Appearing in "Battleground"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- ⏴ Geist ⏵
- ⏴ Felix Guillermo Caridad ⏵
- ⏴ Spore ⏵ (First appearance) (Appears in flashback)
Other Characters:
- X-Men
- Adolf Hitler (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Hammer Cody (Only in flashback)
- Daredevil (Matt Murdock) (Only in recap)
- Storm (Ororo Munroe) (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
- Mutants
- Humans
- Cyborgs
- Deviant Mutates
- Deviants (Only in flashback)
- Eternals (Only in flashback)
- Celestials (Only in flashback)
Locations:
Items:
- Wolverine's Suit
- Adamantium (on Wolverine's claws and body)
- Daredevil's Suit (Only in recap)
Events:
- World War II (Illusion or holographic simulation)
Synopsis for "Battleground"
Continued from last issue..
At the Australian headquarters of the X-Men, Psylocke attempts to contact Wolverine telepathically. She tells her teammates Havok, Dazzler, and Colossus that she is able to pinpoint his location to Central America. However she cannot contact his mind, and tells her friends that he is out of her power to help[Continuity 1].
In Tierra Verde, Geist and Caridad's soldiers find the crashed helicopter and begin trying to track down Wolverine, Bandera, Sister Salvation, and Roughouse who have escaped from them. Not far away, Roughouse attempts to keep Wolverine -- who has been drugged with Geist's experimental cocaine -- from lashing out. Roughouse holds Logan still long enough for Sister Salvation to use her healing touch to heal Wolverine a bit. She tells him that his best bet for survival and fighting off the effects of Geist's cocaine would be to surrender. Wolverine refuses to do so and they continue on their path to escape. Not far behind Geist and his men soldier on to try and capture them while President Caridad searches in the air by helicopter.
Bandera is leading her rebels as well when they come across an army of natives armed with their weapons poised to kill. As Geist continues to track the escapees, Roughouse and the others duck under a partially uprooted tree in a swamp. There Roughouse tries to keep Wolverine contained so his drug induced mania doesn't reveal their location. Wolverine begins to hallucinate and envisions himself fighting through an army of Nazis during World War II. During the battle, he easily kills the soldiers and destroys one of their tanks although he is caught in its explosion. As he slowly revives he is visited by a vision of Sister Salvation who heals him and tells him that he must go, alone, to the castle that overlooks the town. She tells him that he needs to be his own healing factor.
In the real world, Roughouse wakes up to find that Sister Salvation is using her healing powers on Logan again. She asks Roughouse to help her contain him because she believes another violent spell is about to hit. In Wolverine's hallucination he gets to the castle that overlooks the German town and finds Geist shaving Adolf Hitler and giving Hitler some advice on his latest test subjects. Wolverine bursts in and attacks "Hitler" and is surprised when the Nazi leader turns into snow. Attacking "Geist", the creature inside his body reveals itself, transforming into a giant mass of a creature calling itself Spore. Spore promises to tell Wolverine its origins before consuming him, and then envelops Wolverine's body.
In the real world a storm has hit the jungle and Roughouse is finding it difficult to keep Wolverine contained and notes that the feral mutant is worse than ever. Sister Salvation realizes that the only way she can help Logan now is to hold him and tosses her nun's hood to the ground.
Deep in his hallucination, Wolverine learns that Spore was a creature created by the Deviants to be their ultimate weapon against their foes the Eternals, a living disease to consume them all. The Eternals would have a hard time fighting off Spore but the creature would meet its end when the Celestials would return to the Earth. Spore would face them and be seemingly destroyed. However his essence would end up in the soil that would ultimately become President Caridad's cocaine plantation. His being being cultivated into the drug, Spore would seek to find the ideal host body in order to be reborn, but until recently he has yet to find one strong enough to survive. With its origins explained, Spore then attempts to absorb Wolverine and use him as a host body. Remembering what Sister Salvation told him, Wolverine wills his healing factor (represented by duplicates of himself) to appear and ultimately purge Spore form his system.
Waking from his hallucination, Wolverine thanks Sister Salvation for her help in healing him and getting him through the worst. She tells him that she couldn't abandon anyone who suffered. Just then they are found by Geist and Caridad who thank Sister Salvation for leaving a trail for them, holding up her nun's hood. When Logan asks her how she could betray their position to Caridad and his men, she explains that Caridad has her son.
This story is continued next issue...
Notes
Continuity Notes[]
- ↑ This event takes place prior to Uncanny X-Men #249 wherein the X-Men get involved in a battle against the Savage Land mutates.
Chronology Notes[]
A flashback in this story affects the chronology of the following characters: