Wolverine #6 acts as a coda to Greg Rucka and Darick Robertson's first storyline.

It doesn't entirely solve the problems with that story, which stemmed mainly from the fact that there was never any real sense of threat from the low-rent villains.  However, it does put a bit more flesh on how Logan and Cassie Lathrop were affected by that arc, which gives the storyline a bit more weight for both of them.

Most of the issue is Logan talking in a bar with Kurt Wagner, making a rare guest starring appearance.  Logan is deep in self-loathing, partly because he failed to save Lucy back in issue #1, but mainly because he's starting to worry about his humanity.  He's keen to insist that he's human and not an animal, but it's fairly clear that he's convincing nobody.  Meanwhile, because of his own recent crises of faith over in Uncanny X-Men, Nightcrawler's advice isn't entirely emphatic either.

Over in her subplot, Cassie Lathrop is still obsessing about Logan, and having great difficulty describing to anyone else quite where he lies along the line from man to animal.  So it's pretty clear that that's the main theme which Rucka's going to be looking at.  Fine - it's a great theme for the character.  I still think it's taken us too long to get to this point, but we're on the right track now.

Rucka and Robertson provide understated but rounded and believable versions of Logan and Kurt.  Purists will, perhaps understandably, be irritated that they repeat the whole debate of whether Kurt should disguise his appearance in public - Logan and Kurt had exactly this argument in a story published over twenty years ago, Logan won, and Kurt hasn't used his image inducer since.  Perhaps Kurt's recidivism is meant to be somehow connected to his own problems, but I suspect it's just an error.

Still, the series is heading into interesting territory for the character - albeit at a slow pace.  Hopefully the next storyline will click a little better.

Rating: B+

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