Classic Wolverine Scan #3

Logan enjoying a rare quiet moment with his old buddy Puck. Get a load of these two blabberin' canucks!

Wolverine (Vol. 2) #35

New Releases: January 5, 2011

Wolverine: The Best There Is #2

Buy with caution, because the opening issue was a train wreck. But hey, at least there's a new writer since Jeph Loeb is taking the wheel for this one. Personally, I would wait on it and see if anybody you know actually decides to pick it up and either see what they think or wait for some reviews to come out. Let's just hope Logan doesn't try dancing again.

...but no matter what he does, there's little chance it can be worse than this.

Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #4 Review

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Adam Kubert

Another Fine Mess Part 4 of 6

Ridiculous. I think you can sum up this issue with one word. You can probably sum up this series with one word. Ridiculous. Of course this is not always a bad thing, and such is the case of Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #4. We get a few doses of ‘shake your head’ ridiculous to go along with a good helping of ‘laugh out loud’ ridiculous. We are now past the halfway mark of the series and it is clear that this story was not meant to be taken seriously. That being said; let us begin.

Wolverine and Spider-Man have been separated. Czar and his vertically-challenged sidekick B, are pulling their shenanigans throughout time. They are basically time-travelling to different eras and using their “timestick” to displace people just for the Hell of it. It’s like when you give a 10 year old a hand buzzer for the first time, only in this case instead of just getting annoyed, the victims end up hanging out with cavemen. So Czar runs into himself at some party at the end of time (a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference?) and talks to his past self about the Wolverine and Spider-Man $@#*. If this is really possible, Back to the Future just became A LOT less suspenseful.

So where are our good buddies Wolverine and Spider-Man right now? Czar must have thought it would be hilarious to match them up again, but this time with the younger version of their counterparts. Wolverine is stuck with the teenage, pre-Uncle Ben’s death Peter and Spidey is on the run from feral Logan and his pack of friendly woodland critters. You decide which is worse, but I was just about ready to punch teenage Peter in the face myself…but then I realized it was a comic book. Through some deus ex machina (Czar popping out of nowhere and smacking them with his bat), the pair are now tied up and set to burn at the stake in what looks like colonial America. Wolverine suggests that someone is doing this for their own amusement and he’s wrong, someone is doing this for everyone else’s amusement (and his own as well I guess, so I take it back). It’s Mojo! And he’s made Wolverine and Spider-Man the subjects of his latest reality show for Mojovision. Ridiculous. Luckily Spider-Man has something up his sleeve, literally.

So there you have it. There seems to be no limit to the craziness in this issue. When Jason Aaron said we were in for something different with this series, he meant it. As far as Kubert’s art goes, it’s perfect for the tone of the story with its fun cartoony feel and the sometimes exaggerated bodies. The dialogue is very good and makes for some hilarious moments as well. Now I won’t say it’s a bad thing, but the story has been taking the back seat to humor in this series and this issue is no exception. It’s a fun read, but I wouldn’t recommend this to just anyone. I have mixed feelings for it myself, mainly because I was hoping for more out of this series, but maybe I was just looking for something completely different. Maybe a little less…ridiculous (yes I like to beat dead horses).

Daken: Dark Wolverine #4 Review

Writers: Daniel Way & Marjorie Liu
Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli
Cover By: Giuseppe Camuncoli & Marte Garcia

Empire Act II: Part 1 of 4

To be honest, I felt that Daken: Dark Wolverine was the weakest of the three ‘Wolverine Family’ titles. Of course things can change and this issue is a start. The story focuses on Daken’s relationship with the Fantastic Four, mainly his close friendship with Johnny. Johnny is taking Daken’s supposed death hard, and the others are a little worried but understand he just needs his time to cope. When an intruder to the Baxter building threatens Reed and Sue’s children, Daken is there to stop him. The funny thing is that Daken broke in as well (so much for the great security system they have over there). The Fantastic Four are shocked since they believed him to be dead, even though we the reader knew otherwise (end of issue #3, and come on, it’s his series). If Johnny took his death hard, he took the truth even harder. Feeling betrayed by Daken (that’s a first), he just goes off on him, which is understandable since he took the blame for Daken’s death and this is a most unusual turn of events for him. After everyone settles down we learn what has brought about this unexpected visit.

Daken is taking full advantage of the world believing he is dead and wants to use it as a way to start fresh. This is a chance to avoid the stigma of siding with Osborne and he believes that the Fantastic Four are the only one’s he can trust with his secret. In an effort to distance himself from his father and to ensure his cover will not be blown, he asks Reed for something he can use to defend himself so he doesn’t have to bring out his claws. Reed gives him some sort of glove that can be used to stun anyone without killing, with the exception of Ben. Just like that he’s gone. Upon his departure Reed decides that something just didn’t feel right about Daken’s visit. We then see Daken on a boat heading to an undisclosed location and he reveals that he has other plans for the glove which has potential that is held back by Reed’s unwillingness to kill. It’s apparent that he has left the country, most likely to Asia. Of course he’s in disguise and has a whole bald/shaved Matt Fraction thing goin’ on. After seeing a newspaper, he decides to go after Bucky aka Captain America aka (more importantly) The Winter Soldier, who killed his mom. It’s on the final panel that we finally learn that the boat is headed to (wait for it…) Madripoor.

