Post by Jesse M. Huertas on Jul 22, 2007 23:10:30 GMT -5
New Ratings Scale
5 Claws: A must have for your collection
4 Claws: A worthy 3 dollar spend
3 Claws: Not too crappy, yet nothing special
2 Claws: Seriously not worth your time nor money
1 Claw: This book belongs in your burn pile
NOTE: Due to the lameness of my old rating scale, it's a new updated one...if it still sucks, let me know!
REVIEW: This is going to sound crazy to all you regular readers...but...I liked this book...now that I threw that out there, lets begin.
This story takes Wolverine back to Madripoor, where many classic Wolvie stories took place, Wolverine has met up with Chief Tai, whom I remembered to be dead back in Wolverine #98, but oh well. Wolverine is searching for Seraph, a little known Wolverine supporting character who had connections with Wolverine, Viper back in early Chris Claremont tales. Seraph was never presented in modern stories since she was already dead. Wolverine after all these years is wanting Chief's help to locate the body.
The flashback is set in 1932, where 'Patch' is hooking up with Seraph, Wolverine says he first meets up with Seraph before WWI, that could possibly be a typo since Wolverine did not adopt the identity of Patch till after WWI, and it could be safe to say that when WWI came to be, Wolverine was about 18-19. But I could be wrong, Wolverine history buffs, please correct me.
Anyways, the story progresses about their life together in Madripoor as they gain power rather ruthlessly, together with the Hand as assumed. When Seraph and Logan have a falling out over Wolverine's arrogance, she asks that he go rest for their next assignment. Logan soon begins to follow her and sees a Hand operative deliver a message to Seraph that all ties are severed. Wolverine comes to the rescue and kills the Ninja, but not before he is nearly cut in half.
Wolverine wakes up in her ''secret'' hideaway with a box in hand. She tells Logan that she has many secrets that must remain. She prepares to show him the contents of the box, but then chooses not to...Wolverine then tells Tai that she was murdered viciously at the hands of none other than Victor Creed. Logan tells Tai that he wants to locate the body to find the box and see it's contents. He believes the box was hidden for Logan to find after her death.
After Tai tells Logan he will help him, they go their separate ways...after two days Tai stops responding and Logan is worried, he goes to search, he recieves a cryptic call from Tai instructing him to go away from Madripoor. Putting the pieces together, Wolverine realizes where the body is and that Tai may be involved. He finds Tai digging up Seraph's body, Tai says that he was always involved with the conspiracy. Tai readys his handgun to end his life so his involvment can finally be over. Before the final trigger Wolverine tackles him...Tai already drugged himself prior. Before his death, he tells Logan that he wanted to find the box and destroy the box, however he found no such box and whatever secrets Seraph had, died with her. Wolverine knows secrets are abound and continues to search...he knows Seraph left a message for him, he swipes at her casket and realizes that there is no "they" or ''them'' that it's a him, and his name is "Romulus"
I gotta say...usually these Annuals are pretty useless, but these days Marvel makes sure that they have a profound impact. Daniel Way again gives us readers a little leash and leads us only so far, but dammit this story had me hooked. I always wondered more about Viper, Seraph and such, while no Viper was present this did really good. So while he again just left only tidbits, they were actually worth wanting more from. I'm actually eager to see what Seraph died protecting, what secrets she took to her grave...I can only hope Daniel Way intends to let those out.
The final splash page could have been special, and this is the low point for me, he finds the name of his conspirater, while it took 20 long months for a name, we finally get it...but we can't feel the ''impact'' that Logan felt because as you may have heard, Jeph Loeb already revealed the name in the main Wolverine title. It's unknown if this was Way's intentions all along, or that Jeph came up with this character and Way just adapted, because Jeph is a golden boy (god help us) over at Marvel. We may never know...so while it should had left us like 'Oh Sh*t' who is this guy, we couldn't. We already know that Romulus was behind Weapon X and more from the main title, so hopefully now that we are behind this, we can move forward with this story, I just hope the next arc with Captain America doesn't stall the momentum that this book FINALLY attained. If bringing Cap back for this story isn't a shameless attempt to capitilize on his death and say it's a story "fans have been begging for'', I don't know what is. But we'll see. All in all, I was impressed...this one issue had more ''origin'' than all twenty issues that Way has delivered combined, hyperbole aside.
Now the art...this is what this book needed from the get go...the art really did Way's story justice, I don't know if I could have liked this story the way I did if say Mr. Dillon was involved. The art by Kaare Andrews (Spider-Man: Reign) was just like I imagined, it was brutal, visceral, grainy and all around near perfect. I just greatly enjoyed it, if he were to take over and produce the quality storytelling that sorry to say, Dillon isn't producing, then my tune of this book may change. He really captured what Way wanted, and it was freaking awesome.
This issue was everything you have been hoping for from Daniel Way, it took him 20 painful months of below average to worse issues to deliver, but it was nice...I want to get more attached, but I'm fearful of issue #16, so let us not get our hopes up. This issue is like that hot one night stand you'll encounter, it'll knock your socks off, but you won't know what'll you'll get in the morning. Way could really move this series along and deliver all on his so far empty promises, or go back to giving us lackluster and drawn out stories like before. I've said it countless times before, but when he needs to do stand-alones, he really can deliver, but when he needlessly makes these stories five parters, it really does suck. Also of note, Daken does not show up, thus the rating goes up automatically
RATING: I'm going to hate myself by issue #16, I just know it and there is no turning back, but I give this:
4 Claws!
5 Claws: A must have for your collection
4 Claws: A worthy 3 dollar spend
3 Claws: Not too crappy, yet nothing special
2 Claws: Seriously not worth your time nor money
1 Claw: This book belongs in your burn pile
NOTE: Due to the lameness of my old rating scale, it's a new updated one...if it still sucks, let me know!
