Savage Wolverine 16, Origin II 4

Savage Wolverine 16
Isanove (w and a)

Wolverine and Sofia have been locked up and, despite his protestations, won't be released until he can see a judge the next day for claims of disturbing the peace. The peace in the station doesn't last long either, though, as Marion, Pierre, and their hired guns come to the prison to finish off Wolverine and get their girl back. They've been tipped off by one of the officers that Wolverine is being kept there and promised that they'll be able to take him but the chief refuses, saying that's not how things are done. Quickly the situation comes to all guns drawn and gets more hectic when Peter, who has been following Wolverine and Sofia, enters with a machine gun he took out of the back of the gangsters' car. After some tense stand-offs, the guns start going off and the body count ends up rather steep as every cop ends up dead, Wolverine ends up pretty shot up (though ultimately okay), the gangsters we don't really know end up dead, and Peter ends up fatally wounded. Wolverine manages to get Sofia out as Pierre and Marion tend to their own wounds before taking the very near-dead (Wolverine thought he was dead and wasn't able to carry his body as well) Peter with them. Wolverine and Sofia return to the place where Elias' other kids are laying low and finds that things have only gotten worse as Vicky has finally succumbed to her sickness.

It's the very definition of things going from bad to worse for Wolverine here as the kids he was tasked with taking care of begin to drop like flies, most of them in front of him. Isanove has done an excellent job showing one of those stories that you know has probably happened in Wolverine's dark past but that you never really want to think about. There have been plenty of stories about Wolverine's past and just how they've shaped the dark and brooding man today but you occasionally need ones like this to show just how dark it could get. Isanove has come at this with exactly the right eye for the time period and the drama, not to mention a pretty solid take on Wolverine, who has taken almost a backseat to everything else that's happened lately as we've focused on villains Marion and Pierre and even on Peter more than Wolverine over the last couple issues. Still, a good writer can absolutely pull off a Wolverine-in-the-background sort of Wolverine story because he's the type of character who isn't going to push and shove his way into the foreground. More contemplative and more quiet than most, Wolverine can absolutely be a vehicle for action and let the story take place around him when he's handled well. It's pretty good stuff here and it's accompanied by really appropriate art (probably helps when the artist you're trying to communicate with is yourself) and a perfect tone for the book.

Origin II 4
Gillen (w) and Adam Kubert (a) and F. Martin (c)

Clara, Creed, and Logan have been on the run for a month now, moving frequently as Logan continues to have trouble with trust and every day human interactions. He lashes out and attacks when startled and word of who he is has spread, meaning they can't exactly stick around after he reveals himself. Though Clara still sympathizes with Logan and though he's actually begun talking with them now about himself and his past, Creed can't help wondering if maybe he would have been better off with Sinister's experiments. Clara shoos him away after he says it and that night, Clara and Logan talk more and eventually, of course, fall into bed together. Creed sees them from a rooftop across the street (little creepy) but looks on. The pair are woken up as Sinister's men have found them and barge into the room. Logan refuses to be taken and goes berserk as they try to bring him down. In the middle of the fight, he turns and accidentally stabs Clara through the chest. She tells him it's okay, hoping he'll calm down, before she falls to the ground. As the memories of those he's loved and hurt flood through him, he sees red, seemingly giving in to the berserker. When he comes to, he's covered in blood and standing over the bodies of all of Sinister's men and Clara. Creed bursts in and falls on the floor beside Clara. He tells Logan they need to get revenge and, as Logan tells Creed that he loved her, Creed reveals that Clara is his sister. With Logan and Creed out of the apartment, Clara's good eye opens.

More action and a good look at Wolverine's emotions carry this issue as Gillen delves deeper into who Logan is at this moment in time. He remembers what he's done to his mother and his other loved ones and he remembers what happened with the wolves and the polar bear and what Essex has pulled him away from by trying to capture him. He has clearly gained some humanity back with the help of Clara and maybe even with Creed but now that he's killed someone else he loves (this is Wolverine after all, he's certainly not done doing that) it's a matter of where he goes next. One of the most stunning things about this series has been the way the art and the colors and the layout of the pages have all worked so brilliantly together. After a relatively standard format to start this issue off as Logan and Clara work on bringing back his humanity and showing off their love for one another, the issue's action changes up the format of the book, with more chaotic panels and tight camera shots before we get a wide panel of Logan stabbing Clara followed by a series of quick bursts while all of Wolverine's most painful memories sear through him. After that is an entirely red page as Wolverine goes berserk followed by another large panel of a bloody and shocked Logan before the book returns to a more standard format when Creed returns. It's a wonderful layout and it's expert comic presentation as Gillen, Kubert, and Martin direct you through the comic to make you feel as much as possible for the book and to make sure you're torn out of the comfort the beginning of the book provided just as Logan is torn out of the safety and comfort he'd been finally starting to find.




