By Cornell, Davis & Pierfederici
Publisher: Marvel
ISBN: 9780785183969
When it comes to Alan Davis on art chores, I'm pretty willing to jump straight in. Older readers will know him from 2000AD's DR & Quinch, his work on re-imagining Captain Britain with Alan Moore, and the rather brilliant Excalibur. He's also done his fair share of Wolverine stories in his time, some of which he's written too, so it's no surprise that he's back at the drawing board for this new Wolverine series under the Marvel Now! banner.
The story (somewhat uncomfortably due to recent events in Kenya) begins with what looks like a terrorist attack in a shopping mall, except the terrorist is a father who was happily shopping with his son just a short time before. There are a lot of dead and injured and Wolverine isn't doing too well himself, so, after allowing himself some time to heal, he takes drastic action when the father threatens the son's life too. No sooner has the dust settled when the son then turns on Wolverine, setting off a chain of deaths and what appears to be some sort of infection.
Up until this point it's pretty much your standard superhero fair, and nothing wrong with that, but then two rather odd things happen that don't quite feel right. Firstly Nick Fury turns up. That's fine, but it's not the original Nick Fury, it's the Nick Fury that looks like Samuel L Jackson, first introduced in the alternative Ultimate universe and now shoehorned, somewhat awkwardly, into regular Marvel continuity in a move that probably makes financial and strategical sense what with the success of the movies but narratively is just a bit lame. Then we get introduced to a group of regular guys in a pub that all just happen to have certain skills that can back Wolverine up. They've all got other lives, but in order for the conceit to work we only ever meet them altogether in the bar suggesting, in fact, that they don't have other lives – and since when did Wolverine need a back-up crew?
It all sort of fizzled out for me from thereon in, and for some reason Alan Davis doesn't complete the story arc, so the final two issues are by Pierfederici, who makes a decent stab at things, but he lacks the fluidity and dynamism that makes Davis such an exceptional artist of superhero comics. Personally, I really dislike a change of artist mid-story – it jars terribly, interrupts the flow of the tale and you can't help but feel a bit cheated. In an age when comic companies seem to have got their act together with regards collected editions it seems like a real mistake to launch a new flagship title in this manner.
I don't know much about Cornell's work, but after a promising start and wobbly middle he does pull off an imaginative ending. However, it was a bit too wobbly for me and the gang back in the pub really don't fit with the Wolverine we know. It's not awful, but it doesn't quite reach the heights it should.
One final gripe. The book comes equipped with Marvel's Augmented Reality! Download the app, hold up your smartphone on certain pages, and, WHAM, the page springs to life with commentary from the creators, art evolutions and loads more. Except it doesn't, and judging from the comments on the app's page, is the experience of just about everyone else using it. Why oh why release something that isn't going to work? Why damage your brand with a gimmick that results in disappointment and a negative experience? Pointless.
And if you liked that: Hunt down the Alan Davis written and illustrated Wolverine: Bloodlust (if you can)
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