Wolverine and the X-Men is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics between 2011 and 2015. The title features the character Wolverine in his role as the headmaster of Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, the students of the school, and various members of the mutant superhero team, the X-Men, who serve as professors of the school.
Contents
Publication history
During the 2011 crossover X-Men: Regenesis, Wolverine left Utopia with a group of X-Men and students. They moved back to Westchester, New York, where they founded the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.
The initial issues of Wolverine and the X-Men mainly featured the Jean Grey School and its faculty and students. The main antagonist in the book was a new Hellfire Club made up of homicidal genius children, led by Kade Kilgore. Starting from issue #9 the series became a tie-in to the Avengers vs. X-Men event until issue #18, except for issue #17 which featured a standalone story. Starting from issue #19, the series became part of the Marvel NOW! event. According to writer Jason Aaron, the book would follow the events of issue #18, in which the character Broo was shot in the head, and would return to the same type of stories that they were doing before Avengers vs. X-Men. "This is our first Marvel NOW! issue, issue #19, so if anything we're trying to get back to where we were before the 'AvX' madness. It picks up right after the events of 18. There were a lot of angry people on the Internet, which was great. It made my day.".
The first volume ended in February 2014 at issue #42. It was relaunched as a new volume 2 one week later by Jason Latour as part of the All-New Marvel NOW! event. With the death of Wolverine, the second volume ended with issue 12. It was followed by Spider-Man and the X-Men, a limited series set after Logan's death. In it, Spider-Man leads a Special Class while secretly investigating the students at Wolverine's request.
Synopsis
Volume 1
Wolverine leaves Cyclops' Utopia and founds the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning with Kitty Pryde, Beast, Iceman, and several other mutants as junior faculty and students. He also negotiates with Captain America to release Kid Omega to his custody as a student. On the first day the NY State Board of Education is sent to approve the school's charter, but to complicate things the new Hellfire Club attacks the school with Frankenstein monster clones and a Krakoa. This Krakoa eventually decides to join as an unofficial X-Man and the clones are subdued. Wolverine then hires attorney Matt Murdock to sue Kade Kilgore, the new black king of the Hellfire Club and CEO of Kilgore, for damages following an attack. Beast brainwashes representatives of the New York State BOE to have them grant the school an educational charter.
Angel loses his board seat on Worthington Industries, due to a corporate coup initiated by the Hellfire Club. Wolverine then realizes he cannot financially keep the school open, so he travels to a casino planet with Quentin Quire. Kitty Pryde, who has found herself mysteriously pregnant with Brood must defend the school from a mysterious bounty hunter/zoologist named Dr. Xanto Starblood. Wolverine does not make it back with the casino winnings, but it turns out Krakoa can create diamonds, so the school does not have any more financial problems.
Soon the war between the Avengers and X-Men comes to the school. Wolverine initially stays neutral, but Cyclops comes to school to secretly recruit Rachel Summers, Iceman, Gambit, and Angel. Gladiator comes to the academy to return his son and kill the Phoenix, but is brutally defeated by the combined Phoenix Force. Eventually, the Phoenix Force is defeated by Hope, but Broo is shot in the face by Kade Kilgore while investigating Oya's mysterious new friend.
Angel has returned to his family's Worthington Industries and hires Matt Murdock to prove the executives were planning to illegally obtain control. With the directors fired, Angel hires students from his A.P. economics class as his new board of directors. Angel is no longer interested in his business and decides to recruit new mutants for the school, he eventually travels to Brazil to enroll Iara Dos Santos, a.k.a. Shark-Girl after a scuffle with Mystique and Silver Samurai.
Kilgore then established the Hellfire Academy with his first recruit, the mutant Mudcrab. Kitty also is too busy to run the school now that she is watching the time-displaced All-New X-Men. She hires Storm as new headmistress. The Murder Circus comes into town and brainwashes all the adults in Salem Center. The students are able to break the spell thanks to new student Eye-Boy. It turns out Frankenstein's Monster and Calcabria are searching for the last descendant of Victor Frankenstein, who is Baron Maximilian Frankenstein. After narrowly escaping and almost getting Oya killed twice, Max embraces his Frankenstein heritage. Now with some downtime, Kitty Pryde and Iceman go on a date. Storm argues with her ex-husband Black Panther during a tele-conference, then shares a passionate kiss with Wolverine.
Volume 2
Edan Younge, CEO of the Phoenix Corporation, tries to recruit Quentin Quire and sends Faithful John to the school to kill Evan Sabahnur in order to prevent him from becoming Apocalypse. The team travels to the future with Fantomex to find out Quentin becomes the new Phoenix Force. With the help of Cyclops and new student Nature Girl, Faithful John is defeated, Evan is saved, and Younge is killed. However, Quentin becomes the new CEO of Phoenix and abandons the school.
During the "Death of Wolverine" storyline, Melita Gardner begins writing a biography on Wolverine's life and interviews the students. In a last ditch effort to turn him from an evil path, Wolverine infiltrates a Hellfire Club party and confronts Quentin with Magneto's helmet for psychic protection, but fails. Storm returns later and destroys the party pretending to be under Quentin's control, thus putting him on probation with the Hellfire Club and undermining his plans.