The Revolution has been stunned at how truly awful Loeb’s run on Wolverine has been. I think Loeb is a talented writer and I have enjoyed many of his titles in the past. Unfortunately, Loeb has been a massive failure on Wolverine. This entire Lupine story arc is beyond horrible. I hated that Marvel gave us Wolverine’s past and gave him back his memories. I thought that just made Wolverine less cool. This horrid Lupine story arc continues the downward trend for Wolverine’s character and makes him markedly less interesting.
Luckily, this is Loeb’s final issue on this title. Guggenheim will return as the writer with Wolverine #57. He will definitely have his hands full resuscitating this title. Let’s go ahead and get this review for Wolverine #55 out of the way.
Creative Team
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Artist: Simone Bianchi
Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10.
Story Rating: 1 Night Girls out of 10.
Overall Rating: 4.5 Night Girls out of 10.
Synopsis: We begin with Wolverine collecting the Muramasa Blade from Cyclops. Wolverine stalks off and thinks about how Sabertooth killed Feral. Wolverine arrives at the site of his old home in the Canadian wilderness where he and Silver Fox lived together a long time ago. Wolverine thinks about Silver Fox and how Sabertooth brutally killed her. Wolverine thinks about how Sabertooth has killed so many women over the years.
Wolverine thinks how he and the X-Men have tried every possible solution to deal with Sabertooth. Even Professor X gave it his best shot and still failed. Wolverine thinks how much longer he can let Sabertooth continue without taking some of the responsibility himself.
Wolverine sits in the snow and meditates in front of the Muramasa Blade. Suddenly, Sabertooth arrives on the scene and attacks Wolverine. Wolverine uses the Muramasa Blade and chops off Sabertooth’s arm. Sabertooth tries to re-attach his arm but it doesn’t work. Wolverine then tells Sabertooth that the Muramasa Blade blocks the healing factor. Wolverine asks Creed if there is anything left of him inside his mind. Sabertooth cries and tells Sabertooth to do it.
Wolverine then slices Sabertooth’s head off. Wolverine leaves Sabertooth’s body to the wolves to eat. Suddenly, Wildchild appears out of nowhere. Wildchild says that Romulus was and will always be the first among them. Since the beginning there have always been two of them who have emerged from the pack. One blonde and one black. Romulus knows that only one can or will survive. That Romulus has wanted Wolverine to have this knowledge and gave it to Wolverine through his dreams. That Wolverine is very important to Romulus because Wolverine represents the best of all of them so far. The best at survival for what is to come.
Romulus appears out of nowhere from behind of Wolverine and says that everything Wolverine has learned is true. Wolverine turns around and Romulus is already gone. Wolverine turns back around and Wildchild is gone. Wolverine then screams “Romulus! Whenever you want to bring it, do it! I’m ready for you.”
Comments
The Good: Simone Bianchi’s artwork is simply fantastic. I love his beautifully painted style of art. Bianchi has been the only positive aspect of this entire train wreck of a story arc.
The Bad: Wolverine #55 was an abysmal ending to one absolutely horrid story arc. This entire Lupine idea is beyond terrible. I have no idea what in the world Loeb was thinking when he came up with this stinker of a story arc. Loeb must have been on some serious drugs to ever think that this Lupine story arc was a great idea for Wolverine’s character.
Marvel continues to make Wolverine lamer and lamer with each year. The idea of giving Wolverine his memories and revealing his mysterious past to the reader was a terrible idea. It immediately took away the mysterious aura that surrounded Wolverine’s character and that made him such a cool and intriguing character. Now, Wolverine loses that mystique and becomes just another violent super hero that can be found all over the 616 Universe.
Then this Lupine story arc comes along and makes Wolverine even more un-cool. The idea that Wolverine is a member of some wolf-man species that has been in existence since the days of the Neanderthal is horrible. It only serves to make Wolverine look really cheesy. I mean, this Lupine story arc is something lame that I would expect to get from some wacky Sci Fi Channel TV show.
It is stunning how much less cool Wolverine has gotten just in the past five years. Marvel is doing a great job wrecking Wolverine’s character with bonehead ideas like this entire Lupine story arc. Wolverine #55 was so bad that I had to go back and read that original Wolverine mini-series from Chris Claremont just so I could remember what a cool character Logan used to be.
