Wolverine / Captain America has two strikes against it before you even read the story.  For one thing, it's a Wolverine miniseries, and if the last few years are anything to go by, that means it has an 85% chance of being dreadful.  For another, it's a weekly miniseries, and those are usually terrible as well.  The last time both of these factors combined, the result was Wolverine: X-Isle, and we all remember how terrible that was.

Well, the good news is that this miniseries is better than that.  This is very traditional superheroics.  It offers a competent plot in which two heroes team up to chase villains who've stolen a macguffin.  And that's pretty much it.  It's not what you'd call ambitious.  But it does at least achieve what it sets out to do.

Wolverine and Captain America are actually a relatively unexplored combination.  Most of their previous meetings have been in the context of Avengers/X-Men crossovers where they've been lost in the shuffle.  I can't say I'm particularly excited about the prospect of a miniseries about them, but at least it's a combination that hasn't been done to death.  Writers RA Jones and Tom Derenick also throw in Warbird in what's effectively a co-headlining role.  Since Warbird is one of a handful of characters with relatively close connections to both Wolverine and Cap, it's sensible enough to use her in that role.

On the downside, we've got a bunch of extremely generic villains wandering around (including Rapture, whose one and only previous appearance was in a Weapon X: Draft one-shot), and a thoroughly generic hunt-the-macguffin plot.  And the macguffin - a piece of Shi'ar technology - doesn't have all that much connection to either character.

Formulaic stuff, basically.  But it's a decent enough rendition of the formula, and in fairness, it's been a while since we were getting this kind of thing on a regular basis.  Again, the more traditionally-minded readers will probably enjoy it; others will file it under "Seen it before."

Rating: B

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