Another day, another Wolverine comic. The little Canadian is a busy chap these days, what with starring in two Avengers titles, at least three X-men comics, Frank Cho's new Savage Wolverine and an 'adult' title where he gets to swear and put it about. Do we really need another Wolverine comic?
This latest incarnation appealed to me as it written by Paul Cornell. Cornell started his writing career with the New Adventures Doctor Who novels of the late eighties/early nineties and quickly established himself as a fan favourite. Writing gigs for TV followed with a shot at scripting for Doctor Who proper with Father's Day back in 2005 and later Human Nature/The Family of Blood. It's not because of the Who connection however, but because Cornell is a good old fashioned writer with a healthy dose of sentimentality, something which the writers of Wolverine have been lacking for many years.
Recently, writers have done nothing but take the hero out of Wolverine as a superhero. With his origin finally revealed, that mine of potential plots had been suddenly taken away and what seemed to fill the void was an increasing nastiness. Greg Pak's Wolverine: Origins seemed to delight in showing us what a bastard he had been, and possibly still was, even rewriting much of his established comic history, making his first meeting with Charles Xavier an assassination attempt. Jason Arron put more fun back into the title but gave us a Wolverine who was mostly instinctual and feral, resulting in a plot where he ends up killing 5 of his own offspring. Rick Remender compounded this by having Wolverine finally (well, until the inevitable ressurection) kill his son Daken in Uncanny X-Force. We know Wolverine has blood on his hands but this is ridiculous - he's now positively swimming in blood. Enough already. Cullen Bunn's recent run was quite engaging but it was obvious he was just holding the fort until someone more high profile came along.
Can Cornell give us back the Wolverine many of us fell in love with back in the days of Claremont and Byrne? A fighter and a bruiser and an occasional jerk yes, but also a samurai, a thinker and a noble hero. The man who took first Kitty, then Rogue, then Jubilee under his wing. The X-Man you'd most want to have your back. Issue 1 looks promising, with a Logan caught in the middle of a mystery involving a strange enemy weapon that possesses a dad at a mall, leading to him killing dozens, and then possessing his son Alex. What's good is Logan's reluctance to kill and his compassion for the son, which Cornell cleverly suggests could be motivated by his guilt at having to kill Daken. Hopefully Cornell will be given the oppotunity to give us a Logan who doesn't always slice and then ask questions later.
With Arron and Bunn off the main title it looks like Melita, the latino reporter who had become Wolverine's beau, has been shuffled off the scene. We have here a potential new love interest for the hirsute canuck with police detective Tomomatsu, the pair happily flirting at the crime scene. It's too early to say how great this new Wolverine can be, but I liked the old school feel to proceedings, with plot taking precedent over killing. This traditional feel is heightened by Alan Davis's classic art style, one I've loved since his early days on British comics. Overall, we could have a Wolverine title that offers more than mayhem.
GK Rating: **** The Blog of Delights
No comments:
Post a Comment