreadable.

Of course, it’s not the only mistake that was made by the higher-ups. Once it became apparent that Kubert was going to take far too long to finish this (and I don’t like to criticise artists too much for lateness, because it’s something to which all manner of personal problems can potentially contribute - so let’s apportion him only part of the blame for this fiasco), then somebody should have stepped in and hired a replacement artist to finish the job. I mean, this isn’t All-Star Superman or The Ultimates. You wait for Quitely or Hitch art, because the book is as much their vision as the writers’ - and because it’s so good when it finally arrives.

But one of the main problems with this issue is that neither the art nor the story are particularly worth waiting for. Johns and Donner wrap up what was, let’s be honest, a fairly standard story about General Zod (appallingly designed, not looking threatening in the slightest) trying and eventually failing to subjugate humanity with a convenient ending (”anything that has been in contact with the Zone gets pulled back in”) that almost feels directly ripped from the end of series two of Doctor Who. It still grates, meanwhile, that (you would guess at Donner’s behest) the comics have suddenly become so like the films - weren’t they supposed to be a bit more distinct than this? The most recent re-telling of the Jor-El story was only in 2004’s Birthright, and while I know that Infinite Crisis created a “new Earth” that could happily contradict previous stories, there was simply no explanation for his suddenly becoming a bearded white-haired presence in the Fortress - beyond “oh, this is the version I know, this is the version I’m going to write”.

Amazingly, meanwhile, for something that took so long, Kubert’s work feels rushed and sloppy in places (at one point, Zod is seen with those stupid goggles on, despite having previously had them punched off his face by Superman). There are some nice large-scale set-pieces, but he works far better with the big splash images than he does in effectively conveying action in smaller panels. And in many of those smaller panels, there’s simply no detail or definition to his characters.

If this had been part of the regular Action Comics schedule, it probably would have been quite passable. It’s not amazing, but like the rest of Last Son, it’s a nice big action story with some quite neat bits (a bit more of Luthor gathering a team to “help” Superman would have been nice) - although you probably will have to go back and reread the rest of the story to remember just what’s supposed to be happening. But the year’s wait, and the cost of it being in an extra (and double-sized) issue, simply don’t feel worth it at this point. And worst of all, the one genuinely interesting legacy of the story - the idea of Clark and Lois bringing up a superpowered kid - has already been thrown back in the cupboard. At the end of the day, despite the initial hype and anticipation, the much-heralded Johns/Donner/Kubert event can only be seen as something of a failed experiment. And what with this and Batman, people really need to think twice before putting the Kubert brothers on monthly flagship books any time soon.

Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue at random, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published. 

Friends, cast back your minds to a time when the X-Men had disbanded and gone their separate ways. A time when villainous Skrulls threatened to infiltrate the Marvel Universe by masquerading as heroes, stealing their identities in an almost undetectable manner. Hey, wait a second…

Here’s the thing about any serial medium - eventually, certain stories are going to come back around. And sometimes they’re going to come back around together.

Following a visit to the skrull homeworld where they fought Skrull doppelgangers of the Marvel heroes, the X-Men were disbanded by Xavier after an apparent breakdown. For a couple of months, the X-Books contained solo adventures, and a 3-issue miniseries, Astonishing X-Men (Volume 2), featured an interim team lead by Cyclops attempting to save the Mannites (a race of man-made and powerful children) from Apocalypse’s new horseman, Death. At the climax of the series, Death killed Wolverine by stabbing him with his sword.

Which is where #375 picks up. The X-Men re-convene to autopsy Wolverine, and realise that he has been replaced by a Skrull - something Xavier suspected, hence his decision to disband the team. Preceding that revelation, though, is a fairly decent, if overly-long illusory fight scene involving the whole team where a bunch of characters die, and both Onslaught and Dark Phoenix return before it’s revealed as being a psychic illusion (well, duh) cooked up to try and flush out any infiltrators. The main problem is that when certain characters start lashing out insanely and dropping dead like flies, it becomes fairly clear to the reader that something’s up and it’s always a problem when the audience recognises something that the characters don’t, because you feel like you’re reading about a troupe of morons. The issue ends with the lingering question of where the real Wolverine is, a question fully answered in X-Men #95 when it’s revealed that Wolverine is the new Death.

At this time, Alan Davis was writing the X-Men. His run culminated with The Twelve - a storyline that had been hinted at for years by various writers (following their predecessor’s lead) who each had their own idea what it was, the only certain fact being that it involved Apocalypse. Davis used his run to finally tell the story, and the skrulls were prominent throughout. Claremont’s return immediately followed The Twelve, however, you only have to look at the first page of #375 to see why some people were speculating that even now Claremont already scripting Davis’ plots, rather than the credited Terry Kavanagh.

It’s unclear whether any elements of this story will get a mention during the course of Secret Invasion - it is basically built around an identical concept, and a team of mutant skrulls that span out of the X-Men’s involvement with them, Cadre K, did stick around for a while afterwards. Despite Davis’ remarkably tight plotting, it wasn’t a particularly great era for Marvel or the X-Men (though it did actually get worse when Claremont took over)  so chances are, they’ll want to leave the past where it is.

Download Uncanny X-Men #375 in .cbr format here for a limited time, and there’s always more Uncanny X-Men available to view online at Marvel Digital Comics.