Wolverine Wednesday #85

Wolverine Revenge #5

Writer: Jonathan Hickman | Artist: Greg Capullo | Inker: Tim Townsend | Colourist: Alex Sinclair | Letters: Cory Petit

After the previous turned into ‘Old Man Logan Lite’, this final issue takes yet another turn in tone and delivers a somewhat satisfactory conclusion. It is probably not the tone and conclusion you would have expected when this series started, but yeah, it does deliver something! The story opens with a flashback to Colossus and his son sharing some quality time together. I don’t want to say this seems forced, its inclusion is obviously for the emotional baggage come the stories’ end. But like I said, this story takes a diversion from how it started. If this relationship had been established in the previous four issues it would have carried even more of an emotional gut punch in this issue. All the best bits in this issue come from the nods and winks to comics past. The switcheroo of Sabretooth and Nikolai pulling off their version of the ‘fastball special’ acts as the point where the issue ramps up. Capullo’s Nikolai is visually perfect; you can view this issue and guess who he was meant to be the offspring of in human form. I like his powered-up look too as it slightly evokes Colossus’s Acolyte days. Since appearing in the last issue, Nikolai has been armed with a big sword and it all comes to make sense why in his final confrontation with Wolverine. For me, it didn’t fully sink in at first. I don’t want to spoil too much, even though I’m a little late with my reviews due to personal reasons. What I will say is his auntie is name-checked in the flashback opening, and that sows the seeds for what is to come. I have said it twice already, but really I can not stress enough how much of a shift everything is in this issue. The first three issues had a very defined tone in a very clear genre. The change in genre is the biggest shock here. If you picked these issues up randomly and read them out of order, you wouldn’t think they were from the same series! Again, without spoiling anything, the final moments of this issue are just so, so different from what has come before. It is a big, ballsy move and I kind of liked it! I didn’t understand the choices to go from where we were in issue one to the final page in this issue, but I liked it for what it was. Throughout the five issues Hickman has had a strong hold over his control of Wolverine’s monologues. He demonstrates that final time here to deliver some exposition about revenge and how the title may refer to Nikolai after all is done. There is no doubt though that these five issues belong to Greg Capullo. Perhaps his input is the route of the big tone and genre shifts. The story, at times, does feel like he gave Hickman a list of things he wanted to draw and he had to construct a story around that list. In this finale he displays the full spectrum of his skills. His talking head pages carry weight and emotion. The full range of panel sizes and layouts brings a dynamism to proceedings. He goes widescreen when he needs to and then knows when to bring it in close. I really like his use of white backgrounds and borders. It focuses the action, drawing the eye and keeping the beat as the action moves from panel to panel. One really cool detail is the panel borders shifting from white to black. A moment that centres on Nikolai’s use of that aforementioned sword. This was a mixed bag of a final issue. Hickman has done well to salvage some of the wreckage from the previous issue, in my opinion. For me, this series demonstrated what Hickman can achieve if he doesn’t dream too big! He is better in small doses. I would happily see Capullo do a longer stint on the main Wolverine series in the future.

