WOLVERINE #27: Beast’s Secret Weapon

Wolverine #27 picks up right after issue #26 from a few weeks ago. The previous issue ended with Wolverine and Jeff Bannister falling into a trap and ending up at a Legacy House auction. Wolverine was the hot item of the night with a very interested bidder: Beast. While Wolverine #27 deals with the aftermath, we get glimpses of how to auction played out. Beast slowly killed Wolverine, eventually cutting off his head. We eventually see that Beast has been keeping Wolverine separated from the rest of Krakoa after being resurrected and wearing some type of Krakoan restraining collar. This time around, he seems more primal and savage. Turns out, Beast is going full-on war criminal mode and using Wolverine to do his evil bidding which gives us some amazing but brutal panels.

Juan Jose Ryp is such an excellent choice for this issue. I was wary of his style when I first saw it in issue #26, but once the issue leaned into more violent and graphic sequences, I was all in and could see what Ryp can bring to a Wolverine book. We quickly learn that Beast is using Wolverine to assassinate anyone that Beast perceives as a threat. The way Benjamin Percy scripted these assassinations are incredible and Ryp’s art brings it all home. Framed by Beast’s directions, we see images side by side depicting before and after Wolverine massacres the people in the panels. When I write massacre, I mean it. We see the deaths of enemy strike units, members of Parliament, chemists that stole petals, and even reporters.

Frank D’Armata’s colors do an amazing job of getting the most out of these panels and complement Ryp’s style. I’ve been enjoying D’Armata’s use of darker greens, purples, blues, and of course reds. Ryp gave us some really brutal deaths, and D’Armata does such an amazing job with blood and gore. Readers are seeing the violence that only a savage animal could do and D’Armata makes sure we don’t miss a thing. Cory Petit’s lettering has consistently been great in this series. He always makes great use of onomatopoeia and makes them feel so natural to the action. I also really enjoyed his lettering for Sage at The Green Lagoon. Domino seems a little suspicious about Wolverine, so she went to talk to Sage, but she’s had a few drinks. The speech bubbles are covered in smaller bubbles, almost like fizz from a drink. The tails of the speech bubbles are thin and windy and even the lettered dialogue is uneven.