Savage Wolverine 8, Wolverine MAX 11

Savage Wolverine 8
Wells (w) and Madureira (a) and Steigerwald (c)

Wolverine has been captured by the Arbiters, who Elektra continues to fight, while Kingpin is faced with his resurrected, though deadly and seemingly brainless, wife. Elektra was offered a chance to leave but refused to do so without Wolverine, which gave her more respect in the eyes of the Arbiters. Now they seek to test Wolverine by bringing the animal out in him and seeing what he will do with it around. He instantly jumps back into combat with the giant Shikaru and easily bests him. As the fight concludes, though, Logan takes control again and refuses to kill him, showing mercy and convincing the Arbiters to also allow him to leave. Meanwhile, Fisk attempts to talk Vanessa into stopping, trying to refuse to fight her, which is what the Hand wants to see. Eventually he cannot help himself, wishing to end her suffering by taking her away from it. As he does it, though, she shows just a glimmer of memory and awareness, causing him to slip further into his own wretchedness. By the end of the issue, Elektra is cutting her way through the Hand to track down Bullseye, Kingpin is firming up more brutal and violent takeovers for the Hand, and Wolverine is sitting in silence with Spider-Man at Avengers Mansion.

Another pretty nice issue for Savage Wolverine, which stumbled out of the gate. There's less open humor in this one than in the last couple as we get down to the nitty-gritty of the story, which involves an actual full-out judgment of character from the Arbiters, something that's worth putting Wolverine up against here and there. Wolverine is constantly his own biggest critic; he knows what he is and he may not like it (or he may, some debate there) but it's the role he exists in and he fills it. Occasionally a third party, particularly one with no interest in his future, has to appear to tell him that he's maybe not as bad as he seems. The Arbiters are downright wonderful to him, considering, as they tell him that he cannot take the things he does so hard, that you cannot blame the lion for the slaughter of the gazelle. Even when Wolverine retorts that he's not an animal, they agree with him. Can't get much nicer to Wolverine than that. Still, pretty good issue with really perfect art by Joe Mad to work with the story. He draws a good Wolverine and a pretty solid Elektra, among other things. Liked his Spider-Man too, frankly. Good issue. I think we might get a few written and drawn by phenomenal artist Jock soon. Rather looking forward to it.

Wolverine MAX 11
Starr (w) and Ruiz (a) and Brown (c)

Wolverine has made it to Vegas, though he's not quite at the Vegas everyone pictures when they picture Vegas. He's a little ways away, fighting in cage matches to make a little bit of money before he sets out into the city. After a good fight, he goes home with a woman he meets and talks to her for a while. She tells him that she's a psychic though later adjusts it to hypnotist. He eventually gets himself home, though he blacks out a little in the middle. The next day, the guy he'd fought the previous night wants a second round and Wolverine obliges, only to find out he has little to no control of his body now. He can't pop his claws and he can't even really fight. After getting thoroughly beaten down, he goes to find the woman again. When he enters her trailer, he begins yelling but she calms him quickly before revealing herself to be this off-shoot universe's Mother Night.

For those unaware, Mother Night is a somewhat big villain (not really huge) who occasionally went up against the Avengers and individual heroes. In recent years, she's largely come up as a lack for Red Skull, even being the one to raise Sin, Skull's terrible daughter, one of the orchestrator's of Fear Itself. That's at least a bit of an interesting turn and, truth told, this issue worked better than the rest of the series really has so far. I've voiced confusion at this series in the past based solely on the fact that it's honestly kind of boring. Not much happens in a book where no end of things can happen. Wolverine is kind of the essential MAX character, a guy who is unbelievably violent and dark but who also has plenty of run-ins with women. The MAX line, which can show tons of violence as well as nudity and swearing, seems tailor-made for that. So to write a story that doesn't flow well and that isn't particularly action-packed for the MAX line seems a bit of a waste. This one has a bit more by way of the violence and a bit by way of the nudity, which at least justifies it being its own MAX book and not an arc of another Wolverine book. He's still memory-less and the book continues to be a little heavy-handed in reminding us of that but the inclusion of a real, identifiable villain who has powers that can effectively hurt Wolverine but that might be able to help Wolverine (who knows, maybe she could get him to recall some memories?) could certainly help the book over time. Still not entirely impressed by the issue and series but this seems like a step in the right direction.