WOLVERINE BY CHRIS CLAREMONT#1: Hidoi Odoroki

Chris Claremont writes very good Wolverine. This is a historically documented and undisputable fact. Some would argue, but can he still? I can’t say I have been wildly impressed by his recent Wolverine & Kitty Pryde sequel but I’m always willing to give the writer who wrote a huge chunk of my favorite comic franchise’s best stories a fair shake when it comes to any new material and quite honestly in this instance it pays off in spades!

One of the best things about Claremont when he writes stories set in past canon he created is that he’s free of the power scaling nonsense that I personally feel plagues the current era of comic books. His version of the characters are powerful yes, capable most certainly, but they are also very fallible, deeply human and in the right circumstances any of them could win or lose. That’s exactly what happens here. