C2E2 Report: Wolverine – 3 Months to Die

 

Though I didn’t plan it this way, my final panel of C2E2 was Marvel’s Wolverine: 3 Months to Die. And while I regret not being able to see a couple of the later panels, I can’t say that it was a bad note to go out on. Full of interesting questions and big announcements, it was definitely one of the most exciting panels of the weekend. And so with that in mind, I’ve decided to skip ahead and write about it early.

Before beginning, Mike Marts warned us that, “in true Marvel fashion you should stay till the end of the credits. And on that ominous note he introduced our panelists, Charles Soule, writer of nearly everything including The Death of Wolverine and Thunderbolts; Jason Latour, writer of Wolverine and the X-Men; Russell Dauterman, the artist on the upcoming Cyclops ongoing; Jordan White, the fantastically mustachioed editor of Deadpool and Thunderbolts; Mahmud Asrar, the artist on Wolverine and the X-Men; and Greg Pak, who might have seemed a strange addition to those who had not yet heard the rumors.

The panel started with Dauterman, who was unequivocal in his glee and honor at being invited to work on Cyclops alongside Greg Rucka. Dauterman attributed much of his love of the X-Men, Marvel, and comics to X-Men: The Animated Series. With an impish gleam in his eye, Jordan White immediately leaned forward and invited us to take part in a ukulele sing-along of the show’s classic theme song, despite its lacking any discernible words. Unfortunately the internet has thus far failed in its basic purpose by not providing a video of the event, though a quick search can probably turn up video of other instances. Regardless, take my word that it was extremely well received.

Marts then turned to Wolverine and the X-Men. He asked Mahmud Asrar who his favorite character to draw was. Asrar had trouble with the question, saying that they’re all growing on him, but settled upon Storm. Latour mentioned that the series has been juggling quite a bit but that we’re getting to the point in the opening arc where things start to fall.

Then Marts pulled up the covers for Wolverine 8-12, the titular “3 Months to Die” storyline, one at a time. I imagine the reaction was just about exactly what Marvel was hoping for but, of course, it’s hard to deny the striking power of the images.

While the first of “3 Months to Die”’s five issues drops in June the title is entirely literal, as Charles Soule’s The Death of Wolverine will be released weekly in September. Soule described the miniseries as hitting fast and hard and explained that it would consider how Logan explores his own mortality after over a century of life and relative safety. He also revealed that each issue will look at a different time in Logan’s life and, by extension, another Wolverine.

X-Men #15.1 – Review

By: Victor Gischler (writer), Will Conrad (art), Brian Reber (color)

The Story: The X-Men go to a small town in the southern US to help out a shaman who is going to get rid of some demons. Not all goes according to plan, but a curvier Ghost Rider than the last shows up for an assist.

What’s Good: I don’t recall having seen the Conrad/Reber art combo before, but I liked it. Ghost Riderette riding in was a visual treat, and the opening sequence with Dani was beautifully detailed. The static poses seemed competent (although mildly artificial), but the action sequences, from the arrival of the demons onward, worked much better. Some artists make it hard to figure out what’s going on when the do the action sequence zoom-ins, but Conrad kept his panels clean and filled with momentum. Writing-wise, this was a quick, simple story with some dialogue gems and clever trash talk that had me laughing.

What’s Not So Good: While this is a complete little story in a single book, I don’t feel that it was a particularly powerful story. The biggest thing holding this book back was that no one grew or developed (other than Ghost Rider’s target and (a) he’s not a key cast member and (b) you could argue he already felt bad). This sapped meaning from the story, and I would go further and say this issue had no emotional heart. The X-Men are on a mission to help people they have no real investment in (not even Dani, despite the family connection…she shows no emotions in the book, only a bit of trivial irony) and in the end, they walk away unchanged. Even the commercial addition of Ghost Rider (I would think that this was an embedded marketing attempt to boost sales on the new Ghost Rider series) didn’t generate any genuine interactions or conflict. I small measure of how the story didn’t hold me was that I was more excited about two adds in the book: Marvel’s Princess of Mars series and the cover for X-Men #16 featuring Doctor Doom and the X-Men.

Namor The First Mutant Annual #1 – Review

By: James Asmus (writer), Max Fiumara (pencils), Fiumara & Norman Lee (inks), Jim Charalampidis (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Jordan White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: Cyclops, Steve Rodgers, Dr. Nemesis & Hope fight a Namor who is made insane by lack of water as they try to escape the Negative Zone.

What’s Good: Ya know what?  Bravo guys!  This three-part annual story (continuing from Uncanny X-Men Annual #3 and Steve Rogers Super Soldier Annual #1) was a really fun story that just about anyone with a passing familiarity with Marvel continuity can enjoy.  The very nature of this story meant that it isn’t meant to have long-term consequences and “change the way we look at the Marvel Universe forever” and Asmus used that nature to just nail the landing and give us everything you could really want in this story.

