Wolverine and the X-Men Vol. 1 (comic)

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artists: Chris Bachalo, Nick Bradshaw
Collects: Wolverine and the X-Men #1-4

You'll recall in my review of Schism that I named this the book I was looking forward to the most out of anything. Funnily enough, I ended up reading the Uncanny X-Men relaunch first. I didn't review it - I've yet to decide if I want to - and in case I don't bother the short version is Cyclops and his not-so-merry band of X-Men continue to be stuck too far up their own asses. This comic is the exact opposite; it's funny, visually interesting, packed with great characters and never dull.

It's the X-Men book I've been waiting a long time for.

The setup will be familiar to almost anyone; we're back on the school grounds again, arguably where the X-Men belong. Schism surprisingly plays more of a role here than it did in Uncanny. The Kid Helfire Club - who you'll recall orchestrated everything that happened in Schism - decide it would be pretty funny if Logans new school blew up on the first day. So they blow it up on the day the board of education is visiting the school to evaluate. Hilarity ensues. Also Krakoa is involved. This all takes place in the first three issues, I remind you. The fourth issue is a standalone bridging our introductory arc and what comes next.

At first I felt Jason Aaron got the raw deal out of the split, with most of the power players sticking with boring Scott and his sinking island, but as it turns out he got the better end of the bargain. His eclectic group of mutants immediately proves themselves an engaging group, even as it becomes clear they're way out of their depth. The new kids are endearing and the old favorites are just as great. Everything simply works right from the first issue.

You can probably imagine my delight when I found out Chris Bachalo was on art duties. Turns out, he manages three issues before we need a fill in. But they are three stylish, visually striking issues. His exagerrated, animated style works perfect for a book like this; there are a couple of panels that aren't entirely clear in their storytelling, but they end up being minor issues in an otherwise beautiful book. Nick Bradshaw is also a strong artist in his own right and if he's the guy they have in mind for trading off art duties with Bachalo I'll have no complaints.

But there's just one other problem that has nothing to do with the contents themselves. The issue count. They want fifteen dollars SRP for four issues. This is quickly becoming standard at Marvel and it's starting to work on my last nerve. Once in a while is fine, but deliberately splitting stories or putting in a low issue count just to get more money out of the consumer is just low. I'm even more annoyed this time, because this is a series I'm buying rather than borrowing from the library.

The Score: 9 out of 10

If you are an X-Men fan and you don't like this book, I can only conclude that you either hate fun or are one of those odd souls that prefer King Cyclops and his team of villains.

Wolverine: Old Man Logan (comics)

Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Steve McNiven
Collects: Wolverine #66-72, Wolverine: Old Man Logan Giant Sized

Hey, look, it's a project by that king of all hucksters, Mark Millar! Even more shocking, it's, GASP, pretty good without relying on shock and awe gross-em-out tactics. Miracles CAN happen, folks!

Anything with Millars name tends to draw a lot of attention - usually for all the wrong reasons - and several years back this was one of those projects Marvel was making a big deal about. The hype was certainly saying all the right things to reel me in; Mad Max style future starring Wolverine as a Clint Eastwood-in-Unforgiven style character with completely off the wall changes? Sold.

Still, it's a Millar project - and I may have mentioned I'm not really a fan - so I took my sweet ass time in getting around to it.

It's good, though. Millar delivered what was promised; we get a pretty crazy buddy cop adventure with Wolverine and Hawkeye rolling through the desert to the other side of the country. See, Wolverines landlords are dicks and he needs money or else they'll eat his family. Wolverine won't pop his claws - which he's sure to remind us way too often - because of an event in the past, so he needs to get out of the situation another way; so he teams up with Hawkeye, the two roll around in the Spider-Mobile, the Hulk has a whole family of inbred hillbilly Hulks and holy crap is that a Venom dinosaur?

Millar throws every crazy idea he has at the wall and no lie, it makes the book a page turner, even if the overall plot is a bit thin. There's something enticing about these kinds of stories, where you want to see more and more of this f***ed up world and you want to know how it got this way. Putting a wild twist on the familiar is always a good way to drive interest up, which is why these "warped future" stories tend to work so well. Besides, it's just freaking creepy - in a good way - to see something like the Red Skull, now President of his quarter of the US, dressed in Captain Americas costume with a trophy room of items collected from the dead heroes.

It's not all roses, however; with Millar, it never is. Spoiler warning for this paragraph. The way we get to the final fight is a little too obvious, frankly. We know that by the end, Logan will be back to his old self again in some fashion. It's just obvious. Also obvious is the way it's finally accomplished, as it's one of those plot points that you can see coming a mile away. So why Millar went with it, I couldn't tell you. I'd have been much more shocked if he'd gone another way.

