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Wolverine #181 was
promoted as a new direction for the book, which seems a little
odd considering that it's exactly the same creative team
who've been on the book for the last year. They're
joined by a new editor, Axel Alonso, and this issue undeniably
has certain similarities to Alonso's editorial back catalogue.
It's important to keep these
things in perspective, though. Publicity for this new
direction amounted to saying that it was different because
Wolverine wouldn't be in costume any more and would be
appearing in more "gritty" and less spandex-oriented
storylines. Now, that was the predominant format for
this book for going on a hundred issues until the
Larsen/Matsuda run that gave us the horrible "Wolverine versus
Galactus" arc. At best, this marks a return to the
original approach of the book after a couple of years of
stories that haven't worked all that well, rather than a
radical new direction.
The story here is very basic
stuff (a group of henchmen chat about recent atrocities their
mates have committed, until Wolverine turns up to kill them
all and rescue a girl that they've kidnapped). But this
isn't a plot-focussed issue. It's more an opportunity to
establish the change of tone, and the central conceit of this
issue is less is more. While the cast spend the entire
issue talking about nasty things happening to people, nothing
is actually seen on panel. The story opens with the
aftermath of Wolverine's fight with the henchman, but the
fight itself is off panel. It's all the more effective
for that, and a change in Tieri's writing style which has not
exactly been notable for its subtlety.
Not that this is all that
subtle. It's still a story about the caring yet
ultraviolent Wolverine killing people in circumstances where
it's not exactly clear that he needed to. It feels more
like a Punisher plot that's been transplanted onto Wolverine,
and that's a bigger concern here - I still don't get much
sense that Wolverine is a partcularly thought-out character.
This isn't bad taken on its own
terms, and a definite improvement on recent issues. But
it's none too original, and doesn't suggest a great deal to
add to what's been done with this character many times before.
Rating: B
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