Dark Wolverine #87 – Review

by Daniel Way & Marjorie Liu (writers), Mierco Pierfederici (artist)

Story: Daken walks around Rome, Italy while moping about being defeated by his father, Wolverine, in last month’s Dead Reckoning crossover and not being able to take over for Romulus.  He is lured into a trap by a mugger, but is Daken really the one who’s been lured into a trap?

What’s Good: The cover artwork by Stephanie Hans…  It says everything that you need to know about the character, and it’s even pertinent to the story told within.  There’s also a brief moment at the beginning of the story where Daken confronts a young female pickpocket who then asks him to take her with him.  His reaction very clearly and nicely highlights the difference between him and his more heroic father.  I thought the use of a young, damaged girl (Wolverine (Logan) has a penchant for taking those under his wing.) was particularly apt.

Dark Wolverine #85 – Review

by Daniel Way & Marjorie Liu (writers), Stephen Segovia (artist)

The Story: Wolverine calls a meeting with his wayward son, Daken, to request his help in taking down uber-baddie Romulus.  However, unbeknownst to the feral X-Man, his son isn’t necessarily on his side.  But is that actually part of Wolverine’s plan?

What’s Good: * Sigh*  I would really like to be positive here and have something nice to say about this issue.  I’d really, really like to…

What’s Not So Good: This is by far the weakest Dark Wolverine issue since the character of Daken took over his father’s title.  The driving cause of this is easily the fact that it’s crossing over with Wolverine Origins beginning with this issue.  Despite the unnecessary convolutions in the life of Wolverine that Daniel Way has wrought over in Origins, Daken somehow emerged to be an interesting character when you separated him from all of that mumbo jumbo.  Now that this story has brought him back into the excruciatingly boring Romulus story-line, it seems we’ll have to deal with two months of uninteresting plots.  I’m being a little harsh here, really, but man, I love Wolverine, and Daken has grown into a favorite character of mine under the pen of Way and Liu, despite all odds.  The fact that we’ve taken a step back to wrap up the whole Romulus thing seems like a shame to me.  At least this crossover will tie all of that up and then we can move on to telling interesting stories again.

Dark Wolverine #79 – Review

By Daniel Way & Marjorie Liu (writers), Stephen Segovia (artist), Jay Leisten & Cam Smith (inkers), Marte Garcia (colorist)

The Story: Emmy Doolin!  Cutthroat!  The Inquisitor!  Moses Magnum!  Marvel’s latest fantastic foursome is on the run from Norman Osborn, but they won’t go down without a fight.  Hiding out in an abandoned warehouse, the team devises a cunning plan to barter for their freedom with the same man who wants to apprehend them.  Wait, this is a Wolverine comic!?  Uh oh…

The Good: To his credit, Segovia has turned in some impressive art for what was surely a lackluster script.  Although I’m still not his biggest fan on this book, Segovia deserves credit nonetheless for stepping up his game and delivering art that attempts to engage the reader.  His opening scene and battle between Daken and the D-Listers was a refreshing change of pace and made me wish I could see more of that kind and quality of action in this comic more often.

The Not So Good: I’m really concerned to see that it actually takes two writers to churn out such increasingly uninteresting stories.  The sole strength of this title thus far lies in its ability to portray Daken manipulating his way through Norm Osborn’s evil empire.  It’s a great angle to take, but only succeeds when the writer can deliver it.  I did not get that from this issue, and I think the reason why is that Way and Liu are clearly pacing their plot for its inevitable graphic novel release.  As far as I can tell, they are either wholly ignorant of or knowingly disregarding the fact that for you and me, the people paying three bucks a month to read their stories, the experience of reading a monthly comic is vastly different from that of a six-issue graphic novel.  The single monthly comic used to be (and to an extent should still be, I would argue) a complete and dynamic experience unto itself.  This issue by contrast felt like a very unspectacular chapter in a larger story.  Daken only showed up for half of his own comic this month, and when his presence is the only thing keeping this comic alive, that’s really not a good thing, graphic novel release be damned.

Conclusion: Dark Wolverine is a comic that’s going nowhere fast.  While its labyrinthine plots might make sense after they’ve been collected in trade, they fail to entertain as monthly comics.  I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be collecting this.

Grade:  D

-Tony Rakittke

Dark Avengers #4 (Dark Reign) – Review

By Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Mike Deodato (Art), and Rain Beredo (Colors)

The Story: With Norman Osborn (Iron Patriot) and Dr. Doom busy confronting Morgan Le Fey in the past, the leaderless Dark Avengers must face La Fey and her demons in the present. During the battle, Clint Barton goes public with information regarding the Dark Avengers…

What’s Good: I know that Brian Michael Bendis’ writing is pretty divisive, but I found Dark Avengers #4 to be one hell of a fun read. And that’s almost entirely because the Dark Avengers have a team dynamic that makes good (and appropriate) use of Bendis’ style of dry, sarcastic humor and personality driven dialogue. It goes a long way towards masking the fact that, as far as plot is concerned, very little actually happens in the latest issue of Dark Avengers.

As for the artwork, Mike Deodato and Rain Beredo continue to do great things as a team. Dark, moody, detailed, and even, at times, sexy, the art helps to ease the pain of the $3.99 price tag a little bit. In short, Dark Avengers #4 is one good-looking book.

What’s Not So Good: For as much as I like the writing and the artwork on a technical level, Dark Avengers #4 feels somewhat lacking as a whole, especially considering that it costs $3.99. One reason is that it’s an extremely fast read that has a number of (visually impressive) panels and pages with little, if any dialogue. Sure it looks nice, but it makes the everything fly by. Another reason is that the issue is pretty light on plot. Things with Doom and Le Fey wrap up well enough, but it left me wanting more. In addition, it feels almost incomplete in some ways due to the rather abrupt ending. The ending works; don’t get me wrong, I just wish the stop wasn’t so damn jarring.

Also, on a side note, Dark Avengers is starting to feel a bit too much like Warren Ellis’ Thunderbolts.  While that’s not necessarily a bad thing considering how awesome the Ellis, Deodato, and Beredo run on Thunderbolts was, it wouldn’t hurt if the creative team put some more space between the two series in some way.  That said, I understand it might be difficult considering that Dark Avengers has the same art team and many of the same characters that Thunderbolts had.

Conclusion: There’s a lot to like about Dark Avengers #4, but considering how fast it moves, it’ll be up to you to decide whether or not it’s worth the asking price.

Grade: B-

-Kyle Posluszny