Wolverine #31 is nominally the sixth and final part of "Agent of SHIELD", but in reality it wraps up a single twelve-issue storyline.  For some reason there's another Mark Millar story next issue, but to all intents and purposes, this marks the end of the Millar/Romita run.

A year ago, they inherited this book from Greg Rucka and Darick Robertson, whose run had been a touch lethargic, and at the very least paced for the trade.  It was slow and contemplative, and it wasn't quite what a lot of readers wanted from a Wolverine story.

Mark Millar doesn't do slow and contemplative.  He went for a back to basics approach, turning the book into a crazily over the top action movie where Wolverine fights people, and then Wolverine fights people some more.  No subtext, no big ideas, just the guy with the claws slicing people up issue after issue.

And as long as you've got a good enough artist on board - which they did, with Romita - this can work just fine.  It's an approach that creators had shied away from for quite a while.  It makes sense to go back to the core appeal of the character and just do a straight-up Wolverine story where he just fights people.  There's a lot fewer of them than you might expect.

On the other hand... while it's great as a short-term sugar rush to clear the palate, twelve issues of this sort of thing is really pushing it.  The entire plot of this story basically boils down to "The Gorgon captures Wolverine and brainwashes him into fighting for him, but Wolverine is rescued, cured, and goes back to kill the Gorgon."  This does not take twelve issues.  With little in the way of plot twists - or indeed plot - the book has basically been careering forward on full throttle since day one.  And having started off like that, it's found itself with nowhere to go.  In the closing stages of this story, it's become obvious that the creators had peaked way too early, and didn't have another gear to move into.  So we've had an utterly stupid "Wolverine and Elektra defeat thousands of ninja" issue, and now a slightly underwhelming big showdown with the Gorgon.  I know he's got the powers of the Medusa, but did Millar really need to recycle her defeat as well?

It would have worked quite nicely as the finish to a shorter story, but after twelve issues it feels like the story has run out of steam somewhat.  And don't get me started on the epilogue, which expects us to care about the death of that kid from chapter one.  You can't do a claws-n-ammo story like this and then try to play it for tragedy in the last five pages - that's just silly.

The art's fantastic, of course, and the real problem with this issue is that merely "good" won't do as the pay-off to such a long story.  It needs to be great, but with all the big ideas used up a few issues ago, it just can't reach that level.

Rating: B

back | continue