This is 90% a Cyclops and Hope story.  The central theme is that Cyclops wants protect Hope because of her role as the “Mutant Messiah” and how Hope chaffs at this because, while only a teenager, she has lived her entire life as a solider learning at the feet of Cable.  So, she isn’t some teenage mutant who is wetting herself because her powers are beginning to manifest, but a fully trained solider.  Even though some of this same ground is being plowed over in the ongoing X-books, it was still nice to see Hope and Cyclops team-up and have Cyclops trust her to go into a dangerous situation and help save the day.
Other highlights in this issue are Steve Rogers really selling his friendship for the X-Men (and Cyclops in particular), a really good Steve/Namor fight, Namor acting like an insane maniac and getting defeated (kinda) by Hope, and a lot of comic relief from Nemesis.  Good stuff.

Not everyone is going to love Max Fiumara’s art because it is different and his characters are very stylized, but that’s really what I like about it.  He’s one of those names that pops up in a Marvel book about once a year and it is always kinda a treat because he’s one of those few artists where even the untrained eye will spot him right away.  Let me put it this way, Marvel has quite a few artists who aren’t all that hot.  They don’t suck, but there’s nothing very cool about their art except that I presume they can grunt out a monthly book.  Well, when we have a story like this 3-parter, that I presume will have plenty of lead-time, I applaud Marvel for having someone different like Fiumara draw it rather than one of their competent, but unremarkable, C-list superhero artists.  Let’s have MORE non-traditional artists on Marvel books than 5th generation John Bryne wannabes.

Uncanny X-Men #534 – Review

By: Matt Fraction & Kieron Gillen (writers), Greg Land with Paul Renaud (pencils), Jay Leisten with Renaud (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jake Thomas & Jordan White (assistant editors), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: We wrap up both the Emma Frost v. Sebastian Shaw and X-Men v. Lobe storylines.

What’s Good: It’s really hard to come up with much that is “good” about this issue as it is the definition of “average” Big 2 superhero comics.  But, one of the wonderful things about our What’s-good/What’s-not-so-good format here at WCBR is that it really makes you pick out something about the issue that works.

Forced to come up with something positive to accentuate with this part of the review, I’ll go with Emma’s “moment” against Sebastian Shaw.  Those two characters have a LONG history together dating back to their days as allies during the Claremont/Byrne days on Uncanny, so seeing those two literally at each other’s throats was pretty sweet because you really did get the feeling that they wanted to kill the other and be DONE with it.  That part was good.

Another thing that was good was the method that Cyclops comes up with to overcome Lobe and his mutant flu-virus.  Although it was clever, it is precisely the sort of “Ha, ha, sucker!  You just outsmarted yourself!” that we’ve seen from Cyclops enough before (e.g. the end of Utopia where Norman Osborn can’t pummel Cyclops because his TV cameras are rolling) that is just doesn’t seem that special anymore.

And, it was nice that this story didn’t star Wolverine!  And, it even featured him haven’t a funny moment when he has to improvise since he can’t use his claws.

What’s Not So Good: These two stories were pretty tired stuff.  I think the problem with the X-books right now is that they have too many EVENTS (Second Coming), events (Necrosha) and “events” (Curse of the Mutants).  Between all of these “events”, any story line that is not part of any of these “events” feels like it is just filling time.  Think of it this way, if Emma Frost is going to die, don’t you think it would in some variety of “event” and not in a generic issue of Uncanny?  Ditto for any important character development.  Until the X-office convinces us that they can do BIG things in generic issues, I’m not going to believe that it can happen.

Incredible Hulks #618 – Review

By: Greg Pak (writer), Paul Pelletier (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), Paul Mounts (colors), Simon Bowland (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

A-Bomb back-up by: Jeff Parker (writer), Yacine Elghorri (art), Bowland (letters) & Jordan White (editor)

The Story: The Hulk family is sucked into the Chaos War.

What’s Good: Kudos to Pak and editor Paniccia to finding a way to tie the Hulk family into Chaos War in a way that makes sense in continuity.  One of the things I really miss from the comics I enjoyed as a kid was the feeling that the Marvel U is one big place and that all of these characters exist at the same time and in the same world.  Too often nowadays each branch of the Marvel U has its own threat-to-Earth going on that is made to feel small because none of the other books acknowledge each other.  Heck, Avengers and New Avengers don’t even acknowledge each other and they have the same writer and some of the same characters.

So, it was very nice to see the Hulks go immediately from their adventures in space last story arc to being tied into Chaos War.  One of the first events of Chaos War was that all the mortal heroes on Earth were knocked into a coma of sorts, so it makes sense that the Hulks (being off planet at the time) would have a role to play since they were unaffected.  It’s just nice to see nods to continuity in an event that isn’t blatantly numbering its books (although all the cross pollination between Chaos War scribe and Greg Pak and the Hulk and Hercules universes probably helps coordination).

The story itself is pretty average.  It’s nothing special, but no one who enjoys Hulk stuff is going to be disappointed to see that Abomination is back from the dead to fight the Hulks when they get back to Earth.  Hulks are big and they smash stuff.  Yeah!