Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Death Of Wolverine The Weapon X Program #2Death of Wolverine: The Weapon X Program #2 of 5
Marvel Comics
Soule, Larroca & D'Armata

The Death of Wolverine has not produced good comics. And there have been a lot of comics so far with a lot more to come. This mini-series focuses on a group of survivors that fled the same facility during the time Wolverine raids it and is killed. Sounds like a kind of cool idea. However, based on this issue, it seems like this idea would have been best told as a one-shot where the group escapes into the wilderness and are left to get picked up and used in the Marvel Universe as needed. This issue can't do much more than show an elongated chase scene and it doesn't work well at all. First Blood (the original Rambo movie) did that pretty well. Go watch that instead to see how to do a chase scene that is lengthy. This is an issue to skip.

Interestingly, the rundown of the characters reveals that not all of the characters even have names yet. Odd as this is, the big reveal from the previous issue doesn't even get one panel of space in this one. As if, the secret that the main character is really a visually perfect clone of Wolverine is still a secret or that it didn't happen at all. Perhaps they will re-reveal that later? These two surprising developments set a poor stage for the rest of the comic.

To further these setup problems, these concerns get addressed in odd ways throughout the comic. The characters at one point bat around the idea of giving each other code names. Essentially giving the name-less characters, meaningless and random names. This doesn't help their long-term prospects nor does it gin up much interest in their futures.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsThe comic book is a chase sequence. From helicopter to train, from train to foot, from foot to truck. We don't really get much of a plot development until the girl in the coma wakes up in the end. It's not a bad comic but I felt like I was waiting for something to happen that never did and that isn't a good way to read anything. It tells me this series took up three issues and was stretched to five for the collected edition.

The artwork is nice. This helps the comic flow well. Since the book is a chase it needs to have a good visual flow and that exists here and works. The comic is detailed and definitely makes the story looked polished. The artwork is a bright spot in a very ordinary story.

This Weapon X mini-series isn't bad. It's a good idea. I'm not sure this issue was necessary or accomplished much and that is a problem. The series isn't a lost cause. Not yet anyway. This is a below average comic book.

2 out of 5 Geek Goggles