Ultimate Wolverine #14: Dulling Blades

Logan, Phoenix, and Sentinel One continue their search through the Eurasian Republic for Ilyana Rasputina and her prisoners. Their journey brings them closer and closer to Ilyana’s domain of Limbo where even more horrors await.

First things out of the way, this is definitely not an Ultimate Endgame tie-in. It might happen around the same time as the events of issues one and two of that book, but there is no real connective tissue between that book and this one. At least not yet. There are more snippets of Magik’s backstory which appear to have interesting deviations from her 616 counterpart. That honestly might have been an overall more engaging plot than what was given here. 

Chris Condon presents a number of interesting ideas, but is either unwilling or unable to explore them beyond the surface. Deathstrike is introduced in this issue, and while her design invokes thoughts of Karasu from Yu Yu Hakusho, she’s mostly just here to give Logan another bloody fight. As for our titular hero, not much changes with him outside of his budding relationship with Phoenix. While there is non-zero chance it will end in tragedy, what we do get here is nice enough for the moment. 

Alessandro Cappucio’s art remains what is to be expected of the series at this point, though the lack of backgrounds in the Limbo scenes might turn some people away. Bryan Valenza’s colors are a good substitute though, with swirling blacks and dark reds setting the demonic tone of the realm.