HEY EVERYONE, this is my 616th post on the blog and THAT FEELS IMPORTANT, given the universe designation of the main Marvel Universe! To celebrate, I, uh, have nothing planned. So, sorry, this kind of snuck up on me so I guess I'll just go the normal route of saying thank you so much to anyone who's ever checked in on this blog. You're all aces.

Avengers 24, Origin II 1

Avengers 24
Hickman (w) and Ribic, Larroca, Deodato, and Guice (a) and White, Mounts, F. Martin, and L. Martin (c)

It's a new page for the Avengers as they celebrate their victories in INFINITY (and their total lack of deaths! Props to Hickman for not capping this event with any deaths) before being reminded that they're the Avengers and that they can't take days off because a time traveler from the year 3030 might show up at any moment to warn them of their impending doom thanks to a rogue planet on a collision course with Earth. With the help of the Iron Man derived time traveler, they build a device that allows the two worlds to exist on more or less the same plane but the message is clear; someone launched this planet at them and they likely won't just stop at that. The time traveler also gives Tony a special new weapon in private and explains that she's doing it because he's going to need help soon and that everyone he knows is going to be trying to kill him. Bum bum buuuuuum.

Pretty neat little book for the holidays. People should at this point realize that I'm a fun of the occasional hang-out issue where the team gets to unwind just a little bit, even if it's only for a handful of pages before a giant new threat emerges. I like that the team realizes the enormity of their success, even if it comes with a heavy weight still for Tony, who is still hiding his Illuminati business and for people like Steve who is never done working. There's a great contrast there between the party going on up at the top of Avengers tower and the planning Steve and Tony have going on downstairs. Tony still has the Illuminati business on his mind so he's not exactly leaping to party (despite his typical mode) and Steve probably never feels quite right at a party. One of the things that's great about a well-written Steve Rogers is that he's still sometimes fun and can be funny but, when he's not leading people into battle, he's not really a hang-out kind of guy. This issue was a nice way to change pace just a bit as the seriousness of NEW AVENGERS starts to bleed into AVENGERS as we turn the corner into All-New Marvel NOW! Technically the label for this review should have been AVENGERS 24.NOW but I've made a conscious decision to not include those point-words things. Kind of weird. It's a big year coming and many of the books on sale in January will have to do with the new Marvel branding. This isn't a bad lead-in for it.

Origin II 1
Gillen (w) and Adam Kubert (a) and F. Martin (c)

After the events of the first ORIGIN, we're sent back into the woods to see a still feral Wolverine living with a family of wolves as he makes his way in the natural world. There's some amount of narration from a third person omniscient narrator, someone who's able to tell us that wolves stay together as a pack not out of fear or particular survival instinct but because they want to. It also tells us that they don't typically accept others into their pack but relate that this particular pack has accepted the wolfish man in as he has spent so much time protecting and helping them that he's essentially a part of the family. There's a polar bear lurking around that Wolverine has sort of communed with and there's a lone wolf watching with a peculiar red marking on its forehead. With Wolverine out hunting one day, the polar bear finds its way to the home of his wolf family and brutally kills them all. Wolverine returns too late to help and fights the bear in a battle that kills them both. Of course, being dead doesn't stop Wolverine from getting back up and killing the lone wolf when it comes to gnaw at his carcass. The final shot of the issue shows a wounded and mourning Wolverine behind the body of the polar bear which has a metal tag on it, asserting that the bear is property of Nathaniel Essex, Mr. Sinister.

ORIGIN was a really seminal work for Wolverine fans and one that went a long way to giving a fan favorite character a true backstory. It's not often that a retconned backstory really lands with fans and is so readily adopted but ORIGIN certainly was. Why not go back to that trough to make another hit and to put a new spin on a character who, by this point, we've seen almost entirely too much of? Wolverine is one of the characters like Spider-Man who is everywhere in the Marvel Universe (interestingly, in AVENGERS 24, Cap removed both of them from the team, citing Wolverine's recently lost healing factor and Spider-Man's erratic behavior) and given the amount of minis and on-goings he's had, it feels like we know all there is to know about the character. Kieron Gillen and Adam Kubert set out to prove that wrong as they go back to the end of ORIGIN and start from there, with Gillen revisiting his own history as he pulls out Mr. Sinister, one of his biggest villains from his run on UNCANNY X-MEN. I don't think that Marvel could have chosen a more interesting writer to take a spin on Wolverine; as I said, this is now a character who we know a TON about because he's everywhere all the time. If anyone's able to find new ground, it's going to be Kieron Gillen. Adam Kubert's art in this issue (as well as Frank Martin's colors) is amazing and particularly haunting in the full page panel of the bear with the dead wolves around him. The writing is somewhat minimal in this issue but the story is very clearly there and our character is very clearly established. The art does the rest of the work and Gillen again does a great job knowing when to tell and when to show. The book is a bit longer than a standard book (reaching about 30 pages) which may justify (kind of) the five dollar price point but, in truth, it's probably because they know it has the ability to be a real hit. Is it worth the money? Yeah, probably. Really gorgeous book with some A+ characterization to kick our story off.