Marvel’s hard traveling heroes: the strange world of Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown part three
By Walter and Louis Simonson, Kent Williams, and Jon J. Muth
As we soar past the halfway point of our fully-painted superhero saga, this issue reveals a bit of the unevenness of our story. I’m not quite sure enough happens in these forty-six pages to justify a whopping $3.50 price point in 1988 currency. (That’s about $9.50 in 2025 dollars.)
We open with a wide shot of the plane being flown by Havok and Scarlett toward Merida, which is apparently a city in southeast Mexico. Havok thinks he’s going there as the first step in finding and saving Wolverine, but Logan is still investigating the scene of the explosion that nearly killed him. He retrieves a bag that contains his costume of the era, giving Kent Williams a chance to draw his brown and orange costume in his truly wild style. He tracks down the man who tried to blow him up as he communicates with his employers. Wolverine stabs his blades through his enemy from behind in a truly gruesome image. He takes the radio and warns his attackers that he’s still coming for them.
Meltdown and Doctor Neutron discuss the wrench he’s put in their plans, even as Wolverine finds a helicopter to fly to Merida himself.
While both our heroes are in the air, we spend a few pages with an angry Meltdown as he lets out some rage in the form of destructive nuclear blasts. By the time he’s done, we switch to Havok and Scarlett as the land in Merida. The airport is empty as Scarlett leaves in search of a bigger plane, as they think that the Russians have Wolverine and that would mean a much longer flight.
Scarlett calls Neutron and learns Wolverine is still on their trail. She changes and leaves behind a dress, even as her “contact” Neutron sends them a jet for the longer flight. They meet a professional pilot who will fly them to Poland. Aboard, Havok and Scarlett are framed to clearly have sex, although we see none of it despite watching her strip just a few pages earlier to leave the dress behind.
We check in with Neutron and Meltdown again where it seems clear that Scarlett is part of some kind of multiple personality situation, rather than just an alias for Quark.
Wolverine walks into the trap set up by Quark, where agents shoot multiple spears through him and then send electricity through them, basically making the most violent taser ever. This knocks Wolverine unconscious. They plan to research their “quantum brainwiping” on him since his natural healing factor will allow him to survive the worst of it.
Somehow, they get Logan back to the base in Poland to perform the brainwiping before Havok and Quark can get there. When Havok enters a giant facility, he’s almost immediately attacked by a crazed Wolverine. Wolverine is out for blood. Havok hits him with a blast but somehow doesn’t kill him. This seems to clear Wolverine’s head, but he just uses it as a way to get close. He slashes Havok, but doesn’t kill him. Havok unleashes a much moer powerful blast, apparently killing his friend as the issue ends.
All the traveling in this issue causes a bit of continuity trouble, most of which might have been solved by introducing some kind of teleporter into the story. I’m guessing that this work is being produced Marvel style with two artists, which means that the writers have to make sense of the final work given to them. This doesn’t seem particularly wise with two artists with limited comic experience, but it certainly explains the strange plot jumps of the final product.
This issue is easily the weakest of the three parts so far, arguably offering not a lot of reason for its existence after two more eventful issues before it. Muth and Williams continue to produce gorgeous work, but it cannot quite hit all the story beats needed to make this saga work.
We will see if the two artists and the two writers can bring things together for the fourth and final issue.
What are your thoughts on the weird world of Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown?