Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Wolverines #1
Marvel Comics
Soule, Bradshaw, Wong & Plascencia
Marvel launches its weekly series dealing with the fallout of the death of Wolverine in the comic titled, "Wolverines." The idea here is that two of the mini-series that recently concluded has merged into one-track, character-wise, while continuing the plot threads dangling from the completed mini-series. Read without the context of Wolverine's death and the two mini-series is going to be tough, but this comic does a decent job of recapping the plots. This book is an average comic book and looks to be more of a quest type story that will probably have some twists and turns along the way. It's an okay start.
A group of weapon X patients that escaped during the facility's destruction (in conjunction with Wolverine's death) return to the facility looking for something that might help cure them of their DNA self-destruct coding. They have a collection of Wolverine associates, such as Mystique, Daken, X-23, Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth. This mash up of completely unknown characters and well-known characters makes for an interesting mix. They find some bad guys at the site that causes a new set of problems.
The book has a nice pace to it. The comic book also tells a fairly concise story. It's not entirely clear what this crew plans to do with whatever they find or why they need these five character's help specifically but it may not be necessary for this issue. Generally the comic is hoping to catch reader's interest's with the twist at the end, but I couldn't help but ask myself, "why do I care if these new characters die or not?" throughout the book.
The book struggles with personalities. Whether there is fallout from the unrelated crossover, Axis, or there are just some strange characterizations, these characters all feel foreign to me. Their dialogue feels interchangeable. There is barely any emotion in what they say or do. It's too generic.
The artwork contains one major hiccup. The book includes pencils from a fill in artist at the end of the book when a surprise villain shows up. This comes immediately after an advertisement for Uncanny Avengers. Frankly, I thought I was reading a preview for that book at first. This is a huge mistake and one the editors should have caught and realized. The book has some nice action visuals, but like the characterizations, the faces have limited range among them. Too many panels had characters with their mouths open looking like they shocked at something they just heard. It just doesn't line up.
Wolverines is a book Marvel has to publish. Producing months of fallout from the death of one of their biggest characters is the right way to go. I'm not sure creating a new set of characters and joining them up with the tried and true characters from Wolverine's past makes a ton of sense but the book is worth sticking with for a while. This is an okay comic book to check out, knowing you won't get a clear picture of the story for a few issues.
3 out of 5 Geek Goggles
