Wolverine becomes a fugitive again in Enemy Of The State II

There’s a new Wolverine hunting the streets lately, and she’s the best there is what she does. With the original Earth 616-flavour of Logan dead and his corpse making for a pretty decent adamantium paperweight, the mantle of the Canadian berserker was picked up by his clone X-23. And it has been one hell of a journey so far. X-23, or Laura Kinney as she named herself, was bred from the DNA of the original Wolverine to kill, maim and eviscerate.

Thing is, she became more than that. While her personal history is filled with a ton of physical and emotional pain, Laura used those experiences to forge herself into a better hero. One who lives to honor the legacy of her biological father and has begun forming a family with the X-Men and her younger clone sister Gabby. Laura is perfectly content to live a newer, better life. It’s just a pity that enemies from her past want to tear her world to shreds and make the Wolverine an enemy of the state again.

Which all sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it? Well it certainly should, as that’s the title of one of the original Wolverine’s greatest storylines. Back in 2006, writer Mark Millar and artist John Romita Jr turned Logan into a brainwashed killing machine, a Hand assassin who was sent out into the Marvel universe to kill as many costumed heroes as possible so that the shadowy ninja sect could resurrect them into an army of super-powered soldiers.

And it almost worked. The Marvel Universe came devastatingly close to being toppled, before sanity resumed and Logan was cured of his mental manipulation, but the actual storyline is like the Mad Max: Fury Road of mutant on superhero violence. So how does the sequel link up to that first storyline? “It’s a spiritual successor [to the original]. At the heart of it, the first “Enemy of the State” was about a Wolverine who has lost control, who is being used to commit atrocities by dark forces,” writer Tom Taylor said to CBR.

This sequel is similar. It begins with Laura being used to commit a terrible crime, which will see the State hunting her. She will be doing all she can to track down who used her, while also evading those who want to bring her in.

With All-new Wolverine, Taylor has written a storyline that has an actual sense of fun to it. Laura isn’t Logan, and it shows in the storylines and the character. Enemy Of The State II sounds like a more intense story however, one that doesn’t have time for humour. But according to Taylor, there will be some fun to be had:

There will still be some fun — I can’t really write without humour. I get too bored. But the tone is certainly shifting, here. Laura has committed to not taking a life, and the start of this story immediately throws that out the window. Laura is going to go through a lot in this story, but we hope that she can come through stronger without, you know, losing control and killing those closest to her.

Essentially, Wolverine is used, loses control, and kills a whole lot of innocent people. She is in a lot of trouble. She won’t know who she’s up against to begin with, nor who has used her in this way, but Nick Fury and a crack team of S.H.I.E.L.D. hunters will be coming after her for her crimes.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. If Laura is captured before she learns who set this tragedy in motion, she could be locked away forever. Truthfully, she probably believes she should be locked away after what she’s done.

Enemy Of The State II kicks off in the October issue of All-New Wolverine #13 with artist Nik Virella illustrating the story.

Last Updated: July 29, 2016