How much longer is "Return of the Native" meant to be running, again?  Seven parts?  God.

Even as somebody who loves Greg Rucka and Darick Robertson's work, and enjoys their take on Wolverine, this storyline is really starting to tax my patience.  No doubt it'll read wonderfully in the trade paperback, but it's increasingly clear that this is another of those painfully slow stories which just doesn't work in the single issues.  Of course, given that Rucka's scripts pre-date his signing to DC, and therefore stem from the height of Marvel's "decompress everything" period, I suppose that shouldn't be too much of a surprise.  Still, this looks distinctly like a story that could happily have been sliced down to four issues and would have been much improved by doing so.

Last issue, Native was captured by the bad guys.  This time, they take Native to their mad scientist, Vapor, who experiments on her and finds out that she's pregnant.  Meanwhile, Wolverine and Sabretooth follows them there, only for Wolverine to turn on Sabretooth once he's been led to the location.  And that's the whole plot.

Now, it's quite nicely paced in its way.  Wolverine quietly ignores all of Sabretooth's rambling throughout the issue, which is intended to set us up for "can you trust Sabretooth?"  And the switch works well.  But there's not much sense of anything really happening.  This is a point I haven't made in a while, so it's worth flagging up again: just because the pacing works in terms of page count, that doesn't mean it won't fail dismally in serial format.  Because pacing in serials has to allow for the shipping schedule as well.  This story may well justify 150 pages, but it certainly doesn't seem to have enough plot to justify six months - which is how much it's been given.

Vapor also seems decidedly out of place, in a tight red leather outfit that seems completely at odds with the general visual design of the issue.  Quite why a character from the U-Foes has been dragged into this role is also a bit of a mystery, assuming it's her - although to be fair, I suppose her powers would make her a useful Wolverine villain, since she can't just be slashed.

I want to like this arc, and I suspect when it's all finished I'll go back, read the whole thing, and decide that it works as a whole.  After all, once it's been published once, that's all that matters - no more waiting required.  But for now, reading it in monthly instalments, it's just too bloody slow.

Rating: B-

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