Robin Lewis
Mar 9, 2008, 10:02 am
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/4images/details.php?image_id=11803" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/covers/marvel/logan1t.jpg" alt="Logan #1" hspace=10 align=left></a> Reviewer: Robin Lewis, lucillerobin@aol.com
Story Title: Logan (Act One of Three).
A rare beast these days: a Wolverine story with no earth-shattering retcons.
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Art: Eduardo Risso
Colorist: Dean White
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Assistant Editor: Daniel Ketchum
Editor: Axel Alonso
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published By: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
With one solo title whose pre-Messiah Complex stories turned Wolverine into a descendant of an ancient race of cat/wolf people who literally fights Death on a regular basis and a second title devoted exclusively to adding more Jenga blocks of continuity and retcon to an already teetering tower of mysterious past you might well be forgiven for acting a little gun shy when faced with a new Wolverine mini-series. He's had some good material in his many team books, but Logan's own books have been, of late, nothing short of disastrous. It makes you long for the days of Greg Rucka's early run on his solo title, or Mark Millar's shallow but undeniably fun twelve-part Bruckheimer movie. Each new astounding revelation about his past that rewrites history and promises to show him in a new, never-before-seen light just fills the reader with grinding weariness and prompts the question of when Marvel are going to stop fiddling with Wolverine and just write some decent stories about him? Actually, the answer to that last one is 'right now'.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/4images/details.php?image_id=11804" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/covers/marvel/logan1bwvt.jpg" alt="Logan #1 variant cover" hspace=10 align=right></a>Brian K. Vaughan has seen his comics output lessen recently as his time is presumably taken up with writing episodes of Lost, but he's back again here taking up what many writers have recently found to be a poisened chalice: the story about Wolverine's past. Happily, Vaughan's smart enough to treat Logan's past as a resource to cherish rather than something to try and rewrite. Logan gives a writer decades of time to write stories in, two World Wars, countless societal upheavals around the globe and a hell of a lot of elbow room to tell their story. This broad canvas of possibility has been ignored in recent stories in favour of re-inventing Logan for the eighty-seventh time and trying to write a new 'definitive' take on his past. And so we have the infamous Jeph Loeb story and the Wolverine vs Death silliness. Logan, on the other hand, just wants to tell us about something that happened to the man sixty years ago, and is all the better for it. Vaughan starts with Logan returning to Japan to face a demon from his past. Sometime during World War II he was captured by the Japanese and incarcerated with an ornery American who may have been tipped over the edge into paranoia and blind rage. He escapes, finds respite in the arms of the latest in a long line of women who find slightly stunted and hirsute Canadians irresistible, and then drops a bombshell of foreshadowing that makes it plain his fortune is holding steady at 'worst luck ever'.
It's a simple story, told with simple and perfectly judged art, appropriately washed-out colours and a focus on Logan the man, rather than Wolverine the hero or Wolverine the Russian doll of stupid retcons. Logan here is smart, tough, resourceful and still, in spite of everything, vulnerable. He is, in short, an interesting character to read about again. The tough-guy narration doesn't go over the line into self-parody, as is so often the case with Wolverine stories, and Vaughan's Japan is understated and reliant on nifty details to bring out the atmosphere rather than endless bad dialogue about Gaijin dogs and honour. Perhaps it's the utter naffness of Wolverine's recent solo stories that makes something like this feel so refreshing and well-done, but irrespective of the reasons why, this book is just what the doctor ordered for Logan's ailing brand. Some readers may baulk at the thought of another story set mainly in Logan's past, but that's only because the recent slew of stories about his past have been terrible. This is one done right, and is well worth your time. It doesn't want to set the world alight, but these days a simple Wolverine story told well is something to shout about. And with only two more episodes to go the series might well just get on with the traditional set-up, development and conclusion structure without the padding faff-around that most mini-series use in to pump out two or three extra issues. A simple, concise story about Logan? Who'd have thunk it.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolnone.jpg
Buy Logan #1 online now from X-WORLD and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=2980&cat=LOGAN)
Story Title: Logan (Act One of Three).
