Wolverine: Origins #20 is the conclusion of a five-part flashback to World War II, which has the happy side-effect of allowing the book to use the popular-yet-dead Captain America.

In fact, this story hasn't done a great deal to advance Daniel Way's overall conspiracy storyline.  That rather suggests that it exists for the primary purpose of guest starring Captain America.  Not that I object to that, mind you.  Precisely because it's been relatively light on the insane conspiracy theories for most of its length, this has been one of the more readable storylines to date.

The plot basically involves Logan meeting up with Captain America and Bucky in World War II, and tagging along when they go after Baron Strucker, only to find out that his handlers are actually on the other side.  For the most part, it's been a perfectly acceptable superhero/war story, building on Ed Brubaker's idea that Bucky wasn't just a kid sidekick - he also handled the stuff that needed to be deniable.

So we get a story where Wolverine meets a proper, full-blown hero, and a flawed sidekick who's a bit more like him.  This all works reasonably well.  Unfortunately, you can't have it all, and with the final story, Way ends up back in conspiracy territory.  In some ways, his finale is a rather clever way of writing himself out of a corner.  But it doesn't really work as a continuity implant, because it strains credibility that something like this would never have come up before.  ("Say, Logan, remember that time you betrayed me to the Nazis...?")  It's too fundamental to any future trust between Captain America and Wolverine, and for that reason, it doesn't ring true.

The storyline is also a bit overlong at five issues.  But that's a relatively minor point; it does hold together quite well, and the pacing will work better in the trade.

In most respects, this is probably the best Wolverine: Origins storyline to date, taken as a whole.  But the conspiracy elements are still an irritant, and the final issue suffers badly from a finale that, although reasonably clever on its own terms, feels downright wrong in any wider context.

Rating: C

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