X-Force 9, Wolverine 9

X-Force 6
Spurrier (w) and J. Molina (p) and Yeung (i) and Rosenberg (c) and Petit (l)

Volga's thrown Cable out the window and subsequently exploded him and now has the team trapped and even MeMe, our narrator in this issue, rather trapped in a computer. She seems to be taking Cable's death particularly hard but takes the time to give us a brief rundown on what happened in Alexandria. She had been there, working for Volga, and saw the bomb explode, aiming for mutants, and had seen Cable and Hope affected. Back with Volga in the present, the villain prepares to start experimenting on the surviving team just as Cable and Dr. Nemesis teleport into the room, revealing that Cable has been sending copies of himself into fights as the real Cable, poisoned during the bomb, is in stasis and continually sends his copies out to die while receiving the memories and information they gain in his headband. They escape Volga's grasp and Psylocke again tells MeMe that she has to reveal to Cable who she really is...Hope, piggybacking on the real but brain dead MeMe's powers.

What do I have to tell you people to get you to read this book? Or are you all doing it already? Let me know, okay? Because seriously, it's so great. I explained this whole series to someone today and, even with my babbling summarization (familiar with those?), the book sounded AWESOME. To me, at least. I think the audience I was telling it to was genuinely interested but, you know, babbling. Really great issue and how crazy is it that the reveal of the bomb's real impact and that Cable's been sending copies of himself out into the world while he slowly dies at home AREN'T the biggest reveals. Check this series out.

Total Score: 5/5


Wolverine 9
Cornell (w) and Anka (a) and Curiel (c) and Petit (l)

Wolverine continues to chat with Death while Iron Fist and Shang-Chi fight the Hand outside. Wolverine learns from Death that he's still rather afraid of dying but that he also still has honor and pride and whatever else. He also learns that Sabretooth has Pinch, her daughter, and Lost Boy and he's ready for a rematch.

THE DEATH OF WOLVERINE is looking more and more like a rebranding than an actual, literal death. There's talk in this issue about what a name means and what his name is and other things of that vein. Death also scoffs at the idea she told him he'd die in three months. ANYWAY, I still can't get behind this book. The talk with Death as an actual person continues to not be that compelling to me, particularly as Death just espouses super basic psychology kind of stuff that should absolutely blow no one's mind. Also Rose makes another appearance and his dumb rose tattoo does the same. Hoping his healing power comes back just to get rid of that.

Total Score: 2/5

Punisher 1, Wolverine 1

Punisher 1
Edmondson (w) and Gerads (a and c)

Punisher has moved his operation to the west coast in order to stop some crime out there and to stay off the Avengers radar after things didn't end so well with them on the east coast. He's been out there a little while now and his first major mission is shutting down a drug running ring that ends with a big cartel named Dos Sols. He's made some contacts out in LA too, including an army officer capable of smuggling weapons to him named Tuggs, a young female police officer named Sam, and Louie, a local diner owner. While it seems Tuggs knows Frank's true identity, it's tricky to say whether or not Louie or Sam does (more likely Louie than Sam, who works the Punisher beat). When Frank ends up finding an HQ of Dos Sols and promptly blowing it up, it separates his supporters from his detractors, with some cops, Sam included, lauding him for taking down Dos Sols and some swearing to catch him, including the apparently deputized Howling Commandos.

I had to think about this issue for a while after I read it to try to figure out where I stand on it. Of course, it's kind of a fool's errand to try to figure out where you stand on a series after one issue but we're certainly getting a groundwork to base our future assessment on here. The thing that's most apparent is that Edmondson is very clearly creating a network for Frank to go to, something comprised of people on the ground (like Louie, capable of gossip and someone who supports Punisher because the kinds of crime he sets out to stop are run by criminals who wouldn't fear the Avengers the way they fear the Punisher), people in high arms places (like Tuggs, who seems to genuinely like Frank on top of a clear sympathy to the cause, illustrated by his willingness to smuggle arms out of a military base, an act the discovery of which would ruin him), and cops (like Sam, who has apparently taken a liking to Frank and understands the Punisher's place in the city). In fact, I think probably Frank is the person developed least in this issue but that's got a purpose too: this is still Punisher, the one we've seen for so many years now. Frank Castle wasn't about to come back with some kind of new set of beliefs so why spend too much time establishing what those beliefs are? Good issue and I think that it's more a groundwork laying issue (with some solid action and a couple of kind of fun beats) than many number ones are.

