It's been a busy week, so if you've sent me a review copy of anything lately, then it's very probably still in the pile.  I'll get to them, honestly.

Wolverine #57 sees writer Marc Guggenheim return to the book, after a reasonably successful run earlier in the year.  Of course, that arc was a Civil War tie-in, so it's no surprise that it sold rather well.  But it was a fun little storyline with a touch of intelligence and a ton of energy.  It was also completely over the top, admittedly, but the style seems to work for Guggenheim as long as he keeps it relatively light.  His final issue was an attempt to do something vaguely serious about Wolverine having near-death experiences while recovering from serious injuries, and it came across as a jarring gear shift.

At one point, Guggenheim was supposed to be continuing that storyline as a serial in the upcoming anthology Marvel Comics Presents.  But somehow, he seems to have ended up writing it for the solo title after all.  This is the first chapter of an arc that Marvel are calling "Logan Dies", although the issue itself is untitled.

In keeping with that theme, we've got a cover by Arthur Suydam, who must surely be bored of painting zombies by now.  I like to imagine him pleading with the editors on the phone.  "Wouldn't you like a nice horse or a train?  I can do landscapes...  No?  Another zombie?  Oh well..."  To be fair, he's really stretching his range here, because this time Wolverine is just an ordinary corpse, not a posthumously reanimated one.  Perhaps if Suydam keeps it up, one day Marvel will let him paint the living on a regular basis.

Interior art for this arc was originally supposed to be coming from Scott Kolins, but he's been replaced by Howard Chaykin.  Marvel haven't given an official explanation of that change, as far as I know, but it seems reasonable to assume that it's related to the exclusive DC contract that Kolins announced this weekend.

Personally, I've got no problem with that, because I much prefer Chaykin's bolder, more angular style.  He can be a little stiff at times, and I have no idea why his Wolverine is wearing a chainmail T-shirt in Iraq, but his art is fun to read.

The story is hectic and seems to be cramming in a lot of material in order to get to the point of bumping off the lead character.  In fairness, Guggenheim doesn't seriously expect us to believe that Logan is actually dead; the story involves his body regenerating as usual after a big fight, but his mind inexplicably refusing to wake up.  A fair enough starting point.

To get there, we have an odd mish-mash of costumed terrorists in Iraq, a flashback to World War I, and an Atlantean bimbo in an utterly ridiculous costume.  Amir was introduced in Guggenheim's previous arc, and she seems terribly out of place here - bright blue characters don't really fit in most situations.  But she seems to have been included simply as a vaguely familiar character who could be bumped off to serve the plot, and given the shortage of candidates, I suppose the choice makes passable sense.

Guggenheim also becomes the latest Marvel writer to introduce another Hydra-style terrorist group who are more suited to the present day.  That would be "Scimitar", a mysterious group who seem to run around doing Hydra-type stuff in present-day trouble spots.  They're fairly generic here - the decision to position them as profiteers rather than ideologues stops them from being a particularly close political analogue, and I'm not sure they contribute anything that couldn't have been done as well with an existing group.  But there's a whole storyline to go, so I'll reserve judgment until we see what else Guggenheim wants to do with them.

It's a decent enough superhero story with a few cluttered elements, but still featuring a solid premise and some well-executed action scenes.  It's fun, and it's smart enough to make that the top priority.  I wonder whether Guggenheim's more excessive tendencies will hold up quite as well with Chaykin on art - his previous arc was drawn by the wildly exaggerated Humberto Ramos.  But this is a perfectly entertaining start to a story with some potential.

Rating: B+

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