Deadpool/Wolverine #3

Writer: Benjamin Percy | Artist: Josh Cassara | Letters: Joe Sabino

Three issues in, and things really begin to click. This is more of what I was expecting from Percy and Cassara, who set a very high standard on Wolverine and X-Force in recent years. It all begins on the cover as Cassara channels his inner Geoff Darrow. Every hair, every thread of the costume, and every drop of spilt blood is visible on a white background. I don’t want to keep comparing this series to the Deadpool/Wolverine movie, but it is still so fresh in my memory, and Percy does a lot to evoke its tone. He has such a good hold over both of their personalities, something he established in the pages of Wolverine before the movie’s release, of course. I wonder how much of this was in place before he saw the movie? The issue opens up with Wolverine and Deadpool catching the reader up with events, whilst catching each other up on what is going on. It is a good little trick as old as time, and it really showcases how good Percy is at depicting the two characters together. The banter between the two as they take both verbal and physical shots at each other is completely on point with what older and new readers would expect from two big characters. The big villain of the piece makes his presence known to our heroes, so now I feel it’s okay to spoil the fact that it is Stryfe! People are always quick to take shots at the comics of the ’90s, but I always get a buzz when certain characters from that time pop. I want to see what more talented writers can do with characters that probably created a buzz when they were readers. Stryfe very much falls into that category, and I have been waiting for Percy to really get to grips with him since he was teased in the first issue. There is a hint of the 90s in the undercurrent of this series to date. On the subject of which we get another brief appearance from Maverick in his OG look, which Cassara absolutely kills! Cassara displays a use of panel layouts much like Capullo. Apart from 4/5 pages, the action doesn’t leave the one setting and yet it is still dynamic, all because of the panel layouts. The Darrowness of it all sees you as a reader scanning every detail of every panel, of every page, for something you might have missed. More than once I checked my cheek for flecks of blood from our heroes. Cassara serves up a style that is both grim and gritty and bold and bright at the same time. As I am still catching up on the previous incarnation of X-Force it is brilliant to see him evolve as an artist before my eyes. Like I said, I am fully locked into this series now, and the cliffhanger sets it all up very nicely indeed to go bigger and bolder! It is definitely much more to what I was expecting when the series was announced. It is now matching my own hype I gave it, and it is close in tone to the Deadpool/Wolverine movie, so hopefully it can attract new readers from that avenue and really stretch its wings for a few years.

Wolverine #7

Writer: Saladin Ahmed | Artist: Martin Coccolo |  Colourist: Bryan Valenza | Letters: Cory Petit

By now you probably all know how I feel about story arcs that go beyond six issues. There are a lot of elements of what is offered to like, whilst at the same time, you would be expecting some resolution by now. All the pieces that have been put into place across the previous six issues have completely justified their place in the story as Ahmed has constructed it step by step. My gut feeling tells me that the way this issue went in particularly, that this may be a twelve-issue affair. Or maybe, more hopefully, a new make up of storytelling altogether. The biggest element this issue has going for it was seeing what Ahmed could do with the much maligned and often forgotten Wolverine foe Romulus. Again, for me, it was a case of he had done enough, but he could have done more. Perhaps then another clue that this arc is going a distance. With a character like Romulus, I have to be in the mood. I hated him when he was introduced and haven’t missed him in the years since, but equally, it would be fun for someone new to give him a second life and completely flesh him out all anew. It hasn’t happened yet, but I feel it is just under the surface. With his inclusion and the secret history between Adamantium/Adamantine there is something that could become a huge part of Wolverine’s mythos, I just… don’t want to sound like a stuck record but feel Ahmed could give us more. Across the previous six issues, I have been up and down on my feelings towards the art. Finally here it clicked with me! I feel a little stupid to admit it took me so long to put it together, but Coccolo’s style is a Wolverine Manga masquerading as American comic books! It was a combination of things that have been across all the issues, but crystallised here that led me to this conclusion. The thick black line surrounding our hero’s well-established costume has been present in every issue. Here it is front and centre on the cover, immediately putting this idea in my head. The speed lines, again present across the previous six issues, but here in combination with the panel layouts and the poses that Wolverine and X-23 are put in, just scream Manga pacing to me. Now I am no Manga expert, but now I’ve seen it and shared it, I can’t unsee it. With all that in mind, I want to see this in black and white now! There is even a sequence in the middle that you feel would be the colour painted pages in a Manga collection. To conclude this review, I won’t repeat myself again, I think I have made it clear what I would like to see in this series going forward. If we get anything near that in future issues makes for intriguing reading on a personal level. Maybe, come the arcs’ end, I will be won over?
______

As mentioned in my first review, I am a little behind on things due to outside forces. Hopefully, by the end of this month, I will be all caught up on my reviews, which may mean a double dose of Wolverine Wednesday in May.