Mark Millar and John Romita Jr take over Wolverine with issue #20, and as you might expect, there's a noticeable change of style.

Greg Rucka and Darick Robertson's run was, unfortunately, notable mainly for being rather slow and underplayed.  It certainly had its strengths, but it went too far in that direction, and didn't quite come off.  So Marvel is trying something a little different, and going back to the straightforward action comic.

Nothing wrong with that.  Millar isn't what you'd call subtle, but the appeal of the character isn't exactly subtle either.  Every so often, it makes a nice change to forget the angst, wind him up and set him loose for some carnage, and that's pretty much where we're going here.  The idea is that Wolverine gets kidnapped by HYDRA, who give him some hypnotic programming and set him loose on a mission.  Cue Wolverine versus the world, and Wolverine versus his own programming.

It's a six-parter, and that's normally an unpromising sign these days.  It usually heralds a slow and rather tiresome start.  But Millar and Romita hit the ground running here - they'll struggle to keep up this pace for six issues, I'd have thought, but it's a pleasant surprise to see the book barrelling along right from the word go.

It's not deep, it's not clever, and it does have that slight "ain't I cool" self-consciousness which crops up a little too often in Millar's writing.  But it's fun.  No denying it.

Rating: A-

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