Wolverine Wednesday #71

Wolverine #43

Writers: Benjamin Percy & Victor LaValle | Artist: Geoff Shaw | Colourist: Alex Sinclair | Letters: Cory Petit

This week I wanted to kick off talking about the cover. Modern covers tend to have a bad reputation. Perhaps there is an element of me being biased, but I love this cover by Lenil Yu! Visually it draws the eye with the dual bursts of gunfire. Secondly having Wolverine and Sabretooth side by side in their old Team X garb is going to have readers and potential readers curious. On the subject of Team X and my bias, this issue starts off strong. Wolverine? Check. Sabretooth? Check. Maverick? Check. Personally, though I would have liked more of the story dedicated to the flashback. Maybe an element where the events of the flashback inform the current goings-on. But who am I to call out Percy on how to tell a story? Really the Team X stuff is used to frame the story, including a brilliant two-page spread of Wolverine and Sabretooth history in Team X. It screams action, spy movie testosterone! I do see a little Howard Chaykin in Geoff Shaw’s style here. We have Sabretooth monologue accompanying these Team X sequences and with some other elements in the story it does feel like a character study at times. The dissension in the ranks among the army of Sabretooth’s is on point. People may think it is coming too soon as the story still has some legs in it. But its perfect storytelling. It is exactly who Sabretooth is. He talks himself up as a big bad, but he is narrow-minded and that is why he is always a lackey and never a leader. Before I go any further I want to say Benjamin Percy is one sick and twisted individual for what he does to Quentin Quire and Laura in this issue! In this issue, Victor LaValle’s hand on things becomes a lot more clearer and there is a good chunk of the story spent with The Exiles. Their involvement is very accessible to people who didn’t read that series. Whatever happened in that series is just played off as a past events it has no strong bearing in what is happening here. Even though I wasn’t a fan of the Sabretooth and The Exiles stuff I am actually intrigued to see how they factor into this arc. With that said perhaps their inclusion here is a factor in there not actually being a lot of Wolverine in this story. For me it wasn’t a major problem, obviously, people may feel once a month if you pick up a comic called Wolverine he should feature in more than half of it. Shaw continues to be a natural fit for a Wolverine artist. I really like the sketchiness to his style. Not only is he a great fit for Wolverine in general, but this arc is certainly playing to his strengths. All his Sabretooths are very distinct, whilst having that rough edge to them. He shows versatility when it comes to the Exiles scenes. The art becomes more clean and animated and is accentuated by a thick black line. Throughout the issue Sinclair does an amazing job spotting black. Overall the action is toned down from the opening two issues, this is a case of taking time to breathe and shape the story more. Percy begins to spin the plates here and he never could have kept that pace up for the whole arc. Like I said this definitely has the feel of a Sabretooth issue and a hero is only as good as their villains. Despite the reduced action, when there is some violence it still hits as hard as we have already seen previously. From a visual standpoint, the violence is still toeing that line of being OTT for the sake of it rather than serving the story.

Wolverine #44

Writers: Benjamin Percy & Victor LaValle | Artist: Geoff Shaw | Inker: Oren Junior | Colourist: Alex Sinclair | Letters: Cory Petit

Right off the bat Lenil Yu is 4 for 4 on kick-ass covers. He is probably going to end up being the unsung star of ‘Sabretooth War.’ Just to get nerdy on the cover, I don’t know if the names on the headstones are a plot point or just placed for fun by artist, inker or letterer. But I’m counting the inclusion of Rose O’Hara as someone confirming that Dog from ‘Origin’ is Sabretooth. After all the action of #41-#42 and the Sabretooth character piece last time out this issue provides more of an emotional hook. Where Percy and LaValle earn their stripes is that in a comic titled ‘Wolverine’ some of the emotional beats aren’t centred around our hero. There are two really deep moments with Aurora and Phoebe. Of course, the biggest gut wrencher is reserved for Logan and without spoiling anything it connects to Laura’s plot thread from #42. Going into a story arc titled ‘Sabretooth War’ I wasn’t quite expecting this to be such an ensemble piece. Again it just shows god writing when to shift another character into the spotlight. In this issue we get some good character moments for Domino and Colossus. After the last issue, Wolverine shifts back to the main focus and again picks up the narration. I do wonder if the narration, as well as the focus, will switch from Wolverine to Sabretooth from issue to issue as the arc rolls on. To further add to this point there was no appearance from ‘Prime Sabretooth’ this time around. The good character beats are well-balanced with some good action sequences. There is a hunt in the snow, which gives us a fastball special and an intense interrogation scene which gives us a great Sage moment. Geoff Shaw again switches effortlessly between his sketchy style and cleaner line work. In this issue there isn’t really a clear factor to differentiate between the two. In the previous issue it was the Sabretooth plot and Exiles plot that highlighted the change in style. This time around it seems to be a more moment-to-moment choice. A good example would be the already mentioned snow sequence. The ‘Cap Sabretooth’ is in the sketchy style, which works well for his ferocious animal instincts. But when that fastball special comes out the armoury Wolverine suddenly becomes more defined on the page. The thick black line is absent and I can only guess Shaw inked his own work in #43. What really stands out again throughout the issue is Sinclair use of black and yet the pages don’t feel dark and bland. On the side of the violence count nothing much to report this time around. Only really one moment of mention and that was more gory rather than violent. After four issues ‘Sabretooth War’ is really shaping up to be a classic. This issue really pushed the narrative forward, letting the character moments shine alongside some solid action sequences. No pun intended but Percy and LaValle are really serving up plenty of threads to sink your teeth into.