Wolverine 1
Cornell (w) and Stegman and Morales (a) and Curiel (c)

Wolverine is back after getting January off (haha, just kidding, I looked it up and WOLVERINE 13 was less than a month ago) and he's only a couple months removed from the loss of his healing factor and his subsequent beatdown at the hands of Sabretooth. Weeks earlier, he met with Storm to talk about (or distinctly not talk about) his new life as someone who will age and will weaken (if you believe that he's not getting his healing factor back, as he is currently forced to believe). He's averse to using armor and other weaponry at first but then decides he's okay with it and trains with Black Widow on using a sidearm and adopts new armor to protect him. In the present again, he's working with a team comprised of never-before-seen super-powered people named Fuel, Pinch, and Lost Boy to do various jobs for an overseer calling himself "The Offer" because he always makes offers to people that, in a line this book didn't use but very CLEARLY wanted to, they can't refuse. Someone from the Daily Bugle shows up to The Offer, claiming to be a contact from Sabretooth, and finds his life threatened only to be killed by Wolverine.

As I said above, it's a fool's errand to try to figure out where you stand based on the first issue of a book but it's also a little hard to consider this the first issue of a book when it's not even a month removed from the last issue of the book that preceded it and it's written by the same writer telling what boils down to the same story. So all the things I didn't really love about Cornell's "previous" WOLVERINE title are back in force here, including a shoe-horning of support characters who quickly go underdeveloped and an odd almost entirely humorless (not for lack of trying in some cases) protagonist and, frankly, some rather boring dialogue. In this story specifically, we'll have to wait a bit longer as some of the details as to Wolverine's switch from the X-Men to a weird team which headlines with a character named "Lost Boy" whose costume is simply an open hoodie with no shirt on underneath and a big chest tattoo that says "FIGHT EVIL WITH EVIL" become a little more clear, but I'm also going to be a little more willing to write off the series if it has a start so slow. I was hoping Stegman's art would infuse a little life into the book I found so lifeless with Cornell, Farmer, and Davis but I think it will take a little more than that to really get into this one.

Captain America 12, Deadpool 18, Wolverine 10

Captain America 18
Remender (w) and Pacheco and Janson (a) and White and Rosenberg (c)

Cap has burned all his souvenirs from bygone ages and is trying to step forward in his life. Of course, this isn't any sort of easy step. It's harder, even, then being frozen in ice and reawakened because now he's also just in the last day, practically, lost a son and a wife. One of Steve's closest friends, the Falcon, comes to talk with him about it, wanting to get him out of the house. The two move around the city talking until Steve finally cracks and breaks down as much as Steve Rogers can. Meanwhile, we find out that Nuke has been set loose on the world (in plenty of places where America has lost soldiers) by someone who apparently abhors America (unbeknownst to Nuke, though much is unbeknownst to Nuke) and  who seems to have mystical powers all his own.

The story for the arc is certainly still coming. The intrigue of Nuke and the former SHIELD agent who hates America and its capitalist ways and has powers borne from some mystical dragon is very present in this issue, if still rather unexplained, but that's, for the second straight issue, not our focus with Steve. And I don't blame the book for it. Steve went through 16 issues of just about the worst things that have ever happened to him. Of course, in those ten years in Dimension Z, some truly wonderful things happened to him, mostly to do with him and Ian, but he was fighting a horrible and seemingly impossible to defeat overlord and it culminated in the death of the two people closest to him and in returning to a world he no longer recognizes hot on the heels of those deaths. Let's give him a couple issues to let some of that emotion out. These are really difficult issues for Cap and this one perhaps even more so than the last. He's got a lot going on and it's, to Remender and Pacheco's credit, very evident and palpable here. It hurts to watch Cap go through what he's going through, the rock of the Marvel Universe so shaken to his core by what's happened. You may know Cap is the unflappable leader of the Avengers without even really realizing it. I've read plenty of Captain America and seen him at low points, needing to gather himself or needing to let the fear and doubt and tragedy out of him but this, right here and now, still resonates on a different level. It's a powerful issue for Cap, who is at his lowest right now, and (segue) he's not the only character feeling that way at the moment.

