Wolverine #2: A New Take on a Canadian Classic

Taking over a celebrated series with a fresh #1 can be intimidating, especially when it comes to beloved characters. Saladin Ahmed is no stranger to taking the reigns from runs like these, such as 2018’s Miles Morales: Spider-Man, 2023’s Daredevil, and now this year’s Wolverine. Last month’s Wolverine #1 launched an all-new era of Wolverine that takes a back-to-basics approach which gives new readers a great chance to jump in. Ahmed has a talent for taking well-established characters and throwing them into an interesting story without trying to reinvent the wheel. With Wolverine #2, readers will be treated to a straightforward Wolverine adventure in the Canadian wilderness. There is a killer loose and Department H is on the hunt except they think it’s Wolverine. With the majority of the issue dealing with Wolverine evading detection, most of the dialogue comes from Wolverine’s narration boxes. As the cover depicts, Wolverine comes across a Wendigo fairly early in the issue. 

The Wendigo is no stranger to the Marvel Universe but its real-life origin comes from the Algonquian-speaking First Nation tribes of North America. There are different variations of the story but Marvel generally goes with a curse that transforms someone into the Wendigo after resorting to cannibalism. In this case, Wolverine learns that this Wendigo is a teenager who had to eat his deceased friend to survive in the harsh wilderness. Ahmed’s use of the Wendigo is a nice change of pace from what readers usually see: Wolverine or another character fighting the beast, but here we have Wolverine trying to help. Martín Cóccolo’s designs of both Wolverine and the Wendigo are a lot of fun with some great attention to detail. With mainly just narration boxes, the art does a lot of the storytelling in this issue. Bryan Valenza’s coloring also does an incredible job of getting the most out of the narrative. A snow-covered forest is harder than it sounds to color and Valenza does so much to capture the right setting. Cory Petit’s lettering has a similar effect. The issue is low on speech balloons, but the placement and style choices for the lettering work so well in this issue. The yellow boxes with black text are such a fantastic contrast in color to the art.