Guardian, The Distinguished Colleague

With Amazing X-Men's World War Wendigo recently completed, I turn my attention back to Guardian's past appearances.

Today, we're having a look at Wolverine (volume two) #91.  The book has a publishing date of July 1995.

The story takes place shortly after Wolverine has lost the adamantium that laced his skeleton (and from which his claws were made, of course). As a result, it appears that he's losing control of his "beast mode", something which happens about as frequently as Mac dying, but is worrisome nonetheless. It seems that he drove one of his claws through Sabretooth's head in the previous issue which, saying it "out loud", doesn't seem like such a terrible thing, when taking into account what a colossal asshole Sabretooth is.

A significant portion of the issue is your standard X-Men hand-wringing about how they should handle the situation. But as part of his fact-finding mission Professor Xavier takes the time to check in with "a distinguished colleague in Ottawa".  Nice rub, to appropriate a wrestling term.

I'm not sure that makes any sense even when applied as "comics science" but whatever...We'll let Wolverine bloggers deal with that.

Larry Hama wrote the book, and I appreciate how frequently he included Mac (and/or) Heather in the Wolverine series while it was in his care, even if it was in small roles. They're supposed to be among Logan's best friends so involving them is entirely logical. As I write this, Wolverine is supposedly dead and they have no significant involvement in the aftermath of his murder.  That doesn't seem right.

In the above page, I like the use of the proper honorific for Beast ("Dr. McCoy") while being on a more casual first-name basis with Storm. Not only would Mac know Ororo better, but the respect shown for someone's status is consistent with past meeting with Namor, Reed Richards, etc.  Nice touch, Mr. Hama.

There was another surprise in the credits.  Duncan Rouleau pencilled this story.  About two years later, Rouleau would take over pencil duties for the back half of the second volume of Alpha Flight (issue 12, then 14 through 20, which concluded the series).

I found his Alpha Flight work difficult to follow and personally disliked the exaggerated features on some characters (bulbous noses, protruding chins, huge flowing hair, etc). Comparing his AF work to the above, perhaps he changed his style to be more distinctive, but it may just be that some inkers are a better match for him. The inker for the Wolverine issue was Joe Rubinstein.