Also disappointing is that Mark Millar recycled the premise of his creator owned work "Wanted" for this one. You know, the whole "all the villains joined forced, defeated the heroes and took over the world" bit. The only reason that really worked there is because - despite the fact that ninety percent of the characters were based on Marvel and DC heroes - they were his own characters in a world he owned. Outside of that, it doesn't hold water.

We're told something about there being "twenty villains for every hero" or something, which - if it were true - might make for a hell of a fight for our heroes. But think about this for more than five minutes and it breaks apart. Most heroes - especially at Marvel - don't have a rogues gallery to speak of. Sure, Spider-Man has about thirty villains - not all of them of note - but Cloak and Dagger are lucky if they have one. The Marvel Universe in particular is also very team focused - Avengers, Runaways, Fantastic Four, X-Men, etc. - and the more expansive rogues galleries tend to be attacked to these even bigger teams.

There isn't twenty villains for every hero. There isn't even ten. If we're being honest, there are probably more heroes at Marvel than villains and a good quarter of the villain total are completely lame. We're not even going to get into the experience most heroes have with fighting - and beating - all these villains.

One last sour note that relates to the villains - another spoiler alert here - the big mystery of the book is what screwed Wolverine up so badly that he gave up fighting, but the event in question is flawed. Make no mistake, being conned into slaughtering people you held dear works as a reason. I can believe that would screw with Logan enough to do this. That's not the problem.

The problem is that this all hinges on... Mysterio. The guy whose shtick involves parlor tricks and mere illusions. A human without much more than some experience in Hollywood effects somehow manages to not only make Wolverine see other beings as known villains - like, for example, Omega Red or Bullseye - but to make the body language mimic said villains, make him think they're using the weapons of those villains and to somehow make Logans super evolved senses - including smell - detect them as those villains.

An effects dude who does little more than annoy Spider-Man on occasion somehow does this. Without magic or powers. Anyone else seeing a problem here?

Despite those glaring issues, this is still a good read. It moves at a brisk pace, despite being seven full issues and a giant sized special. Despite the fact that I wanted to know more about the world than was given, I have to give Millar credit for not overloading us with details. He keeps the adventure moving and provides enough thrills and banter to keep you entertained. Despite the plot holes and logic problems, I'd say this is one of Millars better written projects. It's some pretty good fun, which is the kind of Millar writing I prefer, but rarely get.

Steve McNiven provides the visuals and he handles whatever Millar throws at him. This is a tall order. There's a lot of crazy ideas floating around this world they've given us. A lesser artist would not have been able to handle the kind of shit we see here and the book would have been ruined because of it. McNiven pulls it off without a hitch. His work really puts this book over the top and helps keep you from thinking on certain events too much.

The Score: 8 out of 10

Despite the issues I've mentioned, this book is still a lot of fun as long as you don't think too hard on some of the plot twists. It's probably the most I've enjoyed a Millar book since Wanted, at least; maybe even as far back as when he worked with Grant Morrison. Well worth a purchase, if you ask me. The ending sets things up for a sequel; I hope we get it at some point.

Seige: X-Men (comics)

Writers: Daniel Way, Marjorie Liu, Kieron Gillen
Artists: Giuseppe Camuncoli, Niko Henrichon
Collects: Dark Wolverine #82-84, New Mutants #11, Siege: Storming Asgard - Heroes and Villains

So, from the long, not so proud tradition of useless tie-ins comes Siege: X-Men, a volume as pointless as the name is misleading. That whole X-Men thing? Might want to ignore it. This volume has only tangential ties to the X franchise, with only one issue of the four collected having anything to do with them. It should have been labeled a Dark Wolverine volume, but then I doubt anyone would have bought it.

So, three issues of Dark Wolverine in here; this is in some ways my introduction to Wolverines son Daken. Not exactly the best one. The whole of the "story" is that Daken dicks around Asgard for three issues while the siege occurs, occasionally finding some chicks of fate trying to lead him to bringing about Ragnarok. That's pretty much it.

Such could be an interesting story, but here's the thing; absolutely nothing happens in the course of these three issues. Nothing. We just see Daken douching it up, getting blown up occasionally, making team-mates uncomfortable and having occasional visions of the future from the fate chicks that lead nowhere and carry no consequence. This three issue tie-in isn't even an actual story; absolutely nothing of consequence happens, Daken is in the same place he started in at the end - because, you know, any instance where something goes badly for him turns out to be a vision of the possible future - and I couldn't discern any ongoing storyline for the character - other than the fact that he's just a prick and at some point he needs to get his comeuppance - so I don't even think it serves to advance anything at all.

