Comic Book Journal

I know a cat gets nine, but how many lives does a wolverine get? The folks at Marvel are killing Wolverine again only to bring him back. I jumped on in the middle of a five part saga the death of Wolverine. This book depressed me. I wasn’t sad that Wolvie had died and was in purgatory, I was sad that Marc Guggenheim wasn’t on strike. The story was cliched and tired, anyone who feels differently please let me know. For the general plot line, Wolverine was killed and Dr. Strange showed up and resurrected him, now he has to travel through purgatory fighting his own soul to make it back to the earthly plane. As he recalls his past in the war, he “realizes” that he has been fighting his baser nature *yawn* all of these years. I’m glad Logan or James, or whatever they’re calling him now, has finally realized that, but is it really a realization? Has that same story not been told in every Wolverine comic to date. Wolverine, the savage man-animal, must fight his baser nature to get close to anyone and often pushes away people he cares for in fear of hurting them. My point–this “event” is nothing new. Ever since the character’s inception two points have been hammered in to loyal readers consistently. Wolverine is a savage drifter who doesn’t have many memories and number two, Wolverine is always in inner turmoil with his baser nature. This concept is nothing new either. Did anyone ever read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? This is but one classic example of a man versus his baser, evil nature. Now to the art. The high point of the story for me was Dr. Strange showing up, anyone who knows me knows that I’m a Strange fan, Stephen Strange that is, not Emily Strange. I’m left scratching my head wondering though, what happened to Howard Chaykin. We’ve talked about him a lot this month, see my blog some of his work at http://www.comicbookjournal.net/remember-remember-the-5th-of-november/.
But he’s really gone downhill it appears. The characters are loosely rendered, his line work is sloppy and he didn’t really attempt to distinguish the dual souls of Wolverine in his work, he just simply drew mirror images it appears. Both Wolverine and Dr. Strange look like they should be on the Biggest Loser and weigh about five hundred pounds each. In short, it looks like a sloppy rush job for a paycheck on Chaykin’s part. I’d give this book a two out of five. The story is nicely finished to be in the middle of the arc, and the cover is sharp looking, but that’s about it. This book is not one of the great stocking-stuffers of the holiday season. We’ve got a lot of November left, so be on the look out for more solid reviews.