Savage Wolverine 4, Ultimate Wolverine 3, Wolverine MAX 6

Savage Wolverine 4
Cho (w and a) and Keith (c)

Amadeus Cho (WAIT A MINUTE, I just connected that writer/artist of the book Frank CHO has brought Amadeus CHO off the bench and back into the Marvel Universe. I'm not sure what to make of that but there must be SOMETHING. Or maybe there isn't, that's a totally viable answer too) directs the natives of the Savage Land to bring Shanna to where ever it is they can revive her. That place seems to be a little bath in front of a creature that looks suspiciously like Man-Thing. Cho decides it can't be Man-Thing because he's off somewhere else with the former Thunderbolts right now. However, his onboard computer Calvin insists it has the same genetic makeup as Man-Thing, meaning that there's more than one Man-Thing out there. Anyway, Shanna is laid down in the little bath and Man-Thing covers her up in neon-green liquid. Moments after she's fully submerged, she springs out from it, her wound healed. She demands answers and is told that she is forever bonded to the Savage Land now. Her power is greater than it was and she'll live as long as the Savage Land does. Bad news on that front, though, the bomb that she and Wolverine were planning to bring to destroy the dampening field wouldn't be enough and would likely only serve to wake up the monster that the savages have kept trapped there. She runs full tilt to the machine (with Amadeus clocking her at 52 miles per hour, showing off her new enhanced powers) and launches a spear through Wolverine to stop him. It works, but the island brings someone new to them at the same moment: Hulk.
As the first arc pushes to its conclusion, we now have a scrappy brawler in Wolverine, a world-class specimen in Shanna, a genius with a powerful suit in Amadeus Cho and a heavy in Hulk. We pretty much have our own full-fledged superhero team on the island at this point. Whether Hulk will be the amenable Hulk who's eager to help (unlikely and possibly non-existent) or the angry and defensive Hulk (far more prevalent) remains to be seen. It also is worth questioning whether he's strong enough to serve as the three high-yield hydrogen bombs Cho determined they need to shut down the dampening field or just strong enough to wake up the monster. I guess we'll find out next issue as Frank Cho's first Savage Wolverine arc comes to an end.

Ultimate Wolverine 3
Bunn (w) and Messina and Carlucci w/ Erskine (a) and Tartaglia (c)

Project: Mothervine is revealed as a secret government project to inject women with chemical that would ensure their children would be mutants and, on top of that, mutants that could be weaponized with a single phrase. On top of the ethical problems that come right off the bat with that one, there are concerns about mutants as property and as created by the government as weapons and as being peaceful humans, which is what Jimmy is fighting for on Utopia. Kind of in the same way that Cable and X-Force had to stop a virus from killing humans and leaving mutants unharmed and therefore blamed in their first arc, Mothervine would make non-weaponized mutants culpable for the actions of the ones who couldn't help themselves. Quicksilver knows about the project and intends to use it to strike back at humanity, citing the Sentinels as reason enough to attack humans. He insists that Wolverine's blood is the key, though hasn't revealed how yet. He does demonstrate the power of Mothervine, showing Jimmy a young woman who, when activated, kills everyone surrounding her with a flesh-eating virus, unaware of what she's doing. Jimmy demands that he stop it and Quicksilver kills her. Jimmy attacks Quicksilver but finds himself outmatched as Quicksilver easily puts him down and contains him, along with Black Box. When Jimmy wakes up, Black Box reveals that he can open the lock to their prison and that the cameras are running on a loop. They decide to go after Quicksilver when he's hopefully not expecting it.
The mini-series is winding down and it shows with this issue. The pacing of this book has been solid, lining everything up well and explaining things when they need to be explained. The four issues give enough time to lay out the plot, explain the plot, give us characters, give us tension and action, and end the story. It's done well here and it gives us a good sense of most characters involved. If I'd say it's lacking anything, it might be a greater understanding of Jimmy Hudson. He's been mostly quiet and, aside from his desire to find out about his past and a quick stop in with his parents, we haven't seen too much about him. Of course, there has to be some amount of sacrifice when you only have four issues and, frankly, Jimmy gets the most screen time outside of this book so it makes sense that revelations about his personality might be few and far between. Quicksilver continues to be an interesting character in the Ultimate Universe, both brutal and horribly efficient while remaining dedicated to his cause. He also shows some regret and a desire for redemption for his past, though maybe his methods aren't the best. I'll be interested to see how this series wraps up. It's been impressive so far.

Wolverine MAX 6
Starr (w) and Ruiz, Jacinto, and Mogorron (a) and Brown (c)

