Warning: spoilers ahead for iWolverine 2020 #1
Despite his intense anger issues, Wolverine has shown he is able to tone it down and be a father-like figure when needed, for example, he helped raise and train his replacement, Laura Kinney, a.k.a X-23. However, a recent interaction with a young girl shows he’s not always so caring, well at least sort of. The premiere issue of iWolverine 2020 features robot Wolverine using the head of a small child as a vicious weapon. Yes, that’s correct, the head of a little girl was used in a fight, and, believe it or not, it was actually even crazier than it sounds.
No, this Wolverine isn’t Logan, (and yes, that does technically negates the earlier comments about helping to train Laura Kinney) but instead a robotic doppelganger named Albert. Originally created by Donald Pierce, Albert was designed to lure the real Wolverine into a trap. The trap involved a robot girl named Elsie-Dee, with the plan being to use the robot Wolverine to bring Logan to Elsie, and she would then self destruct to take out Logan. Unfortunately for Pierce, Elsie accidentally gained superhuman intelligence, and with these smarts also gained the self-awareness to realize the plan would ultimately lead to her death. In an effort to prevent this, she also gives intelligence to the robotic Wolverine copy, and it is at this point she gives him the name Albert after Albert Einstein. Eventually, the two do confront Logan, but when Logan risks his own life to rescue Elsie from a burning building, Elsie and Albert have a change of heart (or whatever it is that robots have).
Flash forward to iWolverine 2020 #1 and we find the world in a state of conflict when it comes to dealing with A.I. Tony Stark’s brother, Arno Stark, has taken control of the Stark name, and with it, he has begun to lead a witch hunt against any A.I. that has free will. Of course, this includes Albert. On the hunt to rescue Elsie-Dee back from Pierce, Albert finds himself ambushed by a crew of Yakuza. Eventually, after a confrontation with Pierce himself, Albert discovers Elsie-Dee, well at least Elsie-Dee’s head, has been repurposed to run the computer system at a casino, where her A.I. skills are put to use cooking the books and helping to launder cash. Albert grabs her head and retrieves her arms from the factory in which they are being used to assemble toys, but before he has the time to attach the parts they are attacked, and it is here that the epic girl’s-head-as-a-weapon occurs. Elsie asks Albert to use her in a combo, and he tosses her head at the enemy like some sort of conscious baseball with teeth, biting at the enemy and grasping onto his ear.
Luckily, the pair escapes, and ultimately are able to assemble a body for Elsie. Unfortunately, though, this is just the beginning of their escape, and the two are now enemy number one for every bad guy in town. Using Elsie’s head as a weapon might have been an odd choice, but it turned out to the right one. Without it, who knows if Albert would have escaped. Readers will have to wait for iWolverine 2020 #2 to find out what happens next!