Deadpool 18
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Shalvey (a) and Bellaire (c)

Deadpool, Cap, and Wolverine are leading the North Korean experiment mutants out of the camp and are on pace to try to save their families from destruction at the hands of the North Koreans. It's not an easy task but they at least have the upper hand in terms of powers and, at least briefly, the element of surprise. They plan their strike and move and, surprisingly, it goes rather well. They manage, in no small part thanks to Deadpool, to decimate the army on-hand and rescue the surviving family members, though there are plenty who were killed even before this strike. Deadpool realizes, despite Wolverine's attempts to get him to stay back, that his baby's mother and, quite probably, his baby are among that number. It shatters Deadpool, who went into the fight more serious than, as Wolverine commented, we've seen him and who was perhaps more dedicated to the fight than ever before. The issue ends with Deadpool pronouncing this all his fault and crying over the loss of his family.

It's a tough issue for Deadpool and, as this arc continues to show, pretty strong writing and ideas. There are jokes that are well-timed, there are fun bits to the action that keep this firmly in the "This is a Deadpool book" camp, but it all cedes to an emotional core for the book. Gone are the non-stop terrible jokes and references, gone are the ineffectual crude jokes and baseline humor tactics, gone are the meaningless support and villainous characters this book has often found itself littered with (though Preston is still kicking around; more on that in a minute). In its place is a smart and thoughtful book that knows when to put in jokes and knows when to keep jokes out of the way. I think I may have talked about this before but I certainly can't be bothered to look that up to confirm so I'll say it again, Preston remains a weak point for the book. She's filling the same sort of role in Deadpool's mind that the loose Peter Parker consciousness filled in the first several issues of Superior Spider-Man; she's saying things we totally expect her to say when we don't need those things to be said. Peter would see Doc Ock doing something morally ambiguous in his body and would start saying over and over "oh come on, don't do that, I would never do that," a sentiment that the audience was well-aware of. This is much the same case, where Preston is saying things right along those lines only to be ignored by Deadpool or even for him to consent but in a way where I honestly believe he would have consented without her needing to say anything. I think her inclusion here slows down what is otherwise a truly very good issue though, in truth, this issue is strong enough and her role so limited that it still stands well in spite of her. Also some more great Declan Shalvey art.

Wolverine 10
Cornell (w) and A. Davis and M. Farmer (a) and Hollingsworth (c)

Wolverine is still on the trail of Sabretooth, which has led him to the place where he was born, now a strip mall, while Fury and SHIELD work with the Host to try to counteract the Virus' effects. One of Wolverine's unnecessary supporting characters (back from when we met them all at the bar way back when) has apparently created a sort of filter to keep the Virus out but it's a limited range and their too expensive and difficult to produce en masse and so they're only being used by the supporting characters, SHIELD, and heads of state. Fury, who is working with the Host to try to find some sort of way to stop the Virus, asks the Host if there's anything she can do to reverse what the Virus did to Wolverine. The Host admits there isn't but says that the Virus might be able to (bet that won't come up again) if it was so inclined. Meanwhile, Wolverine and Kitty have investigated the mall and, while trying to get the security guards to clear out, watch as Sabretooth's small branch of the Hand, Mystique, Lord Deathstrike, and the Silver Samurai enter the mall to close in around them. Up on the helicarrier, SHIELD has realized that the Virus is launching its full attack and that it's much more widespread than they thought, already beginning to infect the globe.

Hopefully this set up yields results as we have what will have to be a rather fast-paced and action-packed conclusion coming up on this arc (we're on part three of six so maybe it will be a little drawn out, rather like this series as a whole). Still, we find Wolverine still being awfully cautious for the first time in...ever, and we see the Virus putting its plans into motion. There are some books where a ten issue+ arc feels right (like in Captain America, Young Avengers, and, to perhaps a lesser extent, Thor), like the book has still moved extremely well and the story was ultimately worth telling. In this case, it feels like we've gotten maybe six issues combined of story out of ten physical issues. That's not even necessarily because of the ideas; there's a virus that's essentially possessing people inhabiting the Earth and which has made Wolverine susceptible to injury, which has spun off into its own story which, in all likelihood, will tie back into the virus story. That's plenty of story for ten books. Cap got more than ten really great issues out of one prolonged fight with Zola. Still, the pacing and the writing feels slow which makes the story feel lethargic. I feel like it's gotten a little better as we've introduced more compelling characters with more compelling reasons to be there (throwing Kitty in alongside Wolverine helps because we see the impact he's had on people and we get to see the little quirks of his being mortal from an outside perspective) but this book still feels like it's been around for a long time, and not in a good, it feels classic sort of way. It's more like "good god, this story is still going, isn't it?" kind of way. Not really where you want to be ten issues in.