REVIEW: This is going to sound crazy to all you regular readers...but...I liked this book...now that I threw that out there, lets begin.
This story takes Wolverine back to Madripoor, where many classic Wolvie stories took place, Wolverine has met up with Chief Tai, whom I remembered to be dead back in Wolverine #98, but oh well. Wolverine is searching for Seraph, a little known Wolverine supporting character who had connections with Wolverine, Viper back in early Chris Claremont tales. Seraph was never presented in modern stories since she was already dead. Wolverine after all these years is wanting Chief's help to locate the body.
The flashback is set in 1932, where 'Patch' is hooking up with Seraph, Wolverine says he first meets up with Seraph before WWI, that could possibly be a typo since Wolverine did not adopt the identity of Patch till after WWI, and it could be safe to say that when WWI came to be, Wolverine was about 18-19. But I could be wrong, Wolverine history buffs, please correct me.
Anyways, the story progresses about their life together in Madripoor as they gain power rather ruthlessly, together with the Hand as assumed. When Seraph and Logan have a falling out over Wolverine's arrogance, she asks that he go rest for their next assignment. Logan soon begins to follow her and sees a Hand operative deliver a message to Seraph that all ties are severed. Wolverine comes to the rescue and kills the Ninja, but not before he is nearly cut in half.
Wolverine wakes up in her ''secret'' hideaway with a box in hand. She tells Logan that she has many secrets that must remain. She prepares to show him the contents of the box, but then chooses not to...Wolverine then tells Tai that she was murdered viciously at the hands of none other than Victor Creed. Logan tells Tai that he wants to locate the body to find the box and see it's contents. He believes the box was hidden for Logan to find after her death.
After Tai tells Logan he will help him, they go their separate ways...after two days Tai stops responding and Logan is worried, he goes to search, he recieves a cryptic call from Tai instructing him to go away from Madripoor. Putting the pieces together, Wolverine realizes where the body is and that Tai may be involved. He finds Tai digging up Seraph's body, Tai says that he was always involved with the conspiracy. Tai readys his handgun to end his life so his involvment can finally be over. Before the final trigger Wolverine tackles him...Tai already drugged himself prior. Before his death, he tells Logan that he wanted to find the box and destroy the box, however he found no such box and whatever secrets Seraph had, died with her. Wolverine knows secrets are abound and continues to search...he knows Seraph left a message for him, he swipes at her casket and realizes that there is no "they" or ''them'' that it's a him, and his name is "Romulus"
I gotta say...usually these Annuals are pretty useless, but these days Marvel makes sure that they have a profound impact. Daniel Way again gives us readers a little leash and leads us only so far, but dammit this story had me hooked. I always wondered more about Viper, Seraph and such, while no Viper was present this did really good. So while he again just left only tidbits, they were actually worth wanting more from. I'm actually eager to see what Seraph died protecting, what secrets she took to her grave...I can only hope Daniel Way intends to let those out.
The final splash page could have been special, and this is the low point for me, he finds the name of his conspirater, while it took 20 long months for a name, we finally get it...but we can't feel the ''impact'' that Logan felt because as you may have heard, Jeph Loeb already revealed the name in the main Wolverine title. It's unknown if this was Way's intentions all along, or that Jeph came up with this character and Way just adapted, because Jeph is a golden boy (god help us) over at Marvel. We may never know...so while it should had left us like 'Oh Sh*t' who is this guy, we couldn't. We already know that Romulus was behind Weapon X and more from the main title, so hopefully now that we are behind this, we can move forward with this story, I just hope the next arc with Captain America doesn't stall the momentum that this book FINALLY attained. If bringing Cap back for this story isn't a shameless attempt to capitilize on his death and say it's a story "fans have been begging for'', I don't know what is. But we'll see. All in all, I was impressed...this one issue had more ''origin'' than all twenty issues that Way has delivered combined, hyperbole aside.
Now the art...this is what this book needed from the get go...the art really did Way's story justice, I don't know if I could have liked this story the way I did if say Mr. Dillon was involved. The art by Kaare Andrews (Spider-Man: Reign) was just like I imagined, it was brutal, visceral, grainy and all around near perfect. I just greatly enjoyed it, if he were to take over and produce the quality storytelling that sorry to say, Dillon isn't producing, then my tune of this book may change. He really captured what Way wanted, and it was freaking awesome.
This issue was everything you have been hoping for from Daniel Way, it took him 20 painful months of below average to worse issues to deliver, but it was nice...I want to get more attached, but I'm fearful of issue #16, so let us not get our hopes up. This issue is like that hot one night stand you'll encounter, it'll knock your socks off, but you won't know what'll you'll get in the morning. Way could really move this series along and deliver all on his so far empty promises, or go back to giving us lackluster and drawn out stories like before. I've said it countless times before, but when he needs to do stand-alones, he really can deliver, but when he needlessly makes these stories five parters, it really does suck. Also of note, Daken does not show up, thus the rating goes up automatically
RATING: I'm going to hate myself by issue #16, I just know it and there is no turning back, but I give this:
4 Claws!