As for Daken himself, I'm not sure what to think of him as a leading man. He is a douchebag of the highest caliber and if he has any redeeming qualities, I sure as hell didn't see them. When friggin Bullseye seems the sanest person around - to the point where he's the only one of the two of them even remotely concerned about the wellfare of the men under their command - something is seriously wrong. There isn't even any personal plot I can see to get attached to; apparently he's positioning everyone for a backstabbing, but other than occasionally mumbling about wanting to be a god we don't get a sense of what he wants to accomplish and how he plans to do it. I'm not adverse to villain centric comics at all, but I at least expect them to have a general idea of where the hell they're going, which this volume gave no indication of.

I'm left completely unsure of whether I even want to give the Dark Wolverine series the most remote of shots in trade. That might seem harsh to some, but consider this. The whole point of a tie-in is not to tell a great story within the framework of an event. That's what we want out of them - and certainly the comic companies would prefer we get them, since it's better for them in the long run - but a tie-in to an ongoing is usually to boost sales. They're hoping that someone, maybe looking for more action related to the ongoing event, will pick up a tie-in to a series they wouldn't spare a glance at otherwise, like what they see, get invested in the characters ongoing plots and stay on board.

As a tie-in, the Dark Wolverine issues fail on even the most basic levels; and it doesn't deliver on any others either. The art is the sole saving grace. As seems usual for me lately, I'm not familiar with Camuncoli, but the work speaks for itself. It's a bit... looser, for lack of a better word, than I'm used to, but the facial expressions are quite nice and some interesting use of panels can be found. This is the only good thing I can say about these issues, other than some decent dialogue and the fact that it's not an unreadable mess.

The only other actual comic collected is the New Mutants issue and it's the only thing in the book with the most remote tie to the X-Men. It doesn't deal with the whole team, though; only Dani Moonstar. It picks up on a plot point from a previous X-Men tale, where Dani made a deal with Hela - of Norse mythologies Hel - to get the power of a Valkyrie for a day, as per Cyclops plan. But bargains with creatures like Hela never come without a price and now the favor is being called in. Amidst the Siege, the fallen cannot move on to their afterlife, so Dani is trusted to be their guide. This doesn't go as planned, because of course Dani would rather save lives first before tending to those already dead.

It's a relatively solid one issue tie - a hell of a lot better than Dark Wolverine - with some really nice art. Niko Henrichon's style seems at home in the sort of granduer of Norse mythology, enough so that I might be interested in seeing it on a Thor book itself. The work seems to lack some heavy inking, which combined with the style gives it an interesting look I'm not sure I've seen too often outside of some work associated with the Fables franchise over at DC's Veritigo imprint.

Still, it's one good issue out of four; and good as it is, it's not worth picking up this volume alone; I'd sooner go out and get the back issue of it and I really don't deal in single issues much.

The only other thing collected is one of those books that gives out bios for important characters in a coming story. Marvel puts these out every once in a while, usually whenever an event is scheduled to hit. I guess they're Marvel's version of Secret Files. An okay read - one that does a fair job of getting you caught up on recent events with the main players - but it's of more use to people who want to read Siege itself. What's it's doing here, I haven't a clue. Best guess is that it was thrown in to pad out the volume, because for an X-Men tie-in volume the X-Men had jack all to do with Siege, so there wasn't much else to collect.

The Score: 5.5 out of 10

Put a wide berth between this volume and you. The only reason I even gave it a score this high is because I liked the New Mutants issue and the art was pretty good. But most of the volume fails as a tie-in, it fails as a story and it fails to do anything. It's not worth getting at all. Save your money and leave this trade on the shelf.

Wolverine (comics)

Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Frank Miller
Trade Collects: Wolverine #1-4, Uncanny X-Men #172-173

If there's one comic team that's weathered the years, it's the X-Men. Writer Chris Claremonts run on the X-Men spanned almost two full decades, taking the group to places and levels of popularity it had never seen before. Prior to the relaunch with the "All New, All Different X-Men", the group was like the red headed stepchild of the Marvel Universe. Of all Stan Lee's creations, this was the one that just didn't catch on, ending up canceled instead of becoming the almost instant icons other creations were. But Chris Claremont changed that, shaping the team into what would become a phenomenon and long running franchise that continues to this day.

One of the most popular aspects of this run was the Wolverine character. Back in the early days, he was nowhere near the exposure he receives now; he was just one side character in a cast that contained several. But he was one of the most popular of any X-Men and eventually it led to a mini. Chris Claremont, as he states in the trades introduction, wanted to break Wolverine down, looking to build him back up into something better than he had been before the story.

