Avengers #13 – Review

By: Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer (Writers), Mike Deodato (Artist), Frank Martin (Colorist)

The Story: Don’t threaten Hyperion’s children while his Avengers buddies are here. Just don’t.

The Review: This run on this title has been a weird affair so far. There are amazing ideas being thrown, some great characters set in the teams that could very well expand the base idea of what the Avengers could very well be and a progression that is still building up to something greater.

With all those qualities, however, it seems that there are a lot of setbacks. For all the cool ideas, there is some really cold dialogue ripe with exposition. For all the cool buildup, there is close to no resolution or any sight of payoff. While none of the issues were an actual bore, this title lacked excitement in a ‘’rollercoaster’’ kind of way, with some issues being close to solid, while some were just confusing.

Savage Wolverine #5 – Review

By: Frank Cho (Writer/Artist), Jason Keith (Colorist)

The Story: Hulk arrives, Wolverine tries to fight him and some kind of ancient evil is unleashed out of the Savage Lands.

The Review: I had told in the previous review I wrote about this series a theory in which I told that Wolverine was kind of inconsequential to the story. In a way, I was mildly joking and I thought myself very clever when I pointed out that besides giving us action, he did not do much to advance the plot, leaving Shanna and Amadeus Cho the luxury of actually explaining what was happening to us. While it was a bit on the nose, it did not exactly detract from the enjoyment of the story.

As it turns out, I was right, albeit not entirely: none of the characters here actually mattered. While it may sound harsh and exceptionally unfair for me to say, I dare anyone to read this issue and then to just try to see why exactly the story needed Wolverine, Shanna, Amadeus Cho or even Hulk in there to explain its concepts. Basically, there is a lot of fighting between Hulk and Wolverine, which leads to the ancient evil sealed in the Savage Lands to wake up and go out in space. The end.

Wolverine and the X-Men #28 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (Writer), Ramon Pérez (Artist), Laura Martin, Matt Milla (Colorist)

The Story: As it turns out, the students of the Jean Grey School for higher learning are not so impressed with Dog and his class as Wolverine comes around to show them what kind of man he is.

The Review: Well, as it turns out, the conclusion here is much stronger than the actual story we got here. Could it be because of the fact that Jason Aaron used more character analysis here rather than mindless action? Could it also be because it delivers a somewhat satisfying conclusion to a storyline that had its share of small ups and crushing downs?

The answer for both these questions would be a resounding yes. Here, we get a higher focus on the real stars of this book: the students. As pretty much of the action in this arc had been focused on Wolverine, his brother and the students, it is much more interesting to see the students interact with each other in stressful situation, to see them evolve and adapt. Close to every students get a single moment, be it Broo that shows he still has some kind of intelligence under all that new savagery, or Eye-Boy who shows just what kind of stuff he can do with eye powers (even though that particular moment was almost ruined by the thought bubbles. No, I will never let that go.) By focusing on the way that the students become a bit more united, it makes the ending a little bit stronger as a result.

Savage Wolverine #3 – Review

By: Frank Cho (Writer/Artist), Jason Keith (Colorist)

The Story: Amadeus Cho gets some back story for the isle while Wolverine and Shanna battle some tribesmen.

The Review: There are some times when you wonder just why the titular character is even there when the supporting cast is more interesting. Sometimes, it seem that the more interesting parts of some series or issues are seen through the secondary characters, making those characters seems much more important than they are or at least their appearance become much more anticipated between issues. Sometimes, it is involuntary and other times it is by design, but it always results in the main character being pushed aside in many ways.

Savage Wolverine #2 – Review

By: Frank Cho (Writer/Artist), Jason Keith (Colorist)

The Story: Wolverine and Shanna deals with the dinosaurs attacking them, while Amadeus Cho arrive on the island and tries to understand just what is happening here.

The Review: Now this is more like it and, quite frankly, an improvement in close to every way from the opening issue of this series. Close to every problem I had with the first issue are either resolved, pushed aside or are just gone, creating something that is a little bit more up to the artistic talent of Frank Cho.

The first thing that had bugged me in the first issue was the over-reliance of self-narration that had been absolutely redundant considering what they said and how they were presented. The problem I had was that most of what Wolverine said could be very simply deduced by the art itself, making his speech completely useless in some ways. Here though, instead of describing just what he sees, Wolverine tells us how he feels and how he reacts to what is surrounding, creating a much better representation of who Wolverine is as a character instead of becoming something akin to a ‘’Captain Obvious’’. It is not completely out of the way, as there are still some narrations that are fairly useless, but it still much better than in the first issue.

Wolverine and the X-Men #25 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (Writer), Ramòn Pérez (Artists), Laura Martin (Colorist)

The Story: Wolverine decides to teach the students of the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning all about survival in one the harshest place of the Marvel universe: the Savage Lands.

The Review: I do believe this is a step in the right direction for this series. For something that started with full of energy, style and humor, it is a little bit painful to see just how it all faltered. The faults can be traced down to many things, like an overly long tie-in story with AvX focusing on other characters that were not part of the cast, the vast retooling of said cast among many others. Still, this issue is a step in the right direction for many reasons.

One of them would be the tighter focus on the actual cast of the book, with people like Idie, Quentin Quire, Wolverine, Genesis and Broo being brought back front and center. This works much better, since most of them have been there since the inception (Genesis being the exception), allowing us to see just how they have evolved and changed thanks to the many happenings at the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning. Much of their sass and personalities are shown fully, which makes for a much more interesting comics than the latest arc focusing on some smaller or rather boring characters.

Savage Wolverine #1 – Review

By: Frank Cho (Writer/Artist), Jason Keith (Colorist)

The Story: Wolverine gets stranded on a strange island that is part of the Savage Lands and meets Shanna the she-devil.

The Review: It is not common place these days to see an artist that can write a series on his own. Usually, it’s a combination of writer and artist, like Morrison and Quitely, or Ennis and Dilon, that creates great work as a team. We have seen people able to write and draw series by themselves, like Jeff Lemire with Sweet Tooth and Essex County, so could Frank Cho be the next discovery as the next big writer/artist under one of the Big Two?

Sadly, no. Frank Cho makes a good number of mistakes in this first issue that makes it very hard to enjoy its strong points. The very first of them is very simple: he writes too much. Close to every panel is accompanied with the various thoughts Wolverine has in his head, but the vast majority of those thoughts are completely useless, describing what Wolverine see in front of him. Considering that we can see easily what the character sees, those bits of text are pointless, bringing down the whole issue as if Frank Cho did not believe that his art could show all the necessary details by itself.