The penultimate episode of Marvel’s Wolverine: The Long Night podcast drops a huge revelation by confirming the identity of the real villainous monster. Though the connections are tangential at best, in “The Changing,” The Long Night introduces a new mutant to the Marvel universe that, ironically, has a precedent in New Mutants.
Spoilers follow for Wolverine: The Long Night Episode 9: “The Changing”
The ninth episode of Wolverine: The Long Night hit Stitcher Premium on Monday, delivering perhaps the most exciting audio story yet this season. After the shocking death of Brent Langrock, Agents Pierce and Marshall lost their prime suspect, but they quickly confirm what Logan already knew at the end of last week’s episode: His brother Hudson Langrock is the real killer.
As it turns out, Hudson is a werewolf-like mutant that can transform into a monstrous beast. There’s no mysticism, magic, or ley line spirituality messing around here. Hudson Langrock is definitely a mutant, and his powers seem almost identical to another mutant from the Marvel Universe named Rahne Sinclair, aka Wolfsbane.
Hudson Langrock's powers in 'Wolverine: The Long Night' are almost identical to Rahne Sinclair, aka Wolfsbane.
We’ve long known that the real killer in The Long Night is some kind of huge, beastly monster reminiscent of Sabretooth, but “The Changing” confirms that Hudson has some latent mutant abilities that allow him to transform into a man-wolf type of giant creature much larger than his normal body.
The taxidermist Ernie Stevenson, who’s been aiding Hudson, says, “He can become something else. He can transform. Like he’s hiding something else inside of him.” He calls it a “man-wolf” with “scissor claws.” Later, an injured Bobby tells the Agents about how Hudson killed his father Joe Langrock and then fought Logan on the Langrock compound. “He looked like something that had been built to kill: muscle, claws, and fangs,” Bobby said about Hudson. The same might be said of Wolfsbane, the character played by Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams in the upcoming live-action New Mutants film adaptation.
In the comics Rahne Sinclair is a Scottish mutant with werewolf-like powers that’s the illegitimate daughter of a prostitute and a pastor. Her father tried to burn her at the stake before she was taken in by Moira MacTaggert, and she eventually wound up at Xavier’s school and joined the New Mutants. Based on the first trailer, the upcoming movie repaints the New Mutants as a misfit group in some kind of insane asylum. It’s much closer to a horror story, which resonates that much better with what’s been going down in Wolverine: The Long Night.
Hudson Langrock — who grew up in Burns, Alaska — is in no way directly related to a female Scottish mutant with the same powers. But in the greater Marvel Universe, it’s incredibly rare for two mutants to have what seem like the exact same mutation. So did Wolverine: The Long Night basically genderbend this X-Men character for the purpose of its own narrative? Or is Hudson something else entirely?
We’re bound to learn more next week when the Wolverine: The Long Night Season 1 finale drops on Stitcher Premium Monday, May 7.
Check out the trailer for New Mutants to hyped for the show:
