User blog:Nausiated/SNIKT!

Well I've just finished going through and summarizing the first 90 issues of Wolverine Vol. 2 #90. All I can say is this: What a pain in the ass. Seriously. I have the all these issues in Marvel Essential TPB's and it has been a few years since I read them so I had to reread a lot of the stories. Boy did they ever make Wolverine needlessly complicated back in the 90's.

The series first started being written by Chris Claremont back in the day when he didn't write X-Men stories that were too shitty, and I have to say that the run he did with Sal Buschema wasn't that great. The art was fine, Sal is one of my favorite Marvel artists. It was just the context of the story. It was absurd.

Okay history lesson for you kids who don't know anything about Wolverine that wasn't published in the last 10 years: During the time this series first started, the X-Men were pretending they were dead after sacrificing their lives to stop the Adversary and being resurrected by Roma (if you haven't read Fall of the Mutants, get out there and read it, the New Mutants story arc with the death of Doug Ramsey is the best one in there I say) So during this time Logan would take little jaunts to Madripoor and work under an assumed alias called Patch. Why? Because he wore an eye patch. This was so that he and the X-Men could keep up the ruse that they were dead so that they could strike at their enemies better.

Thats right. He wore an eye patch. Hence the name Patch. I'm sorry, but that sort of retarded secret identity switch is the type of hack stuff DC Comics has made a staple for the past 70+ years. Wolverine is no Clark Kent, and I think Claremont took it way too far.

The other thing was that the series was titled -- ERRR Wolverine! -- So you'd think that maybe, they'd have him in costume more often. But nope, I think they ran something like 12 issues in without him wearing his costume once. Now, I'm not usually one to quibble about a character operating in street clothes, but come on toss the readers some bones, this is a book featuring one of your most iconic characters and he isn't even in costume? That's like having a Spider-Man title where Peter Parker fights crime in a McDonalds uniform.

The cast was... Weak... In that, you didn't really care about the characters overly much except for already established people. It was great to see where Jessica Drew and Lindsay McCabe wound and having a regular appearance in a comic, even if they were just supporting cast.

However, what happened next was something I thought plagued this series a lot: They would just drop plot progression. It got the point where they decided, okay, we're done with Madripoor lets figure out Wolverine's origins a little. So they go on this stint where they were looking into Wolverine's past with the Weapon X project, and enter writer Larry Hama.

Hama was a great writer on the series, but the major problem I found was that he'd drop the direction of the plot to go into an entirely different direction. The worst plot fumble was later on with the Elsie Dee and Albert time-travel subplot. First of all -- Elsie Dee and Albert themselves -- what the hell? You can tell that these characters were products of the 90's, hacking into NSA computers on dial up modems and flying around the world in a stealth bomber (HELLO EARLY 90's! OPERATION DESERT STORM ALL THE WAY!) But During the Crunch Conundrum plot line Spiral sends Elsie Dee and Albert back in time to investigate why there is ancient Wolverine bones buried in an ancient indian burial ground. That was issue 50 something-or-other (Hey, it's almost 2:30 in the morning excuse me for not looking up exact issues references. Blow my Citation Needed.)

After that the decided that Wolverine needed to do more X-Men things, so they send him to the Savage Land, they have him fight Sentinels and then.... Then comes along the big bad Issue #75, which was part of the Fatal Attractions plot line, where Wolverine got his adamantium bones ripped out by Magneto (as depicted in X-Men #25... See I'm not that much of a slouch) Which for the time was a big shocker for readers. Wolverine without adamantium claws? It was a bit of a mind screw for us kids, because at the time the X-Men animated series was on TV and Wolverine had adamantium claws during the whole run. I bet a lot of kids who got turned on by the X-Men cartoon were like "Cool I want to read the comics" and were like -- wait, BONE claws? WTF?

So yeah, how do you explain the ancient adamantium bones in that plot thread? Cue the filler story to tie up loose ends. Which brings us to Wolverine #86. Possibly the most blatant plot hole filler I've ever read in my life. It explains what happened in the past, and it was really a Wolverine from another universe (of course it is! What else could it be?) It has possibly one of the most half assed explanations for a time paradox I have ever read. Do yourself a favor and go and read it.

The series of issues I actually like in this run were issues 76-87. In this run it was all about how Wolverine had to cope with the loss of his adamantium, which was killing him because his healing factor was over taxed. So he was going around and settling his affairs and saying his goodbyes to people, he'd left the X-Men. He clashes with a lot of his rogues gallery who are after him for one thing or another. The greatest one here is the clash between Logan and Lady Deathstrike, she attacks him only to learn that Logan has lose his adamantium and realizes his insane quest to take his bones was wasted. Powerful stuff. Seeing Wolverine humbled and dealing with pain, not being able to rely on his healing factor was very humbling for the character -- certainly not like he is now where he pretty much automatically regerates from anything -- this was a character humbled and a lot weaker than the Wolverine was all know and love, and that was a good twist on the character -- Is Wolverine still the best there is at what he does with bone claws and a rotted out healing factor?

It seemed that Hama was building up something about Logan needing the Adamantium in his system to keep his healing factor going and it looked like they were taking directions to go there with the character.. But then suddenly they drop that. Out of the blue in issue #88, Logan's healing factor takes a turn for the better.

Why?

I'll tell you why: Four issues later it was the Age of the Apocalypse cross-over.

Which kind of sucks, because they dropped a potentially interesting story direction.

But I do have to say that there was a high point in issue #90 where Logan and Sabertooth finally clash. Great story.

I also liked how Hama would bring back obscure characters. Like Linus Doorfman, or Molokai, or Harry Tabshawe. Characters that were unique to the ongoing Wolverine title. Taking pains to make it not just another X-Men book that would guest star X-Men supporting cast every other issue (Although they did do that every now and then) It also played into Wolverine's traveling nature, if he was scraping it up in LA, why wouldn't he run into the same mobsters he did 30 issues previously when he went back again?

There was an attention to detail.

Anyway, regardless of the sudden plot dropping, the Larry Hama run on Wolverine was actually a pretty good read. I recommend it.