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Beginning of the End (For Now): The Death of Wolverine (Part 1 of 4) Review
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| Image Credit: Marvel |
Ah, comic book death. It’s perhaps the only thing more
dysfunctional than the United States Congress. And with approval ratings to
match, if the Comic Book Resources forum for this arc is to be believed. Look,
let’s just get it out of the way at the start of this review: this book will
not be considered good or bad based on any alleged “changes to the status quo.”
Because Marvel is not going to permanently kill off one of their most popular
characters. If they did, they certainly wouldn’t announce it months ahead of
time, because that’s just played out at this point. No, The Death of Wolverine is going to be a four issue series
celebrating the character before a very brief retirement in the underworld.
Yeah, underworld, because there’s no way Logan’s going to get past security in
the pearly gates (Don’t take my word for it, check out Amazing X-Men’s first arc!). How brief probably depends on how
well Fox’s next X-Men films do—if they’re doing good, Marvel won’t keep him
sidelined when they could reap rewards indirectly from the crosspromotion. If
they’re doing badly, no reason to pull him back out when there’s a hope Fox
finally crashes and burns and gives them the license back so soon.
So how can a comic storyline make something that has been
trivialized through the decades actually interesting and heartfelt? I don’t
know, but if this first issue of The
Death of Wolverine is any indication, we might at least have an action
packed sendoff for the adamantium clawed badass.
The story opens in
media res, with Logan collapsed due to injuries that can no longer heal.
While there isn’t a handy summary page explaining this, the previous arc is
outlined pretty well by exposition a few pages later. After we see Logan pass
over about a dozen dead dudes, all loaded for bear and wearing fancy armor. So
basically another day in the life of the Wolverine.
From here we flash back to Reed Richards giving Logan a
terminal diagnosis. Though he’s not sure exactly what will end up killing Logan, he knows that all the radiation
Logan has absorbed throughout the years is slowly working its way through his
now vulnerable cells. The fact that he drags all sorts of bacteria in and out
of his body whenever he uses his claws is also of little help to his non
healing body. Reed’s official diagnosis is that he can fix Logan and restore
his healing factor if Logan would only stop doing what he does best for a while
and take it easy. But to Logan, that’s just inviting the bad guys to go crazy.
Turns out, Logan’s more right than the Fantastic Four’s own genius, because the
rest of the issue pushes the idea of a “hit” being put out on Logan.
We jump back to after the opening pages and see Logan get a
drink from a pub and has a conversation with a friend about some decidedly not
friendly people looking for him. He gives the bartender a warning and leaves.
It only takes a day for said unfriendlies to show up, led by the always polite
Nuke. Well, always polite when he’s not twisting your shotgun into knots. The
barkeep gives the location Logan gave him originally, marked on a map saying
“Come On Then, You Cowards!” So in other words, he didn’t get Mr Fantastic’s
memo that he shouldn’t invite the trouble.
The Death of Wolverine
uses the next few pages to show off Logan’s cunning and preparation, as Nuke
and his henchman raid the location given to them by the bartender, only to find
a booby trapped boat, piranha infested waters, and, after Nuke finally gets to
shore all by his lonesome, a dozen dead soldiers from various organizations.
Logan’s basically had a party, and Nuke seems to be the current guest of honor.
They immediately mix it up, and Steve McNiven’s deftly drawn figures capture
the full brutality of their throwdown, with face breaking headbutts and full
body throws. It’s a quick skirmish, but the inclusion of text boxes, colored to
reflect a specific sensory input, adds a new dimension to the fight. White text
explodes within a red colored box representing pain.
“EVERYWHERE.” A pretty
simple message, but one much more likely to have been handled with a couple
sentences of narration previously, is delivered with this single box. By the
time all’s said and done, Nuke is willing to tell Wolverine about the bounty put
on his head. The reward value decreases the longer Logan is free. And by free,
I mean free. Whoever put the bounty on Logan wants him. Alive. Logan warns him
that he’s the last person who will be allowed to walk away, so he can give the
others his warning. From now on, the Wolverine is loose. He’s not taking
prisoners. He’ll kill everyone who comes after him. He then gets to his real
question, who put the bounty on his head. It allegedly came out of Madripoor.
From Viper.
And so ends the first issue of Wolverine’s most pivotal arc.
All told, the story has a promising start, capturing the essence of Wolverine
by literally having him fight to the death on a deserted island. No way will
anyone be confusing Logan for a friendly school teacher any time soon. Regardless
of how long Logan’s impending death stands, or if it even happens in a way that
we expect (some people are speculating Logan’s just going to drop the name
Wolverine, or have his memories wiped), engaging with the core of the character
and returning him to his roots for this four issue miniseries is certain to be
entertaining.
