THE CREATORS: Frank Tieri and Sean Chen start out as the creative team, but Chen ends with issue #185 and Tieri leaves after issue #186.  Some fill-ins by Daniel Way and assorted artists round off the series.  After the relaunch, Greg Rucka writes, with Darick Robertson on the first storyline and Leandro Fernandez on the second.

THE FILL-IN ARTIST COUNT: Four.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2003: The tail end of Tieri's crime story; that unforgivably bad issue with the Punisher; a string of fill-ins by Daniel Way; "The Brotherhood" (the cult storyline); and "Coyote Crossing" (the one about Mexican immigrants).

At the beginning of 2003, Wolverine was still being written by Frank Tieri.  Any look back at the year would not be complete without drawing your attention to the regrettable issue #186, in which Tieri attempted to answer Wolverine's hilarious abuse at the hands of Garth Ennis over in Punisher.  Result: a pointless fight scene, with the pay-off that the Punisher likes gay porn.  An utterly hopeless and self-indulgent waste of paper, if ever there was one.

Anyway, by that point Wolverine was scheduled for a relaunch during the year, so the old title saw out the remaining months with a string of fill-ins by Daniel Way.  Taking the traditional fill-in route, Way wrote a bunch of stories in which everything revolves around new characters introduced for the purpose.  However, Way took that approach to unusual extremes by omitting Wolverine almost completely.  They're actually not too bad as stories, but perhaps a little unsatisfactory as Wolverine stories.

The relaunch under Greg Rucka and Darick Robertson has gone for a back to basics approach.  Wolverine is the hard man who stumbles upon injustice and sorts it out, through the time honoured means of beating the shit out of people.  It's kind of a return to core values of Wolverine as relentless, violent tracker.

Fair enough, but the results have been a little underwhelming.  Rucka hasn't yet produced any satisfactory antagonists.  There's a general feeling of seeing Wolverine going through his usual routine against an assortment of people who haven't got a hope.  A subplot with Cassie Lathrop adds a degree of interest, but unfortunately this hasn't proved to be among Rucka's stronger work.  It's still good, but it doesn't live up to the standards we know he's capable of.

Darick Robertson went back to the short, hairy look for Wolverine, only to be rapidly informed of the importance of Hugh Jackman to Wolverine's look in the twenty-first century.  Personally, I prefer Robertson's take on the character, who really should look more animalistic than he's usually allowed to these days.

Rucka is another writer who's decamping to DC for an exclusive deal, although he's honouring his existing commitment to Marvel by writing the scripts they already ordered.  That should keep him on this book, Winick-style, until sometime during 2004; no word yet of what's happening after that, but presumably we'll hear something in the course of the upcoming relaunch of the X-books.

Disappointing considering the high expectations that attach to a Rucka/Robertson project.  But still a huge improvement on what came before it.

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