Comic Book Review: Wolverine #1

I had my hopes that when ‘Wolverine’ #13 was brought to a close that we’d be going somewhere good. I REALLY wanted that to be the case even though I clearly didn’t think it would happen. So now we’re starting off the issue with Logan running on the wrong side of the law, a new outfit, new body armor, and a new darker outlook.

How does it stack up? Well… Let’s take a look.

We see in the book that Wolverine is now working for a low level crime lord and is on a mission to break out a ninja from the hand that apparently works for Sabertooth. He’s partnered with three other low powered super beings, one of which he’s in love with. Visually I was excited for the book because Stegman knows hows to draw Wolverine as a bloodthirsty mercenary. Right off the bat my hopes went up. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay there for long.

My major complaint about this title is what I feared would be. It doesn’t fit into continuity for either how they’ve developed the character or how he works with the rest of the Marvel Universe. There appears to be no plans to take him off of ‘The Avengers’ and they are about to be giving ‘Wolverine and the X-Men’ the ‘NOW!’ treatment so it’s not going anywhere. Unless this is an extremely short mini-series or story arc that falls in between NOW, it just doesn’t fit with the rest of the stories we’re getting told. I get that he’s lost his healing factor. I get that he’s been beaten within an inch of his life. Hell, I would have even found the story somewhat enjoyable if it wasn’t Wolverine. It just doesn’t fit here.

The team works well together and he’s apparently messing around with one of his teammates, doing a fastball special with another, and getting power enhancements from the last. They clearly make it feel as if the four have been working together for awhile so the months that have supposedly gone by between issues feels realistic.

The book ends with Wolverine apparently killing an innocent reporter who was trying to find out why Logan has turned evil with one of his shiny new guns.

My only guess on how they could swing this as making sense is that he’s just doing this undercover to track down Sabertooth and the murder is being faked. Even that feels far fetched considering he has full access to the entire superhero community to be able to get these details.

So what are my complaints aside from continuity? Well he’s supposedly off of the X-Men and his outfit is a giant X. His weapon of choice right now is to use guns which as a Samurai seems out of touch with who he’s become (specially since he had to take shooting lessons from Black Widow and his entire back story should make him familiar with guns.)

The action, art, and the fact the Superior Spider-Man is in the second issue will have me coming back for more but not happily.