Wolverine by Benjamin Percy had a good run of being a comic that I surprisingly enjoyed. Maybe more impressive is that my favorite issue was Wolverine #19, so far into the run. Unfortunately, Wolverine’s time of being enjoyable has come to an end with volume 4.
Maybe I should have known after the less than good X Lives and X Deaths of Wolverine. Or maybe when I found out Deadpool was starring, limiting the likelihood of my enjoyment. Maybe I should have just known that a Wolverine series had a shelf life, and that I needed to enjoy it as long as possible. Regardless, it’s time for me to say goodbye to this run with the ol’ knucklehead. I’ll be fine without him.
Marvel Comics
In a lot of ways, Wolverine was never a book that relied heavily on Percy’s writing. None of it was particularly new, the series wasn’t consistently interacting with Krakoa in any unique way, and it was already getting repetitive before XLOW/XDOW. The comic was largely good because it was basic in a way that was easy to read, and mixed things up just enough to feel fresh while also having some of the best art on the stands.
Adam Kubert and Frank Martin’s work together on this book is some of the best art in Marvel comics recently. Kubert simply knows how to draw Logan in the coolest way possible, and keeps the layouts as interesting as anything else running. He is the soul of this book, even if it still worked with fill-in artists. Unfortunately, he didn’t bring it the same way this volume as he has in the past.
I can see what he was going for with layouts early in each issue, but they just didn’t land well with me. It’s likely the weak script filling the art, but it made the whole thing feel off. There are still some fun set pieces (one gag has Logan continuously chopping Wade’s body and using it in inventive ways — that was fun) but by and large, Percy and Kubert feel like they’re on different pages throughout the arc here. Not to mention how grating Percy’s Deadpool is.
Marvel Comics
The “Judgement Day” two-parter is a similar kind of failure, where the concept is solid — even good — but the execution makes the whole thing fall flat. It’s a story that Wolverine has been building to for a while, and should have felt huge, but instead felt the opposite of compelling. It also did a great job of working along the larger A.X.E. themes, but again, felt oddly empty. It was neither cool enough or interesting enough to really be enjoyable. There are pieces here that could work, but they’re presented here in a way that feels rushed and inconsequential.
Will I miss Logan? Unlikely. If anything, it means I’ll get around to some Larry Hama Wolverine or whatever. It’s probably fitting that I lose interest at the same time that I seem to have lost interest in the entire X-Men line of comics. Maybe this comic was actually super entertaining and I’m just so divested from X-Men comics that I couldn’t get it.
Or maybe it’s a Wolverine comic starring Deadpool.
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