Wolverine 4
Cornell (w) and Davis and Farmer (a) and Hollingsworth (c)
The mind-controlling, sinister entity that Wolverine and Fury are trying to take down has escaped with a couple of air force pilots in a jet with an incubator and Wolverine and Fury are aiming to take it down. When Wolverine manages to board it from the outside, he finds that the pilots are planning to take the ship down already and have no recollection of what they've been doing. The incubator, though, is gone. Wolverine tells Fury not to report this to SHIELD because SHIELD will just send a wave of people in and that wave of people would be dangerous for the entity to take control of. Wolverine, instead, goes to the manufacturer of the incubator and discovers that they had put a tracking device into it, giving Wolverine a way to find wherever it's being brought. It leads him to another plane taking off from New Jersey. Wolverine leaps out of his plane, brought down by a missile shot by one of the mind-controlled scientists, and uses some newfound powers to catch the plane as it's taking off. His newfound power is explained at the very start of the issue; it's his healing factor working overtime against his bones and adamantium scraping together, giving him bursts of great speed followed by near collapse amidst a whole world of pain. He does it here to catch the plane taking off and manages to board it, finding the mind-controlling gun within, as well as soldiers being mind-controlled and aiming the incubator and the entity at Yankee Stadium. The entity sends the crew jumping from the plane and leaves Wolverine to crash the plane into the water so it doesn't infect everyone attending a Yankees game. Then there's a lot of confusing stuff about how the future changed when Wolverine decided to go with Fury after the mission for a debriefing and it doesn't make a whole ton of sense yet but should going forward, maybe.
I find this series somewhat slow. There's a kind of neat angle on Wolverine that features Wolverine doing more detective work and more research going in. Perhaps Marvel knew that would be true, so they wanted one Wolverine book to focus on the busywork of being a superhero and one Wolverine book to focus on the hack-and-slash version of Wolverine. It's clear that Cornell wants to update Wolverine a little bit, considering the idea of him rinsing his palette when his smell gets overloaded and this new discovery that he can get a burst of speed at the cost of some added pain and possible added recovery time. There are pretty interesting things here and I don't want to have Wolverine reduced to angst and violence, but the book does still move a little slow for my taste.
Savage Wolverine 6
Wells (w) and Madureira (a) and Steigerwald (c)
The Hand is attempting to raise Bullseye from the dead (this takes place at least pre-Superior Spider-Man, for a sense of time) in order to overthrow Kingpin as leader of the Hand, as some factions of the Hand are not thrilled with the way Kingpin has handled his business. Kingpin, then, has hired his own outside help to try to keep Bullseye out of their hands or to at least keep the Hand from resurrecting Bullseye. To this end, he's enlisted Elektra, who, in turn comes to Wolverine for assistance. Wolverine has an interesting relationship with Elektra as they don't necessarily team-up too often but they respect each other when they do. She shows up after Wolverine has a particularly bad day with the Avengers in which he threatened a surrendered prisoner. Spider-Man (Peter Parker) is offering a friendly ear to Wolverine as Elektra shows up, which leads to a rather delightful scene between the three of them. Wolverine goes with Elektra, not knowing the job. He's then surprised when Lady Bullseye turns up and when Elektra doesn't immediately attack her, nor the suddenly revealed Kingpin. Wolverine isn't happy with the team-up but will presumably accept it to keep Bullseye out of the Hand's hands. It seems they'll be matched up against the Arbiters, a group of supervillains affiliated with the Hand and transitions of powers.
This is, by large, my favorite issue of Savage Wolverine so far. First off, there are far fewer gratuitous female body shots (though there are, of course, still a handful), which still makes a difference. Secondly, it's so refreshing to see Peter Parker Spider-Man again after so long. I don't dislike what's happening over in Superior Spider-Man but it's still sad to not be reading a more lighthearted Spider-Man anywhere. I've also always like the Spidey-Wolverine relationship, as two almost diametrically opposed but still equally heroic characters. How diametrically opposed they are is further illustrated by Wolverine's inclusion in this job, which is an interesting story all by itself. Good start to an arc. I'd be surprised if Spider-Man doesn't return for at least a bit here but it wouldn't be unheard of. I'm a fan of Zeb Wells and I'm glad to see that this book will have a way to succeed. Reassuring here.
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