Writer Ray Fawkes

Artist Jonathan Marks

Colorist Lee Loughridge

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

Issue opens with Junk and Shogun, back to back, as the Wolverines surround them.  Mister Sinister actually refers to them as, my Wolverines.  He is preparing to make one of his giant speeches when the Changling crashes into the lab, exploding all around it.  Amazingly, no one dies in the explosion.

X23 starts attacking Shogun, he says her release word, Mangonel, and she is no longer under the threat of any control words.  That doesn’t help much, as Sabretooth – in a blind rage – comes barreling down on them.

X23 wants Shogun to release Sabretooth but Shogun needs to release Lady Deathstrike first.  She gets in a few swipes on him.

Shogun gets it together enough to say Lady Deathstrike’s release word, Flamberge.  She snaps out of it, amazed that he went through with it.

Junk tries to help X23 with Sabretooth, which mostly translates as – giving Sabretooth another target to concentrate on.

Skel wakes up Endo, as he wonders where Sinister went off to.

Mystique is also alive and is upset that things have gone so wrong and off course.

Shogun says Sabretooth’s release word, Ulfberht, but Mystique has blocked Sabretooth’s ability to hear.  I have to admit to being impress with the codewords, as clearly they never would have come across someone saying these words before.

X23 tries to get Sabretooth off of Junk but Sabretooth straight up rips off Junk’s head.  That guy is dead.  Skel and X23 starts wailing on Sabretooth.

I like Shogun telling Lady Deathstrike that Sabretooth’s release word is, Ulfberht.  That way, if he dies, she can say it whenever Sabretooth can hear again.  Lady Deathstrike is sort of falling in love with Shogun, as he could have made her into a puppet but chose to not do so.

Endo knocks Lady Deathsrike aside and confronts Shogun for leaving her behind with Sinister.  He may have saved the three Paradise folks but he also made it impossible for them to die.

Sabretooth shoots Sabretooth in the head, putting him down.  Well, as down as Sabretooth usually goes.  Skel says Mystique killed Endo but I can’t tell whenever that happen besides seeing the BLAM on the previous page.  Marks painted style is incredible but I can’t figure out when a quasi-important character has been killed.

Lady Deathstrike even kicks Endo’s body aside and Endo lets out an agh!

Lady Deathsrike is trying to help Shogun.  He knows he is dying but Ogun will most likely just jump to another body.  Lady Deathstrike loves both of them.

Mystique unloads her gun on Skel, but isn’t sure if the bullets are even having an effect on him.  Mystique gives some orders but X23 is done listening to her.

They start bickering but Lady Deathstrike tells them to stop, as he wants to hear Shogun’s last words.  She really doesn’t want to lose either of the men in her life.

He doesn’t look like a blond Logan there, right?  It is hard to tell without the distinct mutton chops.

Shogun’s final words (of the issue, maybe ever?) are that Lady Deathsrike is the toughest person he has ever met and he is glad they got the time together that they had.

Lady Deathstrike pronounces him dead and Mystique wants to get the heck out of the lab – as the issue ends.

Writer Ray Fawkes

Artist Jonathan Marks

Colorist Lee Loughridge

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

Fang has taken Sabretooth to outer space, he is replacing Wolverine on what would have been their annual trip.

65 Lightyears Outside Galaxy.  Designate GRB 0904298.  They are going to storm a pirate fleet flagship.  The alien race is known as, the J’Grajj Raiders.  Over the past two hundred years, they have enslaved, mutilated and murdered trillions of sentient beings.  The J’Grajj have like an octopus for a head with three rows of eyes and humanoid bodies.  Sabretooth takes a few of them out, rather easily.

65 Miles Outside Natal, Brazil.  Fantomelle and her fox, Culpepper, are onto another relic or artifact of Wolverine, someone is hiring them to gather all of these modern treasures.  Fantomelle has to fight off a robot.

In space.  The translator finally kicks in so the J’Grajj leader can speak English.  They have never seen anyone from Earth before.  The leader explains that their race is no longer the butchers that they were once known as.  They have a new religion, Ing’tajj.  They are more enlighten.  I love the examples of how they are have changed.  They no longer devour limbs, just to hear folks scream.  No longer do they main and enslave whole races, just to infect them with diseases that will slowly kill them, to the ones that they sell these poor folk to.  Instead, now, they simply exterminate everything quickly and painlessly.  Their weapons have advanced to the point where they can commit genocide in a single breath.

Sabretooth starts killing the leader, whose last reaction (and is so awesome) is to believe that the translator is broken.  He tries to clarify, that they simply cleanses races or eliminate speices or kill them.  So the translator works just fine.

Fang explains what Sabretooth suspects (and I completely misssed) that the J’Grajj are pretty weak, so those they conquer must be even weaker, which must disgust the old Sabretooth, who still exists somewhere in new Creed’s mind.

Tautona Gold Mine.  Two Miles Beneath the Surface.  Shogun and Lady Deathstrike are sparring.  She is coming at him hard, she yearns for him, as this is some intense foreplay.  This is the type of relationship that Frank Miller would be proud to read.

Junk interrupts this session, to ask for some help, as Mystique has him doing research on Fang.

Lady Deathstrike corrects her earlier statement, they are not playing cat and mouse.  They are playing the frog and the scorpion.  Shogun brought the villains together and he must know that one of them will eventually kill him.  She assures him that it won’t be her.

In Space.  Fang tells Sabretooth how he was one of Logan’s favorite subjects (to talk about, I believe).  How the first forty or fifty years, Sabretooth was a real pain in Logan’s arse.  How Victor Creed tried to kill Wolverine, every year, on his suspected birthday.  As later, Melita would discover Logan’s real birthday.  Or rather, James Howlett’s birthday.  This occurred in Wolverine Volume Three Issue 5.1.  Which was a fun issue, Kitty wasn’t at the birthday party, which is pretty silly, I think.

Fang continues to pour salt on the wound.  Wolverine grew bored and tired of Sabretooth.  He knew that Creed would never actually kill him, he was only a bully.

Fang knows that Sabretooth didn’t kill Wolverine.  Creed did rip out his eye (just like what happened to Daken) but Lady Deathstrike stopped him from finishing Wolverine.

During this conversation, Fang has been setting up the weapons to fire upon the rest of the J’Grajj fleet.  Sabretooth doesn’t want to kill anymore but gives the okay, after being asked too many times.  Fang orders the weapons to fire and Sabretooth changes his mind, too late.  The J’Grajj are down to just a few ships now.

Fang drops Sabretooth off and wants another person for another adventure.  Once again, X23 offers herself.  Fang has a special mission for X23, who he likes to call, Laura.  As Fang teleports the two of them away, X23 places a nano-disk on Fang and now Junk knwos what makes Fang vulnerable, as the issue ends.