Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Wolverine Weapon X #10Wolverine Weapon X #10
Marvel Comics
Aaron & Smith

The cover of the comic says everything you need to know about this comic book. Wolverine interacts with a steady stream of women. This one and done issue would appear to be a throwaway on the surface, especially when judged from the cover, which includes at least one deceased character. However, the comic book manages to take the reader through the mind of Wolverine as he comes to grips with the dreadful fact that he has a girlfriend and he cares about her. The comic book is really about Wolverine opening up to various women (mostly friends that don’t appear on the cover) as he struggles to reach this conclusion. This is a very good story that gives background on his girlfriend’s character and establishes the relationship.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsAs is the case with much of Wolverine’s long and overexposed history he’s been there and done that. As it applies to women this means he’s fallen in love plenty of times and to keep the status quo the women either turn into villains or end up dead or outright leave him. The relationship is not allowed to last. This comic book exposes this and pokes fun at it well when it needs to but offers up a reasonable response as to how the current relationship with Melita would be different.

The comic book has a series of one or two page interactions with various characters as Wolverine enumerates his feelings on the matter. Whether it’s playing chess with Storm or just standing around talking to Jubilee, the comic brings out quite a few characters that have enough history with Wolverine to make this ‘falling in love’ stuff all seem plausible.
The key to the comic’s success is the humor in it all. For example, all Wolverine does with Rogue is he keeps talking by asking himself and then answering his own questions. With the Black Widow, he discusses various safety measures as she provides a super-spy outlook on the whole situation. The comic is filled with these types of conversations that are fun and show a good range of knowledge for not only the guest characters but of their interactions with Wolverine.

The pencils are very different because they use such light inking and backgrounds that the characters appear to be neon-lit when colored. The style works well for the standing around sequences as expressions stand out better but may not make action scenes pop off the page in the right places. It’s a nice comic visually, but probably does require somewhat of an acquired taste as it departs from the super hero art norm.

Whether or not you believe Melita and Wolverine will live happily ever after is sort of irrelevant. I fully expect her to die, but the point of this comic is to pick up the reins on the introduction of the character and the growth of their friendship. This comic does so in a believable and satisfactory way. It also brings in enough of Wolverine’s past to add some depth (and humor) to the issue, but not so much that you need wikipedia. This is a good comic book.

4 out of 5 Geek Goggles