Wolverine #50

Writer: Jeph Loeb
Pencils: Simone Bianchi &
Ed McGuiness
Inks: Simone Bianchi,
Andrea Silvestri & Dexter Vines
Colors: Paul Mounts & Dave McCaig

Wolverine finds out that Sabretooth is now hanging out at the
X-Mansion and decides to settle things once and for all… again. And in a back-up feature, Wolverine battles the Hulk… again.

Jeph Loeb is the best there is at what he does. And what he does is write really mediocre comic books. Sure sometimes Loeb hits it out of the park, i.e. the first arc of Superman/Batman and the classic Superman For All Seasons, but with Wolverine #50 he’s back to form with one of the most played-out and derivative Wolverine stories ever. Yes, we get it; Wolverine’s a silent, angst-y loner, full of pain and hate. And it’s no wonder he’s silent. I don’t know how he even has time to pop his claws with all the damn inner monologue-ing he does.

Perhaps my favorite scene features Wolvy using his claws to pick a lock and break into the X-Mansion! I found myself wondering why the hell he would ever do something like that. For one, I’m sure that Logan has a key to the place by now, surely. And two, I think an ultra-cool, super-sneaky ninja like him could figure out a less overt way of breaking into some building than using his gigantic unbreakable claw to bust the lock of the FRONT DOOR! And as soon as he opens the door he runs into Rogue. Good job, ninja. But I thought for sure that since he had run into one of the X-Men then we’d probably get an explanation as to why he thought it was necessary to break in to his own home. Sadly, no. Instead Wolverine merely postures, does some more inner-monologue and threatens to kill Rogue if she gets in his way. Nice. Why is this guy on so many teams again?

And then the fight between Wolvy and Sabretooth begins! Though there’s more talking going on than fighting really. And lots of threats. Ohhh, the threats. “Tonight you’re gonna die.” “One of us is gonna die tonight. Guess who?” And so on. I suddenly find myself hoping that Galactus will show up in the next issue and just eat these two idiots. Of course there’s flashbacks galore, tons of Wolverine thinkin’ about killin’ and stuff, lots of contradictory dialogue and pretty much the same old, same old when it comes to these “epic showdowns” that Wolverine and Sabretooth get into every year or so. If they think for one second I believe someone’s going to die at the end of this story they are sorely mistaken. Unless it’s me, having killed myself from boredom!

There is one bright spot in-between the tons of caption boxes and word balloons and that’s the stellar art of Simone Bianchi who really shines here. The guy is an amazing talent and really knows how to draw some epic stuff. I really enjoyed his work on DC’s Shining Knight mini-series but Bianchi outdoes himself here with an amazing level of detail and hard-hitting action. I am impressed. And there’s also Ed McGuiness’ great art accompanying the ho-hum and pointless Wolverine/Hulk back up. I saw some of the pages for this back up a few months ago and I was blown away by how wonderful McGuiness’ art can be sometimes. Unfortunately the art is pretty much ruined by the awful coloring job. I understand they were going for the old halftone comic look but they fail miserably, creating instead a multicolored mess that distracts from the art and hurts the eyes.

Eh, it doesn’t matter what I say. Those of you that love Wolverine are going to pick this book up regardless. To the rest of you I say, STAY AWAY! This is simply not a good book and not worth wasting your time on. Nuff said.
 

Special thanks go out to Jeremy Shorr, owner of Titan Comics for allowing us to use his advance preview books for review purposes.
 

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