Thursday 9 August 2012

Wolverine: Origins & Endings (2006)

"Logan has regained his memory."

"All of his memories? All of his ... real memories?"

"Yes. That is correct."

"That ain't a good thing, girlie."

This book collects Wolverine (volume 3) issues 36 - 40. It was written by a writer new to me called Daniel Way who has written a number of mini-series for Marvel featuring characters such as Venom, Sabretooth, Bullseye and the Punisher. The art was by Javier Saltares and Mark Texeira - I don't think I have come across Saltares work before but I liked Texeira's work on the revival of Ghost Rider in the early 90s.

Set in the aftermath of the House of M storyline, Wolverine has gone off the grid with a full set of regained memories. This triggers a full alert in SHIELD, the military and government - especially amongst those involved in the Weapon X project. Wolverine evades detection and attacks the prime minister of Japan in order to force a showdown with the Silver Samurai and confirm some of his new memories. He also tracks down the base where he was experimented on and confirms that he had help escaping and tracks down the Winter Soldier to hear his account of past events.

Another book I was disappointed with, I'm afraid. Wolverine is one of my favourite characters and they could write almost anything and I would probably lap it up but this book is all tease with no pay off. Although Wolverine has regained his memories he doesn't share what they are - even when confronting others to confirm details a lot of it is done via Wolverine's internal monologue in which he is satisfied with what he hears without the reader being any the wiser. The whole storyline of the book is a set up for a spin off series, Wolverine: Origins, and does not really provide a satisfying read on its own. Luckily I have a few of the collected volumes of this series and will now have to bump them up in the reading list.

First published on RevolutionSF on Tuesday May 24, 2011

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