Back with this week's comics, Wolverine #8 is the only X-book actually scheduled for this week.

This is part 2 of "Coyote Crossing", the second Greg Rucka storyline, and the formula is pretty well established by now.  Wisely steering clear of superheroics in favour of working the character into his preferred genre, Rucka is essentially writing crime stories here.

Of course, generally it's not a very good idea to just take a character and shoehorn him into the story you were planning to write anyway.  But Wolverine fits just fine into the genre, at least once you get him out of costume.  Rucka is focussing mainly on two of the classic aspects of the character.  First up is the balance between his moral and animal sides.  That ties into Cassie Lathrop's subplot and makes this specifically a Wolverine story. 

Second, though, is the repeated emphasis that Wolverine is really very hard indeed.  Rucka is clearly keen to stress the exceptional hardness of Wolverine.  Fine by me - that's the character's gimmick, and it's one of the things that makes him at home in this sort of story.  You can shoot the guy, set him on fire, and he keeps on going.  That's Wolverine.  It's simple, and it's worked for going on thirty years.

Alright, if I'm being picky, I have my doubts about having Wolverine swim the Rio after we've been told that it's suicidal.  Maybe I'm overanalysing this, but surely the hundred-odd pounds of metal in his body would make him a worse than average swimmer.  (In much the same way that an anvil makes a worse than average boat.)  It's a nice little scene, but when you stop to think about it, it doesn't really make sense.

Still, all things considered, Rucka and artist Leandro Fernandez are doing a solid job on re-establishing the core ideas of the character.  The downfall of this series so far has been in failing to work a sufficiently compelling story around them.  In particular, in the first arc the villains never posed much of a threat at all, which didn't do much to build tension.  This time round the bad guys appear to be putting up a little bit more of a fight, but we do seem to be in the same basic formula - Wolverine stumbles upon victims of baddies, Wolverine hunts down the baddies and sorts them out.  It's perfectly solid, but it's a bit short on surprise.

Cassie's subplot holds a little more interest, though, and at worst this storyline's problem is a tendency towards formula.  There's nothing wrong with the formula in itself, and Rucka and Fernandez are doing it pretty well here.  It's something that can be held up as a good solid example of a Wolverine story playing to all the character's traditional strengths.  It feels like it's sticking a little too rigidly to the path, that's all.

Rating: B+

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