POST 2 OF 4: WOLVERINE AND JUBILEE

POST 2 OF 4: WOLVERINE AND JUBILEE Wolverine's obviously my favorite character. I've posted a lot about him before, but I wanted to do something specific toward him and Jubilee's relationship, because it was good seeing them grow together through this era. Jubilee came in at a weird time. The X-Men were fractured. They were heading into the whole Siege Perilous period, and the version of the team she stumbled into was about to come apart. Before any of that, she was an orphan trying to survive in Los Angeles after losing her parents. She was living around the mall and using her powers to put on little displays. She was already dealing with being alone and having to figure things out for herself. Then the M-Squad mutant hunters came after her, and Storm, Rogue, Psylocke, and Dazzler intervened. When the women went back through Gateway's portal, Jubilee followed them. That's how she got to the X-Men's Australian base. She stayed hidden there, watching them and trying to live around them without being discovered. So she had already found her own way into their world before Wolverine became such a huge part of her life. Then she saw what the Reavers did to him. Wolverine had been captured, crucified outside their own base, and tortured. This was the place the X-Men had been living, and now the Reavers had it back. The others weren't there to come running in and save him. Jubilee was there, and she was the one who helped him escape and cared for him afterward. If it wasn't for her, Wolverine would be dead. That's how desperate that situation felt. His healing factor can do a lot, but it was on its last legs. He was absolutely delirious and having all sorts of hallucinations and just horrible stuff. The physical damage was bad enough, and on top of that he couldn't even consistently trust what he was seeing. She was a kid who had been hiding in their base, and suddenly she was dealing with this man in that condition. She helped him when he was on death's doorstep and stayed with him through the recovery. It took time. He didn't just get up and become completely healthy because she'd gotten him out of there. She had to help keep him alive while he was still badly hurt and vulnerable. That beginning matters to their whole relationship. Wolverine is usually the person you expect to take the damage, keep going, and get everybody else out. Jubilee meets him at a point where he needs somebody else to do that for him. She's the one who sees how bad it can actually get. She's seen him when the healing factor isn't enough to let him simply push through everything on his own. She stays with him through that. From there, they were a team. She protected him, he protected her. They were partners in crime. They were partners. They were deeply connected. She had helped him survive, and as they kept going together, he became somebody she could rely on too. Their time on the road lets that connection develop outside the usual team structure. She gets to know Logan while he's recovering, while he's trying to deal with what's happened to him, and while they're both having to react to whatever comes next. They don't get handed a comfortable situation where an adult says he'll look after her and everything is fine from there. They have to work it out together. I also like that she still gets to be Jubilee around him. She's outspoken. She reacts to things. She's curious, she pushes back, and she has her own way of looking at what they're caught up in. Having Wolverine beside her doesn't erase the kid who followed a portal because she wanted to see where it went. That independence was already there. At the same time, he's got a very deep father slash daughter connection with her. That's the dynamic I'm talking about. He cares about her safety, and she cares about what happens to him. After everything she saw him go through, her concern for him has some real history behind it. She's already had to worry about whether he was going to survive. You can see that relationship in a very different situation by the time you get to the Muir Island Saga. I even posted a picture from that stretch because of how he handles her while she's under the Shadow King's influence. He tells her he won't fight her, gets her guard down, and then hits her. He does strike her, so I don't want to make that sound like he gets her out of it without any violence. But he keeps the claws out of it and uses a trick to stop her. That scene has that dark Wolverine humor to it, and it also puts their connection in an ugly situation. She trusts him enough for what he says to work, and he uses that to get through the fight. After watching her help keep him alive, now you're seeing him have to deal with her being turned against him. You can feel the history between them even in that brief exchange. Then X-Factor #70 gives them another difficult moment when he wants her to quit the team, and she's angry about it. That fits the father slash daughter dynamic too. He can want her out of danger, and she can have her own feelings about him deciding where she belongs. She's already survived a lot, and she has her own investment in these people. Their connection doesn't make them agree about everything. And I'm still reading them. This is only up to the point that I've read, but at this point they already have a very deep relationship. I watched her help pull him back from death's doorstep, watched them travel and survive together, and then got to see how protective he'd become of her when everything came to a head on Muir Island. She protected him, he protected her. That is the part I keep coming back to. They both have a place in how the other one made it through this era, and it was good seeing that connection grow.