revolution34

The first story arc of Daniel Way and Steve Dillon’s Wolverine: Origins comes to a close, and I still have absolutely no idea if I like it or not. I’m completely conflicted about almost every aspect of it. This second ongoing for Marvel’s most ubiquitous character has spun out of last year’s House Of M “event” storyline, where the chronically amnesiac Wolverine regained his memories and this is the first thing that’s left me conflicted – much of the attraction of the Wolverine character is his unknown past, but at the same time there’s an undeniable potential in this story.

Unfortunately, this potential wasn’t fully realised in the first story arc, ‘Born In Blood’, which seemed to simply slavishly follow the standard formula of “introduce adversary, fight fight fight, issue ends with big revelation or a new, bigger adversary to fight next month (or both)”. However, there was (just) enough story to keep me interested, particularly in the flashback sequences where we see pre-hero, pre-Weapon X Logan going about his nasty, torturing, murderous business and we really don’t like him. This fits, as does everything here thanks to Daniel Way’s devotion to continuity. However, continuity isn’t an end in itself – Marvel’s Tom Brevoort has likened it to icing on a cake (you don’t have to have it, but who wants a cake without icing?) – and just because this series seeks to join all the dots left by previous writers in continuity, it still needs to bring something original to the table.

I’m also conflicted about the art. Steve Dillon is a master of facial expression, but his very distinct style does have the worrying side-effect of making a lot of his secondary characters look very similar. You can tell apart the main characters by their costumes or other trademarks, but facially a lot of hic characters share a certain face. Compare his depiction of Hellion in #5 with the GF agent from Global Frequency #3 with Preacher’s Jesse Custer and you’ll see what I mean. Custer’s girlfriend Tulip also seems to have a new career aboard a SHIELD helicarrier now.

So conflicted, but there are enough positives in here for me to follow for maybe another story arc. With a bit more bad-Wolvie backstory and a bit less of the ‘rumble-of-the-month’ formula and I might be convinced.