Hellverine #2: Burning Away Evil

A series about a flaming Wolverine is hard to resist. But Hellverine aims to deliver more than just a fiery spectacle. There’s a complex story at work. And if that isn’t enough, Hellverine #2 tries to up the emotional stakes.

The demon Bagra-ghul resurrected and joined with Wolverine’s son Akihiro before Hellverine #2 began. Now the fiery hybrid is compelled to punish evil. Back in the present, General Harms is showing Logan around Project Hellfire, the military’s project to infuse dead soldiers with hellfire. The first attempts, seen in Hellverine #1, did not go well. The hellfire possessed dead soldiers are on the loose. Logan demands the files on the soldiers that escaped, hoping to use them as bait to attract his son. As his father searches for him, Akihiro continues transforming into the fiery Hellverine and killing people he deems evil.

Percy’s continued use of third person omniscient narration gives the series a distinct feel. But in Hellverine #2, much less of it is devoted to exposition and backstory. Percy mainly employs it to more fully explore characters’ circumstances. This form of narration does offer a greater scope to the story, displaying events and adding context that first person narration might not provide. But it does set the reader at a remove which can lessen the emotional impact.

Even with that remove, though, Hellverine #2 isn’t without emotional weight. Percy has Logan invoke the Weapon X Project which gives him even more motivation to put an end to Project Hellfire (on top of finding out what its connection to Akihiro is). The issue also strikes a tragic tone. It digs deeper into the dead soldiers who were used for Project Hellfire, putting histories, friends, and families to the faces of the dead soldiers.

The issue further develops a potential internal military conflict using General Harms in a borderline-rogue “ends justify the means” capacity. Whether or not this turns into a larger theme or not, it does set up Harms ahead of time as a character who could become expendable because of how unsympathetic he continues to get.

Ohta and D’Armata’s rendering of the Hellverine in Hellverine #1 stole the show artistically. The art was good quality in an overall sense, but those images were by far the most memorable. Hellverine #2 offers a larger variety of memorable images. 

Hellverine #2 doesn’t shy away from gore. Two of the most attention-getting visuals are Logan tearing through one of the Project Hellfire soldiers and afterward when he emerges on to a street littered with dismembered corpses. In the case of the first image, Ohta captures the sensation that Logan is jumping through the Hellfire soldier he’s ripping apart and toward the reader. It’s a bloody, ferocious image. The second of these two, the bloody aftermath, is notable for how sudden it is. Ohta isn’t overly detailed when it comes to the gore–this is a wide look at the street from a distance–but the volume and the single crying survivor, kneeling and holding her child adds feeling to what might otherwise be a standard image.

The most memorable visual, though, is a sequence featuring General Harms at Arlington National Cemetery. It’s raining. D’Armata captures a particular gray and black for the storm. It’s bleak and miserable, a heavy weight above the rows and rows of headstones. The combination of color and setting is almost an emotional indictment of Harms.

The burnt orange Lanham chooses for the caption boxes works well with the white lettering. Orange can be a tricky background color because the contrast with brighter shades can make text difficult to read. Not here. The burnt orange also stands out against the orange and red coloring of the Hellverine, keeping the narration from getting lost.