We wasted six issues just for the anti-climactic death scene of Sabertooth. Wolverine #55 re-caps the events in Wolverine: Origins concerning the Muramasa Blade. Then Wolverine #55 re-caps the events of the last issue. We then get Sabertooth’s death scene and then the issue is over. Other than the death scene, this issue was just a regurgitation of the same dialogue and story that we have gotten earlier in this story arc. Seriously, this Lupine story arc could have easily been done in three issues max.
Sabertooth’s death did absolutely nothing for me. First, it was painfully predictable. I think that just about every reader knew that this Lupine story arc was going to end with Sabertooth’s death. Plus, the death scene was so anti-climactic. Sabertooth cries and lays down like a bitch. Man, that is just not the Creed that I have known and loved all these years.
Personally, I always enjoyed the concept of Logan and Creed being locked in eternal combat. That we knew nothing about their pasts other than that they seemed to be somehow connected to each other and destined to lock horns no matter what era they lived in.
And Sabertooth’s death even worse is that Loeb replaces Sabertooth’s role in Wolverine’s life with Wildchild. Ugggh. I have never liked Wildchild and have always found him to be an incredibly lame character. And now that Wolverine has the Muramasa Blade, any future confrontation should be short and uneventful.
The ending of Wolverine #55 was an absolute groaner. It was truly awful. But, you know what? It was an extremely fitting ending to a terrible story arc. Personally, I hope the head is cut off this entire Lupine storyline and that we never see or hear from it again.
Overall: Wolverine #55 was a poor read. The only positive aspect about this issue is that this goofy Lupine story arc is finally coming to an end. I have absolutely no idea why Joey Q. would have ever thought that Loeb’s Lupine concept would be a good addition to Wolverine’s mythos. Between this lousy Lupine story arc and the pathetic story arc on Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel has really failed to impress me with the way they have completely bungled the handling of two of their biggest characters in Spider-Man and Wolverine.
5 thoughts on “Comic Book Review: Wolverine #55”
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The art is indeed excellent; it was recently announced that Bianchi will be the next artist on Astonishing X-Men (written by Warren Ellis), which should be interesting (as this issue shows, his White Queen is beautiful).
Otherwise, the story is a trainwreck. If you’re interested in reading a graphic dissection of how bad it is, be sure to check out Paul O’Briens review on his X-Axis site:
http://www.thexaxis.com/wolverine/wolverine55.htm
As to where this story idea might have come from, it strongly resembles the origin Alex Ross came up with in Earth X (the Moon Clan, a wolf-like clan that has cooexisted with humanity for hundreds of thousands of years, and are enemies of the bear clan, to which Sabretooth belongs). There are also elements of Chuck Austen’s “Dominant Species” storyline, about tribes of similar-looking mutants (a theme that Austen used repeatedly throughout his run, from wolf-mutants, angel-mutants, and demon-mutants).
I cannot agree more with your assessment of Wolverine lately. A few weeks ago, I wrote the following:
‘Let me give you a sentence: “Wolverine has a sequence of flashbacks which involve fights and it leaves him confused.” Am I talking about Wolverine #50, Wolverine #51, Wolverine #52, Wolverine #53 or Wolverine #54?’
And then Wolverine #55 has to include flashbacks too!! I think you’re being generous by saying this story needed 3 issues.
First of all , where the hell is Wolverine these days? Everywhere! japan with the Avengers, Canada killing Sabretooth(?), and everywhere else.
Not only are these tie ins with Origins lame, the whole origins series and idea was ill-conceived at best.
Talk about going out of your way to kill your character’s mystery and attraction.
When is marvel going to leave their characters alone, spare us the gimmicks, and just write STORIES.
Sheesh
Whats worse is that we all know Sabretooth will be back, and there will be no explanation as to how (magic perhaps?.)
As long as he comes back then Im all good. My favorite marvel character was ruined by this terrible story arc, and then just lay down and died.
What would be amusing would be to see him come back, lop Wolverine’s head off and have marvel replace Logan with X-23. That is essentially what they have done in reverse.
Sabretooth is of the feline persuasion, not canine/lupine and has clearly been hinted at or implied in the past (hell, the name says it all). That alone made the lupine story, as well as that Moon Clan debacle, trash.