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On to the miniseries, and the first of this
week's two Akira Yoshida comics. And to be fair,
Wolverine: Soultaker is by far the better of the two.
It has a plot that makes sense, for one thing.
Nonetheless, this is not the most exciting
comic you will ever read. Soultaker has a fairly
straightforward plot. Wolverine comes into possession of
a magic necklace and accidentally revives a Japanese warrior
priestess, her evil twin, and the demon who the twin summoned
up. The demon will now resume its plan to conquer the
world by raising the dead, and has started by raising some
zombie samurai who will fight Wolverine next issue.
It's really not that complicated. And
yet, somehow the issue contrives to feature eleven solid pages
of Wolverine and Mana discussing the plot and explaining the
back story. On the one hand, it's quite nice to see that
the plot has actually been thought through for once. Or
at least, the historical bit. The contemporary stuff's
rather ropey. The first couple of issues don't actually
make much sense in retrospect. The villains trace Mana's
secret temple by following Wolverine when he sees it in a
vision after touching the necklace, and then goes to find it.
But we were never told how Wolverine located the temple
either. And the necklace was stolen from the bad guys in
the first place, meaning that they could have done the job
themselves at any point in the last 150 years just by picking
the thing up.
But at least the pseudo-mythical back story
has been worked out properly. Nonetheless, there's
nothing particularly complex or clever about this story, or
even anything all that original. And given its plot
holes its probably best not to invite readers to think too
deeply about the story. So eleven pages devoted to
explaining the plot mechanics seems... excessive.
Still, it does have rather pleasant art
from Shin Nagasawa, particularly when he's doing the Japanese
mythical elements. And Wolverine versus zombie samurais
isn't a bad idea, although it's strikingly similar to what
Mark Millar's already doing in the parent book.
This book has serious flaws, but ultimately
it's still readable enough. The art is enough to get it
into the Bs.
Rating: B-
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