I couldn't help but think back, when I read this issue, to the answer Matt Fraction gave this weekend on his blog about why he was promising not to kill Lucky the pizza dog off in Hawkeye. The asker had wondered if it had anything to do with a threatening email in issue three about killing the dog. Fraction, seemingly genuinely confused about the question, responded that it had nothing to do with that but instead had "everything to do with not wanting to be the hugest hack in the universe." Well good news because from panel two of Wolverine MAX 6, we could pretty much deduce the kind of person who would kill a dog to illustrate a villain. Yes, Wolverine gets a pet dog in this issue (names it Dog and everything) and instantly sets about telling the audience how much he loves her. As someone who loves dogs, the only solace I could take in its death was knowing from the very first word of the comic that it was going to die. Made it easier not to get attached throughout the book. Fraction's not wrong, it's a hack move to create a dog, known for its loyalty and near unwavering love and also for being a dog and not a superhero, and kill it off simply to show that the bad guys are bad. We know they're bad because they're the type of people who would kill a dog. So who are these bad guys? They're tied to a woman that Wolverine meets at the beach and promptly offers to drive around to her various "modeling" jobs. These seem a bit less than wholesome and Wolverine crashes one and attacks a guy who is attempting to rape the woman (who says her name is Candy). Wolverine demands Candy leave with him and they get away, with Candy warning Wolverine that he's angered the wrong people. He finds this out after he drops her off (and doesn't have sex with her, nicely done Wolverine, thanks for avoiding that at least) and returns to his car to find his beloved dog Dog dead. BAD GUYS.
I don't think it's wrong to give Wolverine a dog. After I had seen the dog and decided it was going to die, I thought about it a little more and overall the dog fits with Wolverine. He's dog-like himself, Marvel has never been particularly subtle about that. So I'd be okay with Wolverine having a dog. Like Fraction, though, I'm less okay with giving Wolverine a dog and INSTANTLY killing it to show the bad guys. I'm not sure I would feel better or worse about giving Wolverine a dog and, somewhere down the road a ways, killing it to show off some bad guys as particularly bad. I think it's a step better than what happened here, creating a dog solely so you can kill him, but overall it still has the same taste about it. So I guess my review for this comic boils down to "keep not killing Pizza Dog over in Hawkeye, Fraction. Bang-up job."

Wolverine and the X-Men 27, Ultimate Wolverine 2

Wolverine and the X-Men 27
Aaron (w) and Perez (a) and L. Martin and Milla (c)

After being defeated and tied up by his brother Dog in the last issue, Wolverine spends most of this issue trying to free himself (pretty unsuccessfully) from his constraints. Meanwhile, Dog has unleashed cavemen, cowboys, and robots on the at-risk Jean Grey School students in the Savage Land. The kids all have different causes to think back on things Wolverine told them on the plane ride over; for Evan (Genesis), it's the strength in knowing that you can overcome your upbringing our your destiny. For Sprite, the newly named rocky-skinned, flying student, it's that you don't have to take everything so seriously to be serious. For Shark-Girl, it's that having people to count on doesn't weaken you, it strengthens you. The lessons seem a little trite but it's not so much the lesson that's important, it's the idea of Wolverine giving it. Coming into this arc, he wasn't exactly prime teacher material. He already knew that and all the kids (save maybe Evan) brought on the trip were beginning to believe it too. Now, as they all are able to look back on the advice he gave as they attempt to fight their way through these obstacles, it'll give them a reason to think again. I would expect next issue to see the advice he dispensed to Glob Herman and Eye-Boy, as I think we've already seen his talks with everyone else.
It's a nice bit of character development for everyone. It's particularly necessary to see development from the students who are varied and largely newer student, but it's nice to see the development in Wolverine (however small it may be, given that we already know a fair amount about Wolverine) in the way he handles the students. That's the key to this arc, as demonstrated by Dog's insistence on being the better man and teacher than Wolverine, and the way it's wrapped up will show whether or not the arc worked.  The issue ends with the cavemen, cowboys, and robots deciding to team up against the kids and Dog and Quentin throwing Dog under the bus as he figures out Dog's intent and the fact that it was Dog who displaced everyone from time to bring them here. Quentin starts belittling Dog's plan and Dog, showing his own feral side, snaps and punches Quentin out as the issue concludes. Leaves us in a possibly interesting place going into the next book.

Ultimate Wolverine 2
Bunn (w) and Messina and Erskine (a) and Tartaglia (c)

Jimmy and Black Box make their way to Florida (where one of the research facilities indicated by Wolverine's message lies) and Jimmy makes a quick stop to check in on his parents, the Hudsons. It's a nice little moment as we see the parents actually actively missing Jimmy. He doesn't interact with them or make his presence known and they move on to the facility, which is being watched by Wild Child and a group of security waiting to see if anyone makes a move on the place. Black Box and Jimmy break in and Black Box accesses enough files to understand what Mothervine is. It's essentially a program developed to try to weaponize mutation. This is a plot point that comes up pretty frequently with X-Men books (as it probably would in real life) and maybe even more so in the Ultimate Universe, where it's been discovered that the government created mutants in the first place. Wild Child and his cronies attack, knock out Jimmy, and begin to take Black Box for questioning. Suddenly, everyone in the group (save our heroes) are instantaneously skinned alive. Quicksilver shows up and introduces himself as Jimmy's brother. We get a quick flashback to Wolverine's days trying to take down Mothervine where he runs into (and subsequently makes out with) Magda, Pietro's mother.
I think there are some interesting ideas here and overall the book continues to be solid enough to carry a four book mini-series. Again, I get the distinct sense that it would be overstepping its bounds if it went longer than that so good call by Bunn and Marvel. I did have some trouble with the way both Magda and the sole female member of Wild Child's hit squad were portrayed; Magda appears in a very tight and pretty open outfit with massive breasts and the female security member is the only one on the team who has skin showing. Personal peeve of mine and, as I say in all my Savage Wolverine reviews, I'd prefer it if comics didn't make it so easy for people who find the medium juvenile to prove their points. Otherwise, pretty solid book with a good place to go for the second half of the series. I'll be interested to see what comes of the discovery of Mothervine's true intent and what difference any of it all makes in the long run.