MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS #5: Searching for The Truth, Night Moves and Walls in Other Places

Wolverine: The Vigil Part 5:

Soule mixes a heavy amount of throwbacks to key moments in Logan’s time with X-Men in the 80’s from his iconic moment in the sewer in UXM #132 in through to his second terrifying ‘almost’ Brood transformation from UXM #234 as Logan decides to take matters into his hands as the decade draws to a close with no sign of The Truth’s return. Throw in Dr. Strange and some genuine mystery as Logan finds himself transported one of Sylvie’s (former sorceress ally who was lost in the previous confrontation with the demon) still living relatives to outback Australia and it’s an engaging piece with a cliffhanger ending. The art is good from Dio Neves and having Oren Junior and D’Armatta continue on inks and colors respectively allows for the artist transition to be almost unnoticeable. a solid fifth installment.

Nightcrawler: The Fall of the Berlin Wall

My personal favorite of the three stories in this issue. There is an absolute fortune of ideas Chris Claremont crams in here as Nightcrawler comes face to face with Destiny and Sabretooth at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The ideas in what turns out to not be our 616, but another stop in the Cross-Time Caper adventures of Excalibur are more intriguing suggestions cleverly strung out by Claremont through the interactions of the characters and their dialogue. They are never answered as Nightcrawler is ultimately pulled away from learning more about this alternate world and the characters in it by Kitty as the team prepares to make their next hop. The Excalibur throwbacks are great and for anyone who was a fan of that team it’s a must read.

Luke Ross’s art and Tamra Bonvillain’s coloring are excellent but it’s also clear from the last two pages that they still had to fit a lot in as the paneling and amount of information becomes cramped on those pages but ultimately that’s my only criticism of the piece which I think is excellently written and very well drawn overall.

Venom: Night thoughts:

Leah Williams spins a tale of Eddie, the symbiote and lust in an engagingly written vignette which examines a very specific facet in the host/symbiote relationship which mixes the symbiotes need to satisfy it’s bloodlust with Eddie’s actual lust as we get a small look into Eddie’s subconscious and how it’s twisted up with the symbiotes. The art on this was my least favorite of the three stories although the color palette does fit the tone of the story being told. William’s writing is the highlight of the piece that seems exclusively written for the Eddie/symbiote stans.

Special mention to Arthur Adams who continues to deliver some superb although somewhat cluttered by text covers for this series.