Marvel has been putting Logan into just about every comic they can fit him in, and even some they can’t, but he remains a consistently well-written and engaging character. Getting to read him on his home turf, by a writer who has continued shown a wonderful grasp of the long-running Canuck, is a gift that Marvel continues to provide.
Wolverine is one of Marvel’s best and most vital through-lines because so much of what he’s gone through has been connected to larger events and status quo shakeups in the greater Marvel universe. Having him lead one of the main plots of the current Armageddon event is a great choice, and printing it alongside a solid Logan solo book gives me hope that Marvel can still conjure up great cross-book synergy.
In the condensed space of this short volume, Ahmed hits a lot of familiar story beats for Logan, beginning with him attempting to drink away his sorrows against the help of his healing factor. His best buddy Nightcrawler shows up to pull Wolverine from his funk. Beneath this familiar emotional setting, though, are the seeds of new and ongoing plotlines that this creative team has been building for a while.
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The Mafia plotline was great for Logan, and we even get a callback to his Patch era. Connecting this blood feud plotline across different books and adding a heretofore hidden chapter to Wolverine’s sordid and foggy past is risk that pays off. It feels like we’re reading what will be a classic Wolverine tale in the future, and shows Marvel’s commitment to its legacy characters.
One of Logan’s greatest strengths as a character is his ability to work well with almost any other Marvel character is a team-up. Whether it plays on his stoicism with a goofy irreverence, or Logan’s innate desire to protect new, young mutants, it seems he is strongest in contrast or comparison. The Silver Sable team-up in this book works well on that point, and it’s a breath of fresh air from the recently endless (though usually great) Wolverine team-ups with Deadpool. Logan is a ruthless killer, and teaming him up with another one provides a lot explosive and dialogue and even bigger explosions in the art without sacrificing the scenes to Wade’s humor.
It’s a pretty fantastic moment when Sable is able to stop Logan in his tracks within the first few minutes of their meeting. I’d like to see Ahmed and co. take on some of the other underused Marvel characters, a wish that is somewhat fulfilled in the Alpha Flight appearance in this book. Throw in a couple of scenes of Logan training young mutants to defend themselves against the government and you’ll find that this book has pretty much everything a continuity-focused Wolverine fan could want.
The Alpha Flight plot in this book stands out in particular, both for its engaging battles that play out like movie scenes and the quality of the art. This book investigates Logan’s interiority to a wonderful degree, but the art finds its swing in the combat most of all.
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On that note, this book did make me think about how many new, young mutants the X-team at Marvel has been introducing across its many books ever since the From the Ashes relaunch. Oftentimes its hard to impossible to tell which ones will stick around, which ones to get attached to, whose backstories we should become accustomed to. If you read all of the X-books, you’ll start to see tons of mutants invented to mostly be superpowered fodder in a bombastic arc-ending mutant showdown, or to create sympathy through their struggles. If you read a lot of these books, those moments are helpless against similar moments in other X-books—it just doesn’t hit as hard.
The art in this book is wonderful and finds its strength in consistency and being different from a lot of other recent Wolverine art. There have been plenty of darker and more gruesome takes on Logan’s look and his world. But Martin Coccolo and Mike Henderson’s work allows this book to live a little bit more in the larger Marvel universe, and I think it benefits from that. The cover art for this trade, by Dan Panosian, is one of my favorite pieces of Wolverine art of all time, with a mix of gritty details, surreal perspective, and vibrant colors creating quite a lasting impression.
Wolverine by Saladin Ahmed Vol. 3: Mutant Protector is a slim volume, containing issues #13-16 alongside some selected material from Giant-Size House of M and Logan: Black, White & Blood #1. It does sort of feel underwhelming as a trade, despite all of the books inside it being good. It doesn’t feel as cohesive and encompassing as some trades do, but it doesn’t really detract from the reading experience. This book really just makes me excited for what’s next in this great ongoing Wolverine book.
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