Review: Wolverine Savage

Writer: Ryan Dunleavy
Artist: Richard Elson
Cover By: J. Scott Campbell

Although I couldn’t pick up the Deadpool Variant, I was still able to get my hands on Wolverine Savage. It’s rated A, which is not a bad thing, but you can expect a more family friendly take on Wolverine, and this is exactly what this comic was. Personally, I did not particularly enjoy this one, but it did a great job at telling a simple, child friendly Wolverine story.

The story starts with Logan fighting the Lizard in Japan. He tells you some background info about the Lizard, and then proceeds to defeat him after chopping off his tail. In the process though, he has ruined a large order of sushi that a restaurant had been preparing for that night. Feeling bad about the whole situation, Wolverine goes on to make a whole new batch of sushi, saving the day.

Grateful for what he did for her, the owner of the restaurant celebrates with Wolverine, toasting to her “pops,” who had been missing for several months. She then goes on to explain how the restaurant used to be filled with customers, but now was barely getting by. When her father had been the head chef, they made the best Ramen around, using special eggs as the secret ingredient. Then one day, pops just disappeared. Wolverine agrees to help her look for these special eggs, using his heightened sense of smell.

Logan comes across the eggs, which come from a giant lizard-like sea monster that lives on an island just off the coast. After a brief fight, Logan is eaten by the monster, and surprisingly finds pops. Apparently he had been living inside of the monster for months. From there, they make the monster throw up, and Wolverine fights off the giant monster. There is some pretty humorous banter between pops and Logan, as they escape safely. The restaurants business begins to boom again, and they are able to hire a full kitchen crew, which leaves Logan to be demoted from sushi chef to the cleaning crew.

Obviously this is a hard comic to grade, since I am not in the target audience. It’s a very simple story, very easy for a child to understand. The art was very good as well, with many bright colors to go along with the kid friendly plot. I think it did a great job considering what it was shooting for. I would not recommend this for anyone looking for a typical Wolverine comic, which would include the usual gruff, no-nonsense Wolverine as well a large pile of dead bad guys. I won’t give this one a grade, but if I was going to, it would be 5 out of 5.

Wolverine: Wendigo! Review

Writer: Frank Tieri
Penciler: Paul Gulacy (Wolverine: Wendigo!)
Paco Diaz (Wolverine vs. Thor)
Cover By: Ben Oliver

This review is going to be short and (not so) sweet. I’m getting it out early just in case you haven’t hit up your LCS yet this week. If you had any plans on picking up “Wolverine: Wendigo!” then I strongly urge you to reconsider. If you enjoy Marvel taking your money to read about a bunch of people talking, then go ahead and buy this book. Wolverine is only on a couple pages and only talks once. The story itself is not THAT terrible (actually, that may be a little too nice), but it is in no way a Wolverine book. That’s just a way for Marvel to make more sales. Now, more Wolverine is good, but it becomes overkill when the stories are crappy one-shots just to get the name out there.

Well, the second part to this was “Wolverine vs. Thor,” which was a very weak story as well. It really has no point, and does not go anywhere. Wolverine thinks that Thor is Sabretooth. They fight until Logan figures out that he’s delusional, and the story abruptly ends. Basically Loki, Thor’s brother fooled with him by giving him some weird drink. Maybe I was just so upset about the Wendigo story that I didn’t give this one a chance, but I don’t think that’s the case. The one positive is that the art is great in both stories, but do yourself a favor and buy yourself a cheeseburger or whatever else you want with that $3.99.

I give this book 1/5