Friday, June 21, 2013

Super Heroes Attacking Polar Bears #4: Wolverine

Our recent post featuring the Punisher socking a polar bear in the jaw got us thinking: How many more super heroes have run afoul of the world's biggest species of bear, and what could possibly inspire them to attack an animal that's been listed as a vulnerable species––likely to become endangered––by the International Union for Conservation of Nature?

As you'll see, some don't understand the dire situation that polar bears face, some want to test their mettle against the largest land carnivore in the world, and some just want to get their hands on a warm pelt.

Today's entry: Wolverine


Let's get this out of the way up front: Wolverine doesn't hate polar bears. He's a Canadian, remember. He appreciates all the fauna of the the great white north, including but not limited to mountain beavers, hoary marmots, long-tailed voles and Cascade golden-mantled ground squirrels. And, of course, polar bears.

But Wolverine is also a survivalist. And if the Blackbird breaks down in the Arctic Circle, he's not just going to let himself freeze to death while waiting for one of the X-Men who can fly (i.e. any of the other X-Men) to find time in their schedule to come pick him up. No, he's gonna leave a trail of dead beer cans on his way to the nearest igloo city, and if he has to murder a polar bear and wrap it around himself to stay warm, then by god, that's what he's gonna do

Because Wolverine is the best there is at what he does. And what he does isn't very nice, environmentally speaking.

Murder She Wrote Recaps: S1E13: Murder to a Jazz Beat


Thanks to a uncharacteristic scheduling snafu, Jessica has come to New Orleans two whole days before any of her calendared promotional events. Luckily, she finds herself in the care of industrious cabbie Lafayette (guest star Garrett Morris), who knows literally everyone and everything in town.

Case in point: he brings her to a lengthy French Quarter performance of on-the-cusp-of-stardom jazz musician Ben Coleman, whose subsequent death in the middle of a set is the ultimate improvisational performance. In fact, everybody in the room lets him lie there on the floor for a few seconds, just in case he was simply doing something jazzy.

Jess immediately identifies the subtle, telltale signs of an obscure South American poison, and suspects that Ben’s clarinet was the delivery mechanism. The police disagree, but Jessica keeps pushing the issue—the smoking gun, she claims, is that the clarinet’s reed didn’t have any stains on it even though Ben had just taken a swig of coffee before playing, as many musicians do—until a bandmate breaks down with a tearful cemetery monologue.