Mission accomplished.

This is the story that established one of the greatest tropes of Wolverine stories; his strong connection to Japan and it's mythos. After returning from a hunt for a renegade bear, Wolverine finds that his letters to Mariko Yashida, a woman he met in earlier issues of Uncanny X-Men and fell in love with, had been returned without explanation. A phone call reveals she has gone back to Japan, so Wolverine follows. Despite being warned away, he presses on, only to find the love of his life has married a man she does not love out of loyalty and honor for her family, including her corrupt father.

When, heartbroken, Wolverine tries to leave, said father has him captured; Mariko's father seeks to battle him and show his daughter that the man she loves is not worthy. In the midst of battle, Wolverine loses his composure, popping his claws and reverting to a berserker rage that he is chided as more animal than man for; despite his formidable fighting skills, Wolverine is soundly defeated and disgraced, his honor and self worth quickly a memory. From there, he must rebuild himself, waging a war of honor to prove himself worthy and win back the woman he loves, as well prove once and for all that he is not an animal, but a man. It's the tale of a failed samurai risen up to claim what he deserves.

As far as Wolverine stories go, the story told in this mini is a definitive classic, even to this day. Wolverine, for the first time the leading man of a story all his own, is humanized in a way few stories can ever manage. His plight is one of loss and personal strife, not entirely physical, and you are brought to care about him through the course of the tale. It was Wolverine as he'd never been seen before and from that point on, he started to become the backbone of the X-Men. This tale hd expanded and changed the character forever; hell, it was even the series to introduce one of his best known phrases, "I'm the best at what I do, and what I do isn't very nice".

On the subject of love interest Mariko Yashida, I must admit that I love the character already amongst Logans many loves. She was arguably his greatest love of all the women he's been with, which shines through. She's bound to honor and duty; Wolverines love and longing for her bring about change to the man in ways other love interests have not. She's perfect in this tale of honor, shame, love and pure mayhem. That's a good bit of praise for me.

For the most part, the tale holds up beautifully and I suspect it always will. This was Chris Claremont when he was on the top of his game; modern Chris Claremont sometimes has similar problems to Stan Lee's modern stories in that the scripts are overly talky and over explain everything. This story is in stark contrast; back then Claremont knew when to pipe down and let the art tell the story. Everything is top notch in regards to the writing, the story ending as strongly as it begins. It's not hard to see why Japan became such a strong presence in the years to come once you read this story; it's a place Wolverine works very well in and is often rife for drama.

As for the art? It equals the great writing held within, if not surpasses. This was also Frank Miller when he was arguably at his best. His style is fluid and dynamic, rendering the fight scenes quite expertly and lending the story the visual punch it needed. Without his work, it's arguable that the story might not have been as powerful. While the coloring is definitely reminicent of the time it was published, the art holds up wonderfully today.

Without question, this was and still is one of the definitive Wolverine tales that I think anyone with even a passing interest in the character should read.

I really can't talk much about the two included Uncanny X-Men issues without spoiling the end of the miniseries, sadly; and while it's been twenty years since the mini was published, I don't want to run the risk of spoiling it for anyone who hasn't read it. In some ways, they're very necessary to cap off the story told in the mini; the main throughline of the issues involves following up on the mini. They are not completely self contained, however.

This stems largey due to Chris Claremonts style of writing on the regular X-Men title. He tended to have several different subplots simmering in the background at any given point in time, progressing them forward piece by piece before they eventually took the spotlight. Seeing as the included capper issues are of Uncanny X-Men, that's certainly the case here too. Don't expect to read the issues and get everything that's going on; plots like the Jean Grey lookalike Madalyne Pryor and Rogues struggle to fit in amongst the X-Men, whom she'd previously fought, started long before those two issues and continue for long after.

In some ways, this general approach affects the cap of the Wolverine story, as well. The issues end in a way you might not expect; something is clearly wrong with the reactions and it's hinted whom is behind it. Basically, the storyline started in the mini is brought to an awkward conclusion and not truly ended, as it had then become another plotline amongst the many in the title. What was wrong with Mariko and why things happened the way they did was not really solved until a couple of issues down the road in the Uncanny title. Don't expect a truly clear resolution.

I can be a bit more clear, however, on the art of the two issues of Uncanny. They were not done by Frank Miller, but Paul Smith. They hold up very well, actually, following Millers art on the miniseries. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the included Uncanny issues were still quite excellent despite the change in artist; thought there are a few instances where the artist change is pretty glaring, but that it holds up in the face of Millers work should speak very well of the work given here. It feels quite visually consistent, which truly eases the inclusion of the issues with the miniseries.

My Opinion: Buy It