Wolverine #22: Been Here Before, Bub

The plot of this comic revolves around Wolverine’s healing factor being taken from him, again. It’s a storyline that plagues this character and his editorial history. The last time that Wolverine lost his healing factor in his own series was during the Sabretooth War event in 2024. Logan lost his healing factor to Sabretooth in issue #46, released on March 27, 2024. It has been only two years and three months since Marvel has last run this same gimmick. Half of 2013’s Wolverine Volume 5 and all 12 issues of 2014’s Wolverine Volume 6 dealt with Logan being depowered. Not to mention the two movies that follow this same plot: The Wolverine in 2013 and Logan in 2017. It might genuinely be impossible to be a Wolverine fan and have not experienced at least one story of Logan not having his healing factor. The sheer frequency of this trope has conditioned fans to treat this supposedly key plot point as mere background noise and a subpar attempt to artificially raise the stakes. Wolverine losing his healing factor is not new and certainly not interesting. Readers know this is a temporary change to the character, so they have no reason to care. Comic books do not exist in a vacuum; if a writer wants to retread an old plot point, they ought to add a new element or use that point to say something interesting; this comic does not. 

A highlight of this issue, and Saladin Ahmed’s work on Wolverine in general, is the inclusion of characters that Marvel generally doesn’t associate with the titular character. In the previous issue, Wolverine fought against the Absorbing Man, a villain that Wolverine hasn’t faced one-on-one since Secret Wars back in 1984. In this issue, as revealed by the alternate covers, Wolverine faces off against Taskmaster. Taskmaster briefly fought Daken in Daken: Dark Wolverine #12 and Laura in All-New Wolverine #3; however, the mercenary has never really tangled with Logan. The fight between a depowered Wolverine and Taskmaster is compelling purely because it is fresh. Ahmed writes these two characters as extremely seasoned fighters for different reasons. Their battle banter is significantly more entertaining than the average superhero-supervillian back-and-forth. Furthermore, as shown in the previews, Wolverine meets with Doctor Cecilia Reyes about his healing factor predicament. Doctor Reyes is another character that Logan doesn’t really interact with, so watching the two bounce off of each other feels fresh as well. Ahmed’s instinct to expand Wolverine’s supporting cast is the most interesting creative choice of this 22 issue run, and it often does more heavy lifting than the plot itself. 

Of course, Julius Ohta’s artwork looks phenomenal. Ohta’s attention to detail is superb. Wolverine’s design is stocky and hairy; he looks like an animal in human form. Ohta draws Wolverine with these rough lines all over his face; Logan looks old without looking like an old man. It’s an interesting design choice that juxtaposes Logan with the far smoother linework of Nightcrawler and Cecelia Reyes. The contrast reinforces that Wolverine is fundamentally different to those around him: weathered and battle-hardened in a way that nobody else can relate to. Ohta uses a lot of vibrant lines when creating action panels; these lines are reminiscent of something from Japanese Manga and add a level of motion to the fights that most comic books often lack. Combined with the Jesus Aburtov’s coloring, these kinetic flourishes make Ohta’s pages some of the most visually dynamic in Marvel’s current publication lineup.