Comic Book Review: Wolverine #46: Civil War

Synopsis: The issue starts with a flashback one week ago. Wolverine walks into Damage Control’s office building and demands to speak with Walter Declun. Instead of Declun, Wolverine gets to talk with Ann-Marie Hoag, the President of Damage Control. Declun is the CEO. Wolverine reveals that Declun supplied Nitro with MGH that boosted his powers and caused the tragedy at Stamford. That Damage Control then got the contract for the Stamford clean up job. Hoag is stunned. She has never liked Declun. That Declun organized a hostile takeover of Damage Control and became the CEO.

Declun then enters the room and tells Wolverine that S.H.I.E.L.D. is on their way and that Wolverine better leave immediately. Wolverine leaves, but not after planting a small device in the office. Wolverine comes back later at night and retrieves the small device.

We then cut to Wolverine at Forge’s workshop. The small device was designed to scan computers and looks for key paraphrases in data and e-mails. Forge says that the device got information from Damage Control’s computer system that Damage Control decided they needed to increase the amount of super hero fights. The more fights then the more clean up contracts and the more money for Damage Control. Damage Control hooked up Nitro with the MGH. The more damage caused by Nitro, then the more clean up contracts for Damage Control. In addition to clean up contracts, Damage Control is getting government contracts for superhuman registration, evaluation and training. Wolverine decides he is going to start costing Damage Control massive amounts of money by destroying their infrastructure and assets.

We cut to Wolverine at Damage Control’s warehouse full of their clean up vehicles and equipment. He destroys them all. We see Wolverine destroying Damage Control’s money stored in off shore accounts in the Cayman Islands.

We shift to Xavier’s Institute where Cyclops and Emma Frost are yelling at Wolverine for getting involved in the Registration Act business. That the X-Men have agreed to be neutral in this entire conflict. Wolverine tells them that he has no regrets and no intention of stopping his mission to bring down Damage Control.

We cut to a press conference with Declun announcing that Damage Control has purchased the former office of Roxxon Oil in Long Island. Wolverine then pays a visit to those Long Island offices. Declun has laid a trap for Wolverine. A bunch of armored thugs attack Wolverine. Their armor is a combination of Mandroid armor, S.H.I.E.L.D. weaponry and Stark Industries tech. Wolverine realizes that Damage Control has been salvaging technology from the battle sites that they clean up. They have been using that technology to create their own weapons and equipment. One of the armored thugs then displays an adamantium buzz saw on his forearm and begins to slice into Wolverine’s neck. End of issue.

Comments
The Good: Wolverine #46 was a solid issue. Damage Control has been revealed to be a major force behind the events that lead up to Marvel’s Civil War. I think an evil corporation is always a necessity in any comic book universe. Marvel hasn’t really had a quality evil corporation since Roxxon Oil went bye-bye. Damage Control fills that role nicely. The fun part of evil corporations is that you can’t simply arrest them. They are hard to attack and defeat. The CEO of an evil corporation is almost always untouchable. I hope that Marvel really takes this opportunity to give Damage Control a massive push and make them a mainstay in the Marvel Universe that pops up in all of their various titles.

The revelation at the end of the issue made Damage Control even cooler. Not only are they an evil corporation who are war profiteers and have manipulated events to cause the Civil War and garner massive clean up contract; they have been secretly stealing technology from all sorts of different source. Damage Control takes the stolen tech and reverse engineers it and then combines the different technology into their own unique weapons. That is pretty cool. I like Damage Control at the end of this issue even more than I did at the beginning. I think a showdown between Tony Stark and Damage Control would be a great story at some point in the future.

It was nice seeing Forge. I have always liked his character and his tech based powers make him a useful and interesting character. I also liked the scene with at Xavier’s Institute with Scott and Emma. Logan mentioning Emma’s little booty call relationship with Tony Stark was hilarious! I thought that booty call line from Civil War #3 was a throw away line that we would never see surface again.

Wolverine #46 was well paced and had plenty of action. We also had the genesis for the events that led up to Civil War nicely explained. Guggenheim served up some solid dialogue. The story had a nice flow and was an enjoyable read. Guggenheim certainly writes a better Wolverine than Way does over in Wolverine: Origins.

The Bad: The revelation that Damage Control is behind the events that lead to Stamford, Connecticut and the passing of the Super Human Registration Act is a bit of a let down. Marvel promised that no super villain would be behind the events of Stamford and the Registration Act. That it would be all hero versus hero. Well, once again, Marvel failed to live up to their hype. Just like when they promised to deliver both sides of the Civil War with an equal light.

By having Damage Control as the influencing force that has brought about the tragedy at Stamford and the Registration Act it lessens the drama and conflict over in Civil War. Marvel can still argue that Damage Control’s involvement in creating this conflict doesn’t change the philosophical and moral conflict between the pro and anti registration forces. However, it does give the two sides a common enemy in Damage Control who is the real bad guy.

I like mi hermano Humberto Ramos. He has a cool and funky style. However, it just doesn’t work on this title. I don’t really dig his Wolverine. I think his art is inconsistent from panel to panel. Some look great while others are very weak. Ramos also seems to struggle with proper body proportions at times.

Overall: Wolverine #46 is a good issue and is Guggenheim’s best effort on this title. Guggenheim has gotten better and better with each issue. It appears that he will end his run on Wolverine on a high note before Jeph Loeb takes over the writing duties.