Warning: Contains SPOILERS forHellverine #3!
Wolverinehas been cursed to watch every person he has ever loved be broken, perverted, or killed; what’s worse is when they come back with a vengeance. Now, that proverbial curse may have been confirmed to be real, and his son Akihiro is tasked with cleansing it. From the pits of Hell, a new threat, bound in the form of Wolverine’s wife and Akihiro’s mother, is coming for all mutants.
InHellverine #3 (2025)–by Benjamin Percy and Raffaele Ienco–Akihiro learns from Doctor Strange that demonic altars have appeared globally at locations linked with Akihiro’s greatest suffering.Strange believes that Mephisto is leveraging the Hellverine’s pain, which has now begun to influence all mutants within proximity.
Now tasked with facing his trauma head-on, Akihiro travels to his birthplace in Japan, where he discovers thatMephisto has already come and left his mark. Emerging from the depths of Hell, Akihiro’s mother, Itsu, has been reborn in a new demonic form and is taking what she was deprived of: a son.
The Devil Has Unleashed a Curse Upon Mutantkind
Hellverine #3 (2025) -Written by Benjamin Percy; Art by Raffaele Ienco; Color by Bryan Valenza; Lettering by VC’s Travis Lanham; Cover Art by Kendrick Lim
As this series has hammered home, the curse of the Hellverine was no accident. Mephisto always planned for aWolverine to inherit the demonBagra-ghul to capitalize on the horrific amount of trauma, pain, and suffering the family has gone through. As Doctor Strange puts it, “Mephisto seems to have developed a kink for [Akihiro’s] suffering.”More than that,Akihiro is a conduit for Mephisto’s power.Through the mutant’s pain, Mephisto is gradually infesting mutantkind with his influence, thus triggering a shockwave of anti-mutant hysteria across the world. Unfortunately for Akihiro, he isn’t the only conduit for the Devil’s domination.
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Hidden away in the isolated Japanese village of Jasmine Falls, the very place where Akihiro was cut from his dead mother’s womb, a curse has arisen fromthe Wolverine family’s old home. All of Jasmine Falls has fallen victim to this evil, which has infected and stolen the village’s children. When Hellverine tracks down the cursed creature,he is faced with the unholy visage of his long-dead mother, now malformed into an emissary of Hell.With Mephisto’s plan to use Akihiro’s agony as fuel for his influence, there is no better person to exacerbate the mutant’s pain than his mother.
Akihiro’s Pain Is What Fuels Mephisto’s Goals
Only the Devil Could Pit Mother and Son Against Each Other
While Akihiro may have become an unwillingpawn in Mephisto’s game, he is not the only one. Itsu is spiritually bound to just as much earthly trauma as her son and husband. In life, she became just another obstacle in Romulus’s quest to forge the ultimate warrior. In death,Itsu’s soul had seemingly been condemned to damnation and has remained in the pits of Hell since her murderin the 1940s. Like Akihiro, Itsu has spent an entire lifetime trapped in an endless cycle of torment and torture and has now been revived to inflict the same upon the innocent.
Mephisto’s influence over Earth is only as strong as the torment its inhabitants cause each other. The more wrath, torture, and subsequent horror that Earth’s citizens endure,the stronger Mephisto becomes. In his previous attempts to conquer the planet, the Devil has targeted epicenters of sin, such as Las Vegas, to spread his corruption, buthe’s now attempting a different scheme to cement his sway on a global scale.Now, Mephisto plans to harness the collective suffering of an entire population and is using Akihiro’s soul as the medium through which to do so.
Wolverine’s Wife May Forever Be Mephisto’s Pawn
Not Even Doctor Strange Can Stop What’s Ahead
While readers have yet to see what the demonic transformation of Itsu is capable of,there is no doubt that Mephisto imbued her with corruptive powers similar to those he gave Akihiro.Oddly enough, she isn’t the only child-hunting hag to target mutants in recent years. However, with the powers of Hell empowering her, she may very well triumph where others have failed. Mephisto is an unrelenting force who will drain his resources of everything they have before discarding their souls back to Hell. The major question is how long the Devil will choose to use Akihiro’s mother.
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Ultimately,Akihiro remains the true conduit for Mephisto’s plan, with Itsu primarily poised to further exacerbate the Hellverine’s suffering.However, unless Heaven is willing to liberate Itsu from her infernal curse, she will remain a pawn in the Devil’s conquest, one that can be recycled as often as he needs her. Without her freedom, Akihiro will never be free from the pain that Mephisto and Bagra-ghul rely on. Until then, the entirety of mutantkind is at risk from a satanic threat in an already tumultuously distrusting world. Not evenDoctor Strange has the power to stop it.
The Son of Wolverine Is Mutantkind’s Last Hope
The World Is Too Busy to Fight the Devil
As the rest of the superheroic community now facesthe emergence of Doctor Doom, the Emperor Supreme, and the X-Men continue to face old threats in new forms, Akihiro is alone in his fight to save the world from the forces of Hell. His mother has now become the face of this demonic invasion, and only the Hellverine has the power to stop her. Even if the son ofWolverinefinds the internal strength to fight the mother he never knew, she may already be a permanent force of evil and the new face of Mephisto’s global subjugation.
