Book of Doom: Wolverine #66

I like Wolverine. He’s a cool character. I find it enjoyable to have a few drinks with friends and get into ridiculous arguments about who would win in a Wolverine vs Batman fight. He’s just a fun, versatile character that is a major badass.

But, boy, do I hate his comic.

I don’t regularly buy it, but I tried it out for a couple issues last year when Jeph Loeb started writing the final battle of Wolverine and Sabretooth, a concept so stupid that the entire Legion here balked at the first issue out of the gate. Some of us stuck with it, though, and Jim Doom claimed in our year-end awards that the conclusion to that arc was one of the worst moments of 2007.

Yet, here we are. A solid new creative team (the one behind Civil War) has jumped on the Wolverine monthly to tell their unique take on how Wolverine’s going to end up many years down the road. The cover claims, “Wolverine’s all-time greatest adventure begins here!” Is it as good as advertised?

Judging by the first issue, I can easily say no. Wolverine’s old, has a ranch, talks like an old-timey wild west cattle herder, owes money to the Hulk Gang (Bruce Banner’s grandchildren), and hangs out with Hawkeye before heading off on an adventure across the country in his Jeep.

I guess it laid the groundwork for, well, something. A buddy comedy? A completely inconsequential story about something that will never impact anything or actually be canonized as the future of the Marvel Universe? Well, sure, there’s that.

Chances are, I’ll probably pick up the next issue, but only because I like Steve McNiven’s art, which is pretty great here. I wasn’t thrilled with the rest of the production.

And, yes, as always, I will hold the story accountable for something an overzealous marketing department slapped on the cover.

Now, let me turn it over to Jim Doom to bring this one home:

I normally hate books set in the future, because future stories are always obviously inconsequential “What If?” stories, and “What If?” stories are stupid, because the writers always just do what they could never get away with doing in the regular title. And since you know they’re just doing what they could never get away with, it tends to ring somewhat hollow.

I think what this book did that I liked was that it immediately gave this “What If?” scenario some central microcosmic players for us to care about (Logan’s wife and children), since the future premise already excuses us from caring about the people we know. And it quickly set the stage for what the United States — and the conflict — has become.

What Millar appears to be attempting is some kind of slow burn to what we all know is coming. If Wolverine has become emasculated, clearly what we all want to happen is what we know will happen — Wolverine will get his groove back and go on some massive killing / revenge spree. So the tension in this story is likely not going to be where we’re going, but how we get there.

And at this point, for the most part it’s watching to see how far Wolverine can get beaten down before he bites back. He can’t pay his rent, so the Hulk grandkids come beat him up and tell him his family dies if he can’t pay double next month. The now-blinded Hawkeye shows up with a job for Wolverine that’ll pay enough for him to be able to cover his rent and save his family without having to fight. And that’s where it ends for now.

This issue was all set-up. I was all ready to start really liking it and then it ended, totally taking the wind out of my sails. It needed something else, even if it was just one panel alluding at something to come.

Also, is there any reason for this fast-forward into the future? I haven’t been reading Wolverine at all, so I’m not clear if this story is being told as a result of something, or it’s just being thrown in there. If it were emerging out of or colliding with other events, like in the way that the X-Men Days of Future Past did, I might care a little more about it and not just feel like it’s being thrown in because Mark Millar had a cool idea for a story.

So for a future story, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, but I also like future stories a lot less than I like stories with current implications. I’ll probably keep buying it if it comes out on a slow week. Otherwise, I’ll drop it like I’ve dropped Wolverine several other times in the past few years.

A few other thoughts:

– Wolverine appears to have aged almost as much as Hawkeye, so one might guess his healing factor has been either weakened or taken away. But he does seem to recover from the savage Hulk kids beating fairly well, so it might just be that McNiven really wanted to draw this “Clint Eastwood with claws” look.

– If you’re going to make a map of the United States, at least do some basic homework. San Diego is shown where Los Angeles is, and Los Angeles is shown as being somewhere between Bakersfield and Fresno. I’m guessing it’s more likely that the artist just guessed, as opposed to the cities moving.

– Makes sense that the corporate empire based in Salt Lake City would get taken over by the Kingpin.

– He uses “Logan” as his real name, not “James.”