A rare beast these days: a Wolverine story with no earth-shattering retcons.
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Art: Eduardo Risso
Colorist: Dean White
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Assistant Editor: Daniel Ketchum
Editor: Axel Alonso
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published By: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
With one solo title whose pre-Messiah Complex stories turned Wolverine into a descendant of an ancient race of cat/wolf people who literally fights Death on a regular basis and a second title devoted exclusively to adding more Jenga blocks of continuity and retcon to an already teetering tower of mysterious past you might well be forgiven for acting a little gun shy when faced with a new Wolverine mini-series. He's had some good material in his many team books, but Logan's own books have been, of late, nothing short of disastrous. It makes you long for the days of Greg Rucka's early run on his solo title, or Mark Millar's shallow but undeniably fun twelve-part Bruckheimer movie. Each new astounding revelation about his past that rewrites history and promises to show him in a new, never-before-seen light just fills the reader with grinding weariness and prompts the question of when Marvel are going to stop fiddling with Wolverine and just write some decent stories about him? Actually, the answer to that last one is 'right now'.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/4images/details.php?image_id=11804" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/covers/marvel/logan1bwvt.jpg" alt="Logan #1 variant cover" hspace=10 align=right></a>Brian K. Vaughan has seen his comics output lessen recently as his time is presumably taken up with writing episodes of Lost, but he's back again here taking up what many writers have recently found to be a poisened chalice: the story about Wolverine's past. Happily, Vaughan's smart enough to treat Logan's past as a resource to cherish rather than something to try and rewrite. Logan gives a writer decades of time to write stories in, two World Wars, countless societal upheavals around the globe and a hell of a lot of elbow room to tell their story. This broad canvas of possibility has been ignored in recent stories in favour of re-inventing Logan for the eighty-seventh time and trying to write a new 'definitive' take on his past. And so we have the infamous Jeph Loeb story and the Wolverine vs Death silliness. Logan, on the other hand, just wants to tell us about something that happened to the man sixty years ago, and is all the better for it. Vaughan starts with Logan returning to Japan to face a demon from his past. Sometime during World War II he was captured by the Japanese and incarcerated with an ornery American who may have been tipped over the edge into paranoia and blind rage. He escapes, finds respite in the arms of the latest in a long line of women who find slightly stunted and hirsute Canadians irresistible, and then drops a bombshell of foreshadowing that makes it plain his fortune is holding steady at 'worst luck ever'.
It's a simple story, told with simple and perfectly judged art, appropriately washed-out colours and a focus on Logan the man, rather than Wolverine the hero or Wolverine the Russian doll of stupid retcons. Logan here is smart, tough, resourceful and still, in spite of everything, vulnerable. He is, in short, an interesting character to read about again. The tough-guy narration doesn't go over the line into self-parody, as is so often the case with Wolverine stories, and Vaughan's Japan is understated and reliant on nifty details to bring out the atmosphere rather than endless bad dialogue about Gaijin dogs and honour. Perhaps it's the utter naffness of Wolverine's recent solo stories that makes something like this feel so refreshing and well-done, but irrespective of the reasons why, this book is just what the doctor ordered for Logan's ailing brand. Some readers may baulk at the thought of another story set mainly in Logan's past, but that's only because the recent slew of stories about his past have been terrible. This is one done right, and is well worth your time. It doesn't want to set the world alight, but these days a simple Wolverine story told well is something to shout about. And with only two more episodes to go the series might well just get on with the traditional set-up, development and conclusion structure without the padding faff-around that most mini-series use in to pump out two or three extra issues. A simple, concise story about Logan? Who'd have thunk it.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/wolnone.jpg
Buy Logan #1 online now from X-WORLD and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=2980&cat=LOGAN)