Wolverine 13, Savage Wolverine 14

Wolverine 13
Cornell (w) and Davis and Farmer (a) and Loughridge (c)

The conclusion of this run of WOLVERINE before it kicks off again at number one with new artist Ryan Stegman finds Wolverine badly beaten and sprawled out in front of Sabretooth, who is, of course, soliloquizing. Sabretooth talks pretty much forever about how weak Wolverine is and how quickly he resolved to murder someone earlier (who ended up being Mystique but he didn't know that) and so on and so forth. As Sabretooth finally finishes his soliloquy, one of the random guards comes up to Wolverine and reveals that she's carrying the alien virus that took his healing powers in the first place and offers a deal; with the virus being extinguished around the world by SHIELD and the Host, the virus needs a place to hide and would choose to hide in Wolverine, promising to give back his powers, maybe even stronger, in exchange for shelter. Wolverine refuses it and the virus is destroyed. He and Kitty return to Westchester and Storm and Beast rush to meet them. Logan proclaims that "The Wolverine is dead now."

Here's been my whole issue with this series and why I'm hoping (somewhat against hope) that Stegman's sharp and crisp art will bring a severe tonal change to the book: this is a story where Wolverine lost his healing powers, became killable, fought against a seemingly unbeatable virus, and went up against a slew of his own villains while depowered and it was boring. I can't necessarily say I'd be totally onboard with the premise anyway (it's incredibly tricky to take a superhero's powers away and still keep him interesting) but boy does it not feel well-executed. At every turn through this series there's been over-explanation and boring writing and strangely different or personality-empty characters. Even this one, the big presentation by Sabretooth as he finally wins, comes off as hugely lacking and like a different Sabretooth than we've ever seen before (the dude is wearing a suit here. I'm fine with a change in character but like, an entire overhaul of a character suddenly announced? Pretty weird). I couldn't bring myself to care about the problems Wolverine has gone through and when you're reading a book and unable to care about the drama of the protagonist, that book's in a bit of trouble.

Savage Wolverine 14
Isanove (w and a)

It's a 1930s adventure for Wolverine by cover-proclaimed "master of noir" Richard Isanove, who takes writing and art duties for this issue. In the late days of prohibition, Wolverine is an alcohol smuggler helping out a friend in northern Minnesota. His friend, called Elias, drives him from the Canadian border (from where he was smuggling) to his five and dime store which runs an illegal bar out of the back. We're introduced to Elias' kids through a good deal of dialogue and a couple of anecdotes. After Wolverine and Elias make it to the bar, they're quickly greeted by a French gangster, who tells them they're running an illegal business on their turf and tells them to shut down or to buy their product directly from them and give the profits over to them. Elias refuses, saying that he's only making enough to keep the store in business and to take care of his kids as is. This isn't enough for the Frenchman, who opens the bar doors wider to reveal a posse of gangsters with machine guns who gun down Elias. Wolverine attacks and is gunned down as well. Three of the four kids, hiding out in the corner, are discovered and the Frenchman takes the youngest girl for part of their operation. After the gangsters leave, the other kids try to figure out what to do and bemoan the loss of their father and watch over Logan, who seems ready to die at any moment. Of course, he heals up and swears to find the Frenchman, which he does with relative ease (the number of places in the area that deal in illegal booze and women is, apparently, pretty small). Next issue will pit Wolverine against the Frenchman and his hired goon Marion.

Despite all of the exposition and dialogue, the issue moves pretty well and Isanove's art is a solid match for his storytelling. One of the things writers seem to like about Wolverine is that he's been alive since the 1800s but lost his memory so many times as to not remember any of his own history, which means that any era between Reconstruction and now is fair game for a Wolverine story. We've had plenty of stories with Wolverine in the 20s and 30s before (it's a nice age for Wolverine, pitting him up against gangsters and dames) but not too many, to my limited knowledge, about bootlegging. Indeed, not too many about Minnesota either. I think I can name the number of Marvel stories I've read that take place in Minnesota without much trouble: it's one. This one. Anyway, the story isn't particularly complex, as yet, but then SAVAGE WOLVERINE never really tried to be. There's enough time per arc to get in, tell a story, and get out. Given the distance traveled in this issue alone, I'd peg this as one that's going to pretty quickly get out. Still not bad though and a nice relief from the other WOLVERINE series and even from the last little extremely heavy-handed SAVAGE WOLVERINE arc.