Wolverine: The Best There Is #2 Review

Writer: Charlie Huston
Artist: Juan Jose Ryp

Chapter Two: This Little Curiosity

I came into this one just hoping it would be better than the last. Thankfully, I got what I was looking for. This book actually shows a hint of plot and seems to give this series somewhat of a direction. I’m not saying it’s great, but at least there were no (I mean less) ‘facepalm’ moments that were prevalent in the opening issue of the series.

So the story is pretty basic. Beast helps Logan figure out who he’s looking for, and it turns out to be Jackson Day, an impure mutant. Day became mutated after he was doused with a number of different chemicals. So off he goes to find Jackson Day. When he arrives at his destination, Logan is met by a few of what seem to be Day’s minions. Wolvie easily takes them out and slices them into tiny pieces, but to his surprise, they are still alive. He leaves them be and continues inside the building where he meets a man named Mortigan Goth who claims to be from the 14th century. He helps Logan out, but tells him that Mephisto tortures his soul whenever he even thinks about doing a good deed. Logan comes to a door at the end of a hallway and upon opening it and comes across a creepy looking guy with a bag on his head who tells him to stay away since he’ contagious. The issues wraps up with two more henchmen showing up and they immediately get claws through their stomachs, but they don’t die, which is confusing the Hell outta Logan.

I’m not saying this one was amazing, but it was better than last last month’s opening issue. Then again, that's not much of an accomplishment. So first off, this one contains a story and is not a jumbled mess of bad dialogue. Instead, it's a book with a weak story and bad dialogue. We finally get some action that is actually relevant and we actually know what Wolverine is up to. The interactions are weak and feel very forced. The bad guys seem pretty cheesy as well, as does that old guy from the 14th century, Mortigan Goth. This series seems to rely on shock value, but in reality it is not that shocking at all. There’s much more gore in the MAX books and even the first arc of Wolverine: Weapon X. I’m not a huge fan of the art either, probably because it has that cartoony feel to it. The art along with the silly villains are leading this series into the absurd category, which is not exactly my cup of tea.

Wolverine: The Best There Is #1 Review

Written By: Charlie Huston
Art By: Juan Jose Ryp

Remember when I reviewed Wolverine: Wendigo and I said that it was nothing but glorified toilet paper? Well, Wolverine: The Best There Is #1 isn’t even worthy of wiping my ass. It is so bad that it’s almost insulting. I’d love to give a brief synopsis of the story, but I’m still looking for it. There’s was no sign of a plot anywhere in this comic book. What we got instead was bits and pieces of a hashed up story thrown into a blender and just plopped onto the pages in no particular order. We at one point meet some villain, and his henchmen, one of whom is a wannabe Joker. The art, although good, is very inconsistent in my opinion. Now the worst part of this comic other than the nonexistent story and the idea of Logan hitting the dance floor, is the dialogue. At the beginning there is so much unnecessary profanity. In fact, so many words were getting bleeped out that the sentences were becoming incoherent. Wolverine escapes from some underground gladiator-style fight club and kills a bunch of people in the process. He then hitches a ride back to civilization with some bimbo. From that point we have a book filled with choppy, uninteresting conversations covering such topics as Wolverine working at a salon, dancing, and getting a bikini wax. Sorry, Wolverine’s a man’s man and I demand that Mr. Huston’s man card be revoked immediately.

The credits were not given until the end of the story, like it’s some great reveal of the creative team and we the reader are expected to go, “This is AWESOME!” Yeah I was eager to find out who wrote this, but by no means to give praise. I wanted to know who owed me $3.99 plus tax. Now this has already wasted my time, and I don’t want to waste anymore of yours so I’ll wrap it up. First, I’ll let you know that I’m usually very positive when it comes to comics. I’ve actually been criticized by some of my friends of being too nice when it comes to bad writing, but hey, I’m here to enjoy my books so I’m gonna try and find as much positives in a book as I can. Keeping that in mind, I give this issue 0 out of 5.

This series can’t get any worse, but I’d sure hate to be wrong for my own sanity. Issue #2 comes out January 5, 2010. Use extreme caution before buying this book; I can’t say I can recommend this series. (And dammit, why is there a joker imposter in this, Marvel? *facepalm*)