8.0/10
Read It Like a Fox:
- You want to see a Wolverine story that puts him back to his roots: AKA, an incredibly violent badass who doesn’t work well with others.
- Amazing double page spreads depicting death and destruction, and brutally realistic fight scenes excite you.
- Short hairy guys do it for you. Hey, if it works for Storm…
Duck It:
- You’d rather get the trade after he comes back from the dead.
- You prefer to jump in after all the setup and exposition.
- You know X-Men through the Fox films and you can’t go back to Wolverine being a short stack of a man. Not that there’s anything wrong with being short. (There is…. Trust me, I know…. L)
"I Don't Have a Home" Black Widow #3 Review
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| Image Credit: Marvel |
The third issue--titled "Foliage"-- opens similarly to preceding books. Natasha's narration outlines her feelings about her home, or lack thereof. A home comes with distractions. Like the cute black cat that keeps scratching at her door (we now have a name, Liho!). Natasha's neighbor also notices the little furball and shows up at Natasha's door stoop, ostensibly to remind her not to feed the strays. But she's sporting a noticeable bruise, and the conversation soon turns from black cats to black eyes as Natasha reminds the woman, Ana, she should leave her husband. Unfortunately, Ana does have a home. This theme of not wanting to leave a home when you've got it, and not being able to find one if you don't already have one returns later in the issue. For now, the issue slides into the "espionage of the month."
Black Widow has been tasked with retrieving a wrongfully convicted man in Argentina. Angelo, the man she's tasked with rescuing, is only half thrilled when Widow shows up, convinced she's not up to the task. Much like me going into this review, he's pleasantly surprised. Widow tries to keep it all business and not let thoughts of Ana and her abusive husband enter her mind as she guides Angelo through the prison and into the wilds of the surrounding jungle. As usual, this little spy vs. wishes-they-were-spies segment is wonderfully crafted. Widow's narration explains her incredible skill at blending in with her surroundings and becoming one with the environment as a side effect of her not having a place where she belongs. More beautifully put: "It is the unreachable truth to belong anywhere. The other edge of that is the unfortunate truth: you must first belong nowhere."
Several nonlethal takedowns later and Widow gets her escapee to his helicopter. It's here where the issue offers the obligatory twist-- Angelo isn't actually just a wrongfully accused schmuck, but instead he's got a past as a butcher... of people. Without getting into the hairy details, Black Widow makes an executive decision and throws him off the copter mid flight. She goes down with him, but when they land in the crocodile infested waters below her shiv givers her an edge. After all, crocodiles prefer their prey bleeding and weakened, so a nice stab wound to the gut is just what it takes to get their motors running.
The crocodile gets a nice meal, and Natasha Romanov gets to go home feeling satisfied she didn't help a vile murderer escape prison. I doubt she missed a wink of sleep on her comfy bed in her Buenos Aires safehouse. Said safehouse is where she calls our favorite lawyer/BAMF assistant, Isaiah, who tells her Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D. is itching to have a talk with her. The tease of a Ukrainian embassy official in danger is good, but the real reason this issue is so amazing is the closing moments in Natasha Romanov's life. The final three pages consist of Natasha returning home and storming over to her neighbor Ana's home. More poignant narration ensues, this time about how home is less a physical place and more a psychic pain, and soon Ana's husband gets some physical pain as Natasha confronts him. Things go as you'd expect, and man is it wonderful to see this guy get a beatdown. And I'm not saying that because of the art. Well, not just because of the art. Seriously, the aesthetic that Noto has created is perfectly intact. Lots of attention to detail is sprinkled through the muddily colored panels, and the red outlining continues to invigorate the action scenes.
The real hero, though, is those last few pages. Now lots of comics have the werewithal to tackle a hard issue like spousal abuse, but despite generally being well meaning, you're likely to see it sloppily slipped into the tail end of a story where the abuse victim is a hopeless caricature and the hero fixes her life by throwing the guy in jail, or some other melodramatic aesop handled with all the originality of a Lifetime original movie or an afterschool special. While Black Widow at first glance may seem to repeat the first trope mentioned above (after all, Widow does deck the guy), it quickly veers into uncharted territory by Natasha not bothering to do anything other than advise Ana to leave. Not because she doesn't care, but because she understands that it's not always so easy to leave your home.
