Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Wolverines #4Wolverines #4
Marvel Comics
Fawkes & Kristantina

The fourth issue of Wolverines is a problem both in terms of an individual issue and as to the direction of the overall story. The issue feels like filler as the main group captures their latest member, Fantomelle, and they spend some time trying to convince her to join their effort without explaining anything to her of substance. Meanwhile, Sinister watches them approach and dispatches some of his henchmen into the future to take care of things. This, while, he rubs his hands together and cackles at the prospect of raising Wolverine from the dead. The comic book hits in a bad way on both sides as the artwork creates visuals that have bad flow and poor detail that leads to a confusing read. This is simply not a good comic book.

The comic opens with an apartment brawl that is drawn so poorly that getting a feel for where characters are standing in terms of depth, front to back, is nearly impossible. Characters in the ready-fight position appear to be back-facing to their opponent at times. Eventually some people end up falling out of the window. This leads to more visual problems because a character that fell from the window in the previous issue apparently was rescued. It took several careful looks to understand just who these characters were on the ledge below.

Visuals aside the scene doesn't make a lot of sense. They have the ability to sedate their new ally, yet they only do that after she puts up significant resistance. Why not use it on the threat in the apartment?

Things get stranger as they are now on their ship. Characters continue to try to convince her to join up but find resistance. Never do they bother to explain they are from the same facility as she was and that this is a mission to save their lives and it involves Wolverine. Instead, their primary pitch is that they are trying to break into a place that is impossible to penetrate. A fun task. Even if it involves one of the deadliest super villains of all-time. But why bother with details?

The scenes on the ship are confusing visually as well. There is a scene where Daken and Sabretooth are playing cards and somehow Daken leaves the room in between panels. He then tells Sabretooth and X-23 to leave while yelling from the next room. Did he leave the table and go into a room that is part of his cabin? Did they all end up in the hallway and he went back into his bedroom? Were they playing cards in his bedroom? It's a tiny detail in a throwaway scene but it speaks volumes for the disorganization of this comic book.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsThe book also contains other confusing elements such as a throwaway comment that Sabretooth was just scene in another room. But the reader didn't see this. Or did we? When you have a shape changer and the possibility of time travel why would anyone be surprised at seeing a character twice? Also offensive is that Fantomelle's cat(fox?) can apparently detect when someone is lying. Just like the Lying Cat in Saga.

The comic book is not good. There is some hope that the next issue will pick up as it appears a big battle is going to occur. The odd thing is that the comic has a large cast and appears to be growing but juggling all of them isn't the primary problem. The main problem is the execution. It doesn't give the reader much to rely on that this series will go someplace meaningful. As a reader, it feels like I'm chasing a rabbit down a hole. One that no one really cares to maintain properly. At four bucks a week a reader should be getting more bang for their buck. This series gets one more issue before I give up on it.

1 out of 5 Geek Goggles