Wolverine passes the halfway point in its first storyline, which is called either "Brotherhood" or "The Brothers" depending on whether you believe the cover or the recap page.

The storyline is still on a slow burn.  Rucka and Robertson seem to be going for the idea of Wolverine as an inexorable hunter, slowly zeroing in on Cry and his Brothers.  It's a nice angle on the character, but I'm wondering whether they're slightly overplaying the inexorability of it all.  Cry and his gang are coming across as nicely creepy, but while they're clearly a threat to all the other characters, there's no real sense that they're much of a threat to Wolverine himself.  We've got a story here of Wolverine hunting down a bunch of gifted amateurs, whose only real advantage over him is weight of numbers - and that never seems to go far.

With that said, even if this storyline is turning into a masterclass in Wolverine's hunting, it's certainly enjoyable on that level.  Rucka writes a great scene of Wolverine intimidating the sheriff from the back seat of his car, making great use of the claws.

Darick Robertson has acquired an inker, Tom Palmer.  The change of style isn't all that drastic, though.  Palmer's inking seems a little smoother than Robertson's self-inked work, and there does appear to be a distinct effort to prettify Wolverine - no doubt part of the understandable but creatively wrongheaded decision to go for something closer to Hugh Jackman.

Anyhow: this is another solid, indeed way above average, issue - but it's not quite catching fire.  Maybe it just feels a little too inevitable that the ending is going to be as expected.

Rating: B+

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