Finally for this week's X-books, Wolverine.

This title is shortly to be reassigned to the Marvel Knights imprint.  As we all know, Marvel Knights is the imprint for edgy, new comics aimed at the more mature reader.  This is why it's being dumped with four existing comics which won't be changing their style at all, and if anything will be watering themselves down by starting their Marvel Knights runs with conventional tie-ins to continuity. 

Wolverine will be fighting Sabretooth and doing something connected to Weapon X!  Talk about edgy!  Meanwhile, X-Statix will fight the Avengers, in a riff on the Avengers/Defenders War.  God knows nothing says "edgy" like a riff on a hugely overrated superhero crossover from a quarter of a century ago.  It's the future!

I suppose I can see the point in trying to shift some of those books over into a more clearly demarcated Marvel Knights imprint, given that that imprint has almost totally lost meaning.  The wider significance, of course, is that Marvel Knights lost meaning because that ethos permeated the entire line.  So what do we expect from the non-Marvel Knights books?  I have a sinking feeling that the word "hackneyed" is going to feature prominently. 

Anyway, Wolverine #10 is the penultimate part of "Coyote Crossing."  Regular readers will have guessed that I've just spent several paragraphs rambling about the Marvel Knights imprint in an attempt to distract attention from the fact that I have relatively little to say about this comic.

That's not because it's bad, or even particularly because it's decompressed, but because by this point we've already covered most of the things that can be said about this book.  Nice back-to-basics approach on the character, interesting subplot with Cassie, really nice art from Leandro Fernandez, etc.

Rucka gets more mileage than I'd expected out of last issue's revelation that Rojas, the villain, is a heavily pregnant woman.  Obviously, we get the point that Wolverine doesn't want to kill her because she's got an unborn child who hasn't done anything wrong.  But Rojas gets a nice little speech flagging up the question of why - is Wolverine after her because he's a basically good man, or is he after her because it's a moral justification for taking out his violent urges?  More to the point, perhaps, is that Wolverine doesn't seem entirely sure of the answer himself.  Given the cliffhanger, I assume he resolves the problem with the use of an impromptu caesarean, but we're still left with the question.

Quite a good issue, although it still leaves you with the feeling that it could be doing more.

Rating: B+

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