X-Men Legends (1st series) #8

Issue Date: 
January 2022
Story Title: 
untitled
Staff: 

Larry Hama (writer), Billy Tan (artist), Chris Sotomayor (color), VC’s Joe Caramagna (letterer), Nauck & Rosenberg (cover), Lauren Amaro (assistant editor), Mark Basso (editor) Jordan D. White (senior editor), C.B. Cebulski (editor-in-chief), Joe Quesada (chief creative officer), Dan Buckley (publisher), Alan Fine (executive producer)

Brief Description: 

Yurei takes Wolverine to the port of Shanghai where they get into an altercation with the gangsters while they await the arrival of the freighter with Jubilee and Hino-Chan. Jubilee manages to escape while Yurei is trying to find the crate in which her sister is trapped. When the battle seems to turn in the heroes’ favor, the Russian client gets involved - Omega Red - who directly attacks Wolverine. Things take yet another turn for the worse when Sabretooth and Birdie enter the fight as well.

Full Summary: 

When Jubilee was abducted by a group of criminals who specialize in trafficking mutant children, Wolverine trusted a young mutant girl in a school unform – Yurei – to teleport him to the kidnappers’ ship. Instead, they find themselves in a harbor surrounded by giant crates. As Wolverine takes out the gang members that attack him, he asks why she didn’t take him to the ship. Yurei explains they are in Shanghai, the ship’s destination. As he stabs two men, he asks annoyed if he is going to have to slice and dice thugs for two days until the ship arrives. Yurei explains she did a time skip into the future, the ship will arrive in twenty minutes!

Suck on this yang guizi! one man leers as he shoots Wolverine. The bullet hits him in the shoulder. Wolverine is decidedly unimpressed. Yurei grabs the gangster and teleports him into the tiger cage in a zoo. She wishes the tigers “bon appetit” in both Japanese and Mandarin before disappearing and leaving the gangster behind.

On the ship is the gangsters’ leader, a sour elderly woman addressed as Elder Sister (or Jie Jie), surrounded by several Hand ninjas. She tells Lady Deathstrike she is here because the agent for the purchaser is meeting them at the pier. Deathstrike will see to the unloading while Elder Sister finalizes arrangements with the agent. She asks Deathstrike if she has secured the secondary package. They don’t know if they have seen the full extent of her powers. Deathstrike replies that she is in an extremely confined space. Any explosive burst strong enough to affect an escape would kill her.

In the small box in a bigger container, the tied-up Jubilee tries in vain to use her explosives, although slowly they break her bonds while the container is unloaded into the harbor.

Deathstrike stands on the container. At the bottom, Elder Sister warns her ninjas they must be wary of the agent. He is as crafty and ruthless as his masters. She wonders where the local thugs she hired to secure the pier are.

The driver tells Elder Sister that the eyu ren in the back of his car is waiting to oversee loading. He says she will sign the waybill. Elder Sister replies she will only hand the merchandize over to the official agent. She does not deal with subordinates!

In the crate, Jubilee has freed her hands and now tries to use small explosives to open it from the inside.

The driver warns Elder Sister she’d rather not meet the Russian. She reacts haughtily.

From inside the truck, a voice reminds her she has been paid and not to bother him with trivialities. Hand the package over or she will face a wrath she cannot comprehend.

Elder Sister is at a loss for words, then announces that is the voice she heard on the telephone. She gives orders to open the container. Deathstrike immediately notices the second package has escaped.

One of the gangsters arrives shouting some crazy lo fan has just hacked apart his whole crew and he is coming this… Elder Sister shoots him for compounding his incompetence by speaking to her in Toisanese. Deathstrike asks her if she is alright.

Wolverine appears with Yurei and orders them to let the girls go and save him the trouble of making a bloody mess! 

Jubilee uses the opportunity to blind Deathstrike momentarily with some fireworks and runs to his side. He commends her for getting the better off these mooks. Yurei identifies the container they put her sister Hino-Chan in.

Annoyed, Elder Sister demands someone kill the hairy mutant without damaging the merchandise. Deathstrike attacks and the fight is on. Jubilee keeps the Hand ninjas busy with her fireworks while Yurei kneels at the box, trying hear Hino-Chan.

Elder Sister orders a ninja to knock her out before she can teleport and another to bring the forklift here.

In the meantime, Deathstrike gets the better of Wolverine, and Yurei and Jubilee both beat their foes.

Jubilee and Wolverine face the ninjas back-to-back, while Yurei teleports her foe into a minefield.

Jubilee suggests a switch. They switch foes. Wolverine attacks the ninjas and Jubilee blinds Deathstrike, allowing Wolverine to strike at her.

Yurei returns and tries to open the crate holding her sister. Elder Sister gives orders to take her down but not to kill her.

A ninja takes Yurei out just as Wolverine is about to attack Elder Sister.

Suddenly, the back of the car opens revealing the client to be Omega Red, who shouts they are preventing the completion of his mission.

He attacks Wolverine with his tentacles and fists, shouting the yaytsegolovy at rhwtyuratem want the wraith girl and the fire girl, so who is Omega Red to deny them?

Elder Sister tells the ninja who carries the unconscious Yurei that the Russian demon will make short work of their foes but they need to get the packages off the pier. She will drive the truck herself, if she must!

Struggling against Omega Red’s life-sapping tentacles Wolverine warns Jubilee back. Of course, she doesn’t listen and tries to blind the Russian. He pushes her back with his tentacles, enraging Wolverine. He slashes Omega Red’s chest. As he frees himself, he warns the ninja guarding Yurei and the crate with Hina-Chan to let them go or this is gonna hurt more than he can imagine.

Cue for Omega Red to kick Wolverine in the face. He swears to make him pay. He is distracted by Elder Sister running the truck into something. The next moment, he is hit by a blaster fired by a blonde woman.

Jubilee tries to help Wolverine up. She thinks they have some new player. She is right. Sabretooth tells the blonde, Birdy, to get ready to zap the hairy Canuck and his girlie friend if they decide to become rambunctious, while he takes possession of the little darlings in the back of the truck…

Characters Involved: 

Wolverine
Jubilee

Yurei
Hino-Chan

Jie Jie
Lady Deathstrike
Members of the Hand
Gangsters
Omega Red
Sabretooth
Birdie

Story Notes: 

Yang guizi: Mandarin for “foreign devil.”
Yaytsegolovy: Russian for “eggheads.”
Rhwtyuratem: Russian space research center

Written By: