Savage Wolverine #6 – Review

By: Zeb Wells (Writer), Joe Madureira (Artist), Peter Steigerwald (Colorist)

The Story: Elektra is elusive, Wolverine might have anger issues and Kingpin is shady. Also includes ninjas.

The Review: I had my doubts about continuing this series. After the last disappointing issue, I wasn’t sure if this title could keep my interest. However, I was quickly reminded that this title had kind of become some kind of home for writers and artists to do original stories featuring the ol’ canucklehead when I saw that it was both Zeb Wells and Joe Madureira that took hold of the title as a follow-up to Frank Cho’s tenure. Does this duo make a better argument for such a title when Frank Cho didn’t do so well in retrospective?

Surprisingly, they do give us a story that focuses a bit more on Wolverine, connecting a bit more with whom the character and what he does. The story starts with Wolverine being angry, out of his mind as we’re thrown to the end of a conflict where he took some big hits. As the story goes from here, we see a bit how he interacts with some of his Avengers team-up and with one of his always entertaining team-up partner: Spider-Man. Considering the lack of importance of continuity for this story, we are given the real Peter Parker version here, which could be considered a nice bonus for those not on board with the whole Spider-Ock thing, as we see his usual uncomfortable shenanigans and interactions with Wolverine, which are always entertaining.

Daredevil: End of Days #7 – Review

By: Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack (Writer), Klaus Janson, Bill Sienkiewicz (Artists), Matt Hollingsworth (Colorist)

The Story: Ben Urich follows some more leads for the mystery behind the Mapone mystery and the secret of the newer Daredevil.

The Review: If there is one character that I always love to see Bendis write, it has to be Ben Urich. I do love how he always seems to go out of his depths in search of a story, while he seems to be always relatable and just plain interesting. This is a man that always get involved in the adventures of Daredevil, throughout the happy times, but mostly through the harder perils of the life of Hell’s kitchen protector.

Kato Origins #2 – Review

By: Jai Nitz (writer), Colton Worley (pencils and inks), Romulo Fajardo Jr. (colorist)

The Story: Way of the Ninja, Part Two: A Korean grocer has been murdered. Kato, our favorite Japanese ninja sidekick, recognizes signs of ninja involvement that can only imply that he is a target too. The problem in tracking down people people with ninja training is that they don’t leave tracks, or if they do, they lay them right through rival gangs….

What’s Good: Nitz has a solid grip of his character, how he perceives the hostile world he’s immersed in, and the sort of deadly playfulness he needs to survive. Nitz has Kato take two philosophies of conflict (one by Doc Holliday, the other by Sun Tzu) to be the thematic frames of this book. How Kato compares each philosophy, while he is implementing one that is a mix of both, is really cool, and gives depth and resonance to this gritty, brutal world. At the same time, Nitz cleverly applies sun Tzu’s work to what it’s like to be Asian in racist America of the 1940s. This gives the readers a different lens through which to look at the persecuted and how they might deal with an ignorant, hostile world. Nitz does this all with crisp dialogue, sardonic monologue boxes and appropriate reliance on Colton Worley.