Now I've been having mixed feelings with Marvel Comics of late with their recent money-grabbing price rise on their most popular books and sporadic fill-in style quality on some others. However, the Wolverine: Old Man Logan storyline by the Hulk-level heavyweight team of Steve Mcniven, Mark Millar, Dexter Vines, and Morry Hollowell has gotten better and better with each successive issue.Mcniven's art just keeps getting more polished. He rose to people's attention with his standout work on Marvel Knights and hit it out of the park with the main Civil War book. Old Man Logan is probably his best work to date. The storyline loosely follows the plot of one of my favorite balls-out, hard-ass Clint Eastwood westerns, Unforgiven. Set in an alternate future after the villains have all but wiped out super-powered heroes Logan aka Wolverine has given up his seemingly inexhaustible potential for violence in return for eking out a subsistence farm living with his wife and two kids in a burnt out cinder of California desert. All the while he is harassed by Bruce Banner's inbred, Hulked-out relatives who demand the "rent" and threaten to tear down Logan's life before his eyes. What follows is a cross-country quest for cash romp which features (in no particular order) the Spidermobile, Hank Pym's skeleton (now an expressway), a Venom-infected Tyrannosaurus Rex, Black Bolt, Moloids, and much more!!!
This issue starts out with President Red Skull standing over and gouging the eyes out Blade Runner-style of a banged up and weeping Captain America (presumably Bucky by the uniform, flesh left arm, and brown eyes but who knows at this point). That Nazi fuck thinks he's got all the cards until he eventually decides to gloat over a shot-up Logan and poor old dead, blind Hawkeye's corpses in his "trophy room" (Reed Richards is skinned and stretched on one of the walls like a flag - dope!).
Of course Logan's inevitable healing factor kicks in and Red Skull tries to give our favorite Canadian scrapper a final beat down with Black Knight's magical sword. Unfortunately for him, he gets his fascist ass handed to him in truly fine fashion with no less than Captain America's indestructible shield to the trachea. USA! USA!
The issue ends with Logan flying all the way back across the country in Iron Man's old armor and showing up to pay the Hulk gang two weeks early only to be told "They got bored." I'll let you decide what's going to happen next from the picture below:
Win! Win! Win! A great story, with tons of cool little nods to the fan boys, connection to Wolverine's origin in Hulk #181, and all ending up in a previously unannounced Double-Sized special which will probably cost $8.00 by the time it's done. I don't care. I'm there. Go get-em you hairy old Canuck bastard!
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That cover is so gooftastic. Something about the pose and the expression just makes me thing of Red Skull howling some retarded noise instead of projecting menace. Like he's thinking "Ohhh gimme a sammich prease?" and is homeless, wearing a Cap costume from WalMart he picked up on clearance on Nov 3rd.
ReplyDeleteThe art content looks stellar though. Gorey and stuff. Too bad Mr Wolverine needs his own alternate future fake-o book to do what he actually wants to do.
I still can't get behind Wolverine though. He's everywhere and in every team and on every cover and it makes me ill.
And future Red Skull doesn't have a death ray or genetic super freak or some junk in a hidden wall for such an instance of super hero rampage? He also forgot about one of Wolverine's two freakin' abilities? Bah. It's a fake Red Skull. I veto.
Red Skull is wearing Cap's uniform like a skin. Basically he skinned his greatest enemy and is taking his power like an ancient warrior. He actually goes on about it for two panels. You know I'm gonna be behind such tomfoolery.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Skully didn't know Wolverine was traveling with Hawkeye. He basically faded from the scene and no one had heard from him for years. He's considered to be so broken down he's not even on the radar anymore. Red Skull is so full of hubris he actually locks out his guards and figures he will take out Wolverine on his own - "Even as an old man, I'm stronger than you!"
Trust me. It's awesome. The "trophy room alone is great." It is gooftastic Millar craziness but it's so good. I'll be getting the trade for this as well.
As far as the oversaturation of Wolverine, I agree but the fill-in issue before this by Andy Kubert did a really good job of subtly mocking that situation while telling a really cool story. Basically, they explain all his appearances as his way of having a nervous breakdown.
Totally a fake Red Skull. He's now inside Wolverine's head. You watch and see.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is in Wolverine's head. He is what we used to call in 80's high school - a "snapcase". But the story/art is really good (in a simple way) and fun to read. I just wanna see him go all "burn down your house and shoot your dog" on the Hulk clan next issue. Maybe an entire double-sized issue of Splash pages.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm telling you, the Red Skull is just a broke down old Nazi kook. I didn't give you all the build up but it totally makes sense as he thinks that since he was the one who got all the villains organized to kill the heroes, he's unstoppable. He's just like the Hitler in the Inglorious Basterds preview: "Nein, Nein Nein!!!"
Red Skull's in your head now. Making you write nonsense theories to help throw peeps of his track. But I know better.
ReplyDeleteSteve McNiven's art is awesome. It's THE reason why I was collecting The Fantastic Four a while back. And then they changed artists. I was sad in the pants.
ReplyDelete