Jonathan Dobres

Air date: November 20, 1993

Wolverine gets another solo episode, this time all about his backstory with the Weapon X program. He’s lured back to Canada by Heather Hudson (Wolverine has a thing for redheads, we assume), and is immediately accosted by his old team, Alpha Flight. They’re led by Vindicator, one of the flashiest jerks in the show yet. He’s also Heather’s husband, so Wolverine has an extra reason to hate him.

Alpha Flight has its own long and complicated history in the X-Men canon. Their roster is a blend of mutants (Northstar,¹ Aurora, and Puck), science experiments (Vindicator and Sasquatch), and outright magical creatures (Shaman and Snowbird). The episode doesn’t have a lot of time for them, which is especially unfortunate, as this will be their only appearance. They botch their first attempt to capture Wolverine but finally get their act together on the second try—one can almost see the Alpha Flight Saturday morning cartoon where they’re learning the value of working together this week.

In between these fights, we’re seeing much cooler flashbacks to the Weapon X program, which gave Wolverine his adamantium skeleton. Notably, the flashbacks imply that Wolverine’s claws are a surprise secondary mutation in response to the grafting procedure. In all other iterations of the character, they’re either a package deal with his healing abilities or an engineered upgrade from Weapon X. Regardless, Wolverine goes berserk and runs off into the woods, where he bumps into Heather and James Hudson. They take him in and nurse him back to health, like a cross between The English Patient and Nell (it’s also implied that Heather helps Wolverine re-learn how to read?). None of this is even remotely like the episode’s namesake, Repo Man, but I digress. The flashbacks end with Wolverine agreeing to join Alpha Flight with Heather and James’s encouragement, adopting his nom de guerre, and putting on the costume for the first time.

Why did Wolverine defect from the team? The flashbacks don’t show us, and Wolverine refuses to talk about it. He’s a little busy being angry at the covert military project that is, at this moment, trying to vivisect him to figure out why he’s the only person to survive the adamantium procedure. Heather was happy to submit Wolverine to a number of excruciating diagnostics, but she draws the line at slicing him open and quits on the spot. Likewise, Alpha Flight (except Vindicator) thought this mission was about getting Wolverine back, not killing him for mad science. A melee ensues and Wolverine comes out on top, threatening vengeance if anyone from the facility comes looking for him again. These events presumably introduce an incredible problem into Heather and James’s marriage, but the series doesn’t follow that thread, for some reason.

Savage Land Interlude: Magneto and Xavier encounter a strange woman with vertigo-inducing powers, who tells them, “All the mutates in the Savage Land are Magneto’s creation.”

All in all, it’s another sluggish entry for season two. If you like Wolverine, and especially if you like shirtless Wolverine, this one’s for you. Most of the episode’s content is in flashbacks, so relatively little is actually happening. It’s been a pretty weak run for season two so far, with no truly strong stories since the premiere (and only Part 1, at that). But next week is a Gambit episode, so here’s hoping!

Stray observations:

• Hoo boy. Shaman.

• Jean uses Cerebro to search the world for Professor Xavier. No luck finding him, but we do get cameos from Nightcrawler, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, and a few others. I’d much rather be watching an episode about them!

• Jean can sense Wolverine’s physical pain, almost like they share a deep connection or something!

• Puck’s astonished comment that the facility is staffed by androids is obviously a note from Standards and Practices. Rip a person apart? Absolutely not. Do the same to a robot? Okay, but make sure the audience knows it.

• The Canadian government was trying to repossess a man, I guess? That’s where the title comes from? I’m working really hard here, people.