The theme of the entire issue-- what makes a home-- is brought full circle by Ana's silent shame as Natasha exits her home. The same place where a man beat her for months or even years. Natasha's beatdown is, in a lot of ways, her way of trying to fix Ana's home, and maybe even make herself feel like she's got a home she can go back to. But deep down she knows she doesn't have any such place. Just like Ana, she's good at making herself feel safe in a world where hundreds or thousands of people want her dead and where every little victory is overshadowed by the thousands of sins she's previously committed. But there's solace in the closing moments of the issue, when Natasha realizes that even without a permanent home, she's still got a place to go back to rest and regroup. A place to feel marginally safe in her crazy world. And really, isn't that something we can all relate to?
9.5/10
Fox Prints:
- I hope Ana is promoted to regular. We need more solid characters in Natasha's human life, since we've got Isaiah in her spy world.
- So we got a drop in from the rest of the world, but I'm super glad it was Maria Hill instead of someone more... cartoony, for lack of a better word. This series isn't super realistic or anything, but it would be the kind of book where an Iron Man or Hulk could throw a wrench in the darker tone.
- The Letters Page is now titled "To Russian with Love." I approve.
“That’s My Fourth Mistake. But I’m Done Counting For Today” Black Widow #2 Review
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| Image Credit: Marvel |
For all the hype surrounding Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto’s splendid Black Widow solo series, it seems like it’s going to slide into being
harmlessly good fun instead of something that really transcends the medium. If
this second issue of Natasha Romanov’s ongoing title is the template for future
issues, then there’s nothing particularly exciting about the series.
This issue concerns Natasha taking a job for an old
friend who’s searching for his missing comrade, later revealed to be his son. The old friend, known only as “Mr.
Lin,” is an old Chinese man whose unknown connection to Natasha makes him see her as the perfect candidate for a hunt and rescue mission. Widow naturally tracks Mr. Lin's son's location to a boat and heads in to rescue him from his kidnappers. Only it
turns out to be a setup by the brother of one of her past targets. Meanwhile
Isaiah, Black Widow’s lawyer and money manager, is confronted by a mysterious businessman
who is trying to track down the Black Widow. Isaiah refuses him the information
without a subpoena, and has one of his workers put a bug in the man’s car as he
exits.
Meanwhile in China, after finding Mr. Lin dead, Black Widow
finally confronts the man who set her up: the Iron Scorpion. Apparently he had
a brother originally known by this name and, six years ago, Black Widow assassinated
him. But not before he pulled the trigger on some poor sop because she
hesitated behind her sniper rifle. Widow makes it clear she doesn’t regret killing Iron Scorpion's brother, though she kind of wishes she hadn't hesitated. That
particular comment leads to an expertly illustrated action sequence ending with a
grievously injured Iron Scorpion escaping.
Widow returns to New York and gets an earful from Isaiah for
her trouble. Of course, Isaiah has had a rough day as well, since he had to
take out a consortium of goons discussing kidnapping and/or murdering him to
get under Natasha’s skin. I’m pretty sure he’s the best lawyer in the history
of lawyers. Then again, all lawyers are probably proficient at murder...
The issue closes with Natasha wearily reflecting on the day’s
tactical errors, and, determined not to continue with the string of mistakes,
turning the black cat she fed in the previous issue away. It’s all a well organized,
tension filled romp, but it’s hardly the kind of thing that’ll make you look
twice. The issue’s theme—Natasha’s bad judgment when it comes to helping people
she cares about—isn’t fully explored. We see her make a series of mistakes and
errors in judgment, but she never really sees the negative consequences. Unless
you count the flesh wound she receives while facing down the Iron Scorpion. Indeed the fact that the Iron Scorpion was such a bad dude immediately eliminates any sympathy for his brother, and it's understandable that a younger Natasha would hesitate before taking him out. The
art continues to be amazing, however, with the light red outlines perfectly
complimenting the soft colors. The muddied aesthetic and light colors are striking in the best possible way. As for story issues, well, the book is only just getting started
so it certainly has room to become something more memorable, but for now it’s
an enjoyable dive into the world of our favorite ex-KGB heroine without the ingenuity or excitement needed to make it a true hit.
8.0/10
Fox Prints:
- The esoteric narration Natasha provides throughout the issue is very reminiscent of one of my favorite spy shows of recent years-- Burn Notice.
- The most intriguing thing about this series continues to be its hesitation on incorporating the larger Marvel Universe. Isaiah is a whole new character, and so is Iron Scorpion. Aside from some name dropping you would scarcely believe this was a comic starring a part-time Avenger.
- That said, assuming some other well known characters drop by the series, who would you like to see? I personally would love a Daredevil-Black Widow team up; Daredevil has had a very enjoyable run so far and Matt would be the perfect person to help lighten Natasha up.
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