Wolverine #20 – Review

by Jason Aaron (writing), Renato Guedes (pencils), Jose Wilson Magalhaes (inks), Matthew Wilson (colors), and Cory Petit (letters)

The Story: Someone’s trying to start a war between the Hand and the Yakuza and naturally, Wolverine and Melita find themselves caught in the middle.

The Review:  This issue serves as a nice little cross-section of several of the things that have worked well in Jason Aaron’s tenure on Wolverine.  You’ve got balls to the wall action, Logan’s unique way of fumbling through a romantic relationship, and Aaron’s twisted brand of humour.  While the result doesn’t re-invent the wheel, it does lead to a really fun time that would have you thoroughly entertained for the entirety of its 22 pages and will give you a laugh on several occasions.

Personally, I really appreciated the mish-mash of genres present here, which in itself is another hallmark of Aaron’s run, which has seen him tell a wide variety of Wolverine-related stories.  You’ve got comedy, action, horror characters, crime drama, and ninjas all mixed up together into a potent and quick combination that feels like what a Wolverine comic should be.

Key to this mixture was Aaron’s bringing back a couple of his best Wolverine-related creations: the Buzzard Brothers.  I’d forgotten how absolutely hilarious these guys are.  It’s the twisted sort of stuff that could only come from the Jason Aaron who brought us Ghost Rider.  They’re caricatures straight out of Deliverance and the Hills Have Eyes and while horrific, are also great for a laugh.  They get several great lines and now, having gotten a power upgrade that seems to have made them nearly unkillable, they’re more over-the-top and slapstick than ever.  Seeing these guys show up in the middle of a Kingpin/Yakuza crime drama is mind-bending good fun and while you’d think it’d be jarring, I found myself just sitting back and enjoying the insanity.

And really, the action scenes in this month are just as nutty and over-the-top as the Buzzard Brothers themselves.  We get ninjas, asteroid busting sniper rounds (seriously), and Wolverine doing all manner of bad things to the unkillable Buzzards.  It leads a comic that moves at an incredibly brisk pace that never leaves the reader bored or adrift.

Wolverine #5.1 – Review

by Jason Aaron (writer), Jefte Palo (art), Nathan Fairbairn (colors), and Cory Petit (letters)

The Story: Melita throws a surprise birthday party for Logan, but the guest of honor finds himself side-tracked by some grotesque bad guys.

What’s Good: Wow, you could not get a comic with two more different halves.  On the one side, you get a feel-good party with the Avengers and Melita and on the other side, you’ve got a gritty tale of Logan battling cannibals in the backwoods.  How the hell can two such different things actually fit together?  The fact that Aaron manages this and makes both sides entertaining is already an achievement.

On the cannibal end, the Buzzard Brothers are a blast to read.  Aaron writes them with absolute glee and their dialogue is ghoulishly entertaining.  Yes, they’re appalling, but they’re also really, really funny, particularly when they bicker.  For them, murder and cannibalism is an everyday thing, so their dialogue and sibling animosity takes a ridiculous tone that I couldn’t help laughing at.  Despite being a bit of a cliché in concept, Aaron’s lively dialogue combined with Palo’s awesome character designs raises the brothers up into something special.

At the party end, the huge ensemble of Avengers actually helps rather than hinders.  Aaron successfully puts across the fact that Logan isn’t alone as he thinks.  The party comes across really naturally and is a perfect fusion of the mundane and the superheroic.  It feels like an ordinary get-together, till you notice all the jets parked outside.  Either way, all the characters work great and Melita is as likable as ever, if only because she acts like a perfectly normal human being amidst all the spandex.  Better still, her birthday present is touching.  I also have to highlight Deadpool’s role this month, which was absolutely hilarious, and I’m not even a fan.  Aaron used him so expertly this month, inserting him here and there as a kind of punch-line.  He’s far from being in a starring role, but his peripheral presence makes for plenty of laughs.