This one was very good, but it was excellent on the second reading. It took a night’s sleep for all of the parallels and connections to Logan of the final few pages that my 2 AM brain didn’t seem to catch, to actually sink in. As a big fan of the early Wolverine Patch stories in Madripoor, I am very excited for what’s to come and I love the irony of following in the footsteps of his father when he intends to do just the opposite. Hopefully he’s got a better costume than a stupid eye patch.

Enough looking ahead, this one was a gem. The interactions were both humorous and believable. Daken is very likeable and seems eerily out of character until Reed’s uncertainty at the end reminds you of his manipulative ways and gives you the idea that he may have just been using them. Personally I feel that he is somewhere in the middle right now. He does in fact want to distance himself from his past and I believe he has good intentions, though he will do whatever he feels necessary to meet his goals, even if that means that he may have to cross the line or deceive others. The issue sets the stage for what has the potential of a great story, now let’s see Way and Liu build off this and meet it.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Merry Christmas from Wolverine & Spider-Man!

Don't forget to pick up Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #4 on December 29th!

Uncanny X-Men #531 Review

Writers: Matt Fraction & Kieron Gillen
Artist: Greg Land
Cover By: Greg Land & Justin Ponsor

Quarantine Part 2

Team books. I’ve already spoken of my disdain for them (though very exaggerated). One of the major problems with such series’ is the confusion and choppy cutting from one part of the story to another. The writing team of Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen is able to avoid such pitfalls in this well-written chapter to the current X-Men story Quarantine. For those of you not familiar, a mutant flu pandemic has broken out on Utopia; trapping some of the most powerful X-Men on the island while it goes under quarantine. Not only this, many (including the one we call Wolverine) are at the mercy of this power-suppressing virus. Logan’s healing factor is weak, and it’s causing all kinds of problems mentally and physically, but we’ll get to that later.

This one opens with Namor (aka The Sub-Mariner) demanding that he be released. He tries to fight the affects of the virus, but these attempts prove to be futile. By giving in, we see how powerful this “flu” really is. A quick page-turn later and we see that there are in fact many more infected mutants and Dr. Kavita Rao observes that the affects are increasing rapidly in those who have contracted the virus. It is unknown whether the virus is indeed contagious to humans, but there is emphasis that this knowledge must be known as soon as possible. This leads Dr. Rao to make an irrational decision to inject the virus into herself to see whether she will contract it or not. Who does that? That’s like John McClane shooting himself to kill some dude, only this is a no-win situation for Ms. Rao. The outcome of her “experiment” is held off for next month.

While this is going on, Logan is suffering many different symptoms to go along with the typical coughing, and wheezing and all that other nasty stuff. Blood poisoning from the adamantium in his body is causing mood swings and psychosis. Right now, he’s just a mess. What is causing him the most pain though is the feeling of helplessness, the feeling that he is letting down people who have put their trust in him. As the havoc is going on in Utopia, there is a mutant killing the people that Wolverine has sworn to protect, and he can’t do a thing. This is a recurring theme with Logan; the man who can’t be physically hurt for the most part, is vulnerable when it comes to the guilt of putting others in danger.

At the same time, Angel is in charge of a temporary X-Men team with the help of Storm. As they go about their business, the pseudo-mutants created by the Sublime Corporation are doing the best they can to imitate the X-Men. They’ve garnered the attention of the media as well as the X-Men, and both are a little unsure of who they are and whether they are a threat. The final piece to this story is with Emma Frost who is currently tasked with the disposing of Sebastian Shaw. We hear a bunch of stuff about her past, yada yada yada, then my boy Fantomex makes like an idiot and kicks Shaw into the weird portal thing, or maybe it was just a giant hole. Don’t ask me, I just read these books.

So an overall decent issue, there wasn’t really anything to complain about. On the other hand there wasn’t anything spectacular. We’re getting bits and pieces of an overall larger story that will hopefully tie together nicely. Fraction and Gillen do a good job of including humor into the book without making it feel like you’re reading Deadpool.

Classic Wolverine Scan #2

All of these children's Christmas shows on TV right now have a lot of cute little woodland critters. I figured, why not give some love to this little guy that always seems to be overlooked. I guess there's a reason, they're not very nice...but they do make great hunters.

Wolverine (Vol. 2) #43