Volume 04: Wolverine: Wolverine

Wolverine: Wolverine

Author: Chris Claremont  |  Illustrator: Frank Miller

'I'm the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn't very nice.'

In a remarkable and uncharacteristic feat of memory, I still recall the first time I heard the name 'Wolverine'. I was around ten-years-old. My neighbour, a year older than me, was raving about a new issue of a comic he'd picked up. It was most likely an X-Men comic, I don't recall that part, but the name 'The Wolverine' stuck in my mind even though I'd never seen the character and all I had to go on was that he was a short guy with retractable claws. The name was enough for my mind to fill in the blanks. And the fact that he was being referred to as The Wolverine, with a definite article attached, made it even cooler.

Many months passed (a long time to a kid) before I actually saw the character in action on the pages of my own comic and, even more remarkably, Wolvie lived up to the image I'd created of him.

Chris Claremont's four-issue miniseries (published Sept-Dec 1982) was Logan's first solo title and quickly became one of his most seminal adventures. In an introductory scene written in a first-person narrative he successfully establishes Logan's strong personality, animal instincts, mutant healing ability, and draws attention to his struggle to balance savagery and violence with compassion.

Besides the customary catch-up monologue at the beginning of each issue for the people who missed the previous one, the author doesn't waste words on unnecessary exposition. He creates events that cause Wolverine to quickly question, conclude, and act according to his nature, at a pace that keeps the drama thundering along. The result is a book that could be turned into a novel with minimal effort.

But if that happened then we'd miss out on Frank Miller's art. His seeming preference for small panels that tell a big story are a perfect fit to Claremont's precise wording. Many of the angles used are in a filmic style, guiding the reader's eye from one panel to the next like a good movie editor would do for live footage. To keep things interesting, Miller throws in a few silhouette shots, double page tussles, and other things that are best experienced first-hand.

The book collects together Wolverine #1-4.

Verdict:

Volume 02: Uncanny X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Uncanny X-Men: Dark Phoenix
Author: Chris Claremont  |  Illustrator: John Byrne

"I can pick your mind clean in the blink of an eye — "

I like the X-Men, but not to the extent that I'm unable to acknowledge the collective's many flaws. Scott Summers is a bore. Jean Grey is overpowered. Wolverine overshadows all the others. (Actually, that last point is also a strength; they'd be less interesting without him.)

It's only my second post and already I'm going against popular opinion because, as you've probably guessed, Volume 02 is mostly about Jean and while it's much-loved by fans of Jean it bores the shit out of me.

John Byrne's art is excellent and there's a potentially great storyline smothered beneath the rigid text, but it's a victim of the Marvel need to make the team seem more mature by having them be super-serious even during times of outright stupidity. That approach coupled with the usual complex-nearing-convoluted events that have come to define the X-Men series over the years make it difficult to connect to the characters. Or maybe that applies only to me? I don't know. I read the book twice to try and overcome any kind of unfair dislike that I may have unconsciously created. It didn't help. It mostly served to make me cringe even more at the overuse of self-commentary.

Some positives to end with: Prior to the book's central arc, Jean had died but hadn't, the team were killed but weren't, and the world was saved. Because together they're so powerful, a pattern develops where over time the enemies have to get bigger and stronger in order to seem threatening. For a while the primary villain in the Dark Phoenix saga instead goes smaller, attacking from afar, quietly and unnoticed. It was absolutely the correct approach to take in order to achieve the specific goal that the author was hoping to address.
I thought the design of the Black Queen was fantastic.
Wolverine is seen reading Penthouse; that's good characterisation.

The book collects together Uncanny X-Men #129-137.

Verdict: