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Originally the X-Axis used to
cover guest appearances of X-books characters in other books
as well. I stopped doing that because (a) there really
weren't all that many of them in the last few years, and (b)
they were generally terrible.
But I'll make an exception for
Punisher #16, guest starring Wolverine.
Poor old Wolverine.
If you ever read Hitman,
you may remember the respect and admiration which the cast of
that book showed to Green Lantern when he turned up. It
was great. Garth Ennis has never exactly been keen on
superheroes - this is, after all, the man who wrote
Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe. Superheroes in
Garth Ennis stories tend to end up looking very silly.
As Wolverine would have realised,
had he done his research before agreeing to go within a mile
of this book.
Stupid bastard.
Don't be fooled by the relatively
normal cover. This is a story about a horde of maniacs
attacking crimelords at the knee with chainsaws.
Wolverine and the Punisher both set out to investigate.
Except it's the Punisher's book, so guess who comes out
looking better?
The first couple of Wolverine pages are
relatively straight, and may leave you wondering why the
dialogue is so awful. But it soon becomes obvious that
Garth is writing an outright parody of Wolverine, a character
who keeps up an endless stream of bizarre tough-guy talk which
bears no resemblance to how anyone else on the planet talks at
all. And he never shuts up. Ever. Somewhere,
now, Ennis' Wolverine is tossing in his sleep, muttering about
canuckleheads.
Subsequently, the Punisher gets to fight
Wolverine. The Punisher is an imaginative chap.
And it's his book. Poor old Wolverine.
To be honest, this isn't the best issue of
Ennis' Punisher run - the law of diminishing returns
has set in by this point, and it's probably time to draw a
line under this joke and move on. But this book puts the
boot into Wolverine so effectively that I just have to draw it
to your attention.
This comic hates Wolverine. Heh.
Rating: A-
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