Back to the world of X-Men and a comic that’s kind of special as it’s not only the first X-Men related title I ever bought, it’s one of the first comics I ever bought period. The last Wolverine issue was the first X-Men related comic to be acquitted of 90s era awfulness, so will this one also get through unscathed?
Listen to Episode 17: Wolverine #52.
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90's Comics Retrial 
This was a shorter and slightly altered version of the Wolverine #50 episode, and so too will be my comment.
Wolverine came out too late to catch me in my prime years of giving a crap about Logan, so I skipped most of the first thirty-odd issues of the book, then only read the ones my brother bought, and then bought it myself only in a few spurts from the 40s to the 60s. All the stuff you describe in this issue sounds vaguely familiar, but I don’t know if I actually read it, or if Hama just kept playing with elements of this story for so long that I only feel like I did. I swear, Hama was like the Alex Jones of comics– one cockamamie conspiracy plot laid on top of the other, constantly disproving any “facts” previously presented by himself and other writers as loudly and bluntly as possible. “All these minutes I thought I ate a pimento cheese sandwich, but the S.H.I.E.L.D. records I accessed state it was a pastrami–” Cue a previously unrevealed member of the Weapon X project declaring it was actually Bologna cheese loaf the whole time! I know I gave up for a bit sometime after #50, but came back for the full run of Mark Texeira art, because I was still willing to buy books solely for the pictures at that point (and hey, is Union #1 on your to-do list? That’s as far as I got.)
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Never read this issue, so I can’t add any thoughts beyond the guilty pleasure that I always thought Spiral looked awesome. The Art Adams design was simple but iconic with the crazy horned helmet (reminiscent of Walt Simonson’s take on the Asgardians), and the the six arms. Rob Liefeld couldn’t draw a character with a convincing set of FOUR arms (that he designed), but Adams, and Silvestri, and other artists in the ’80s and ’90s made Spiral look great with her six pack.
Good episode!
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Elsie Dee (a pun on LCD maybe?) and Albert were very much products of their time. And no, they were never really enjoyable, although it should be noted that Albert did get an action figure as part of the Toy Biz years (marketed as “ROBOT WOLVERINE (ALBERT)”), as well as appearing in the Wolverine: Adamantium Rage SNES video game along with Elsie Dee. Whoever thought these were important enough characters to warrant either of these appearances is probably regretting a lot of life choices by now.
I somehow find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Frank about the terrible Weapon X/Wolverine cover-up stuff. Every 10 issues or so was “New details inside” only to have those details be so menial, vague or not even related to Wolverine that I personally would feel cheated. Then the next issue would disprove all that entirely. Frank’s example of the sandwich is beyond accurate.
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No interior pics! GASP!
I do think Silvestri’s stuff aged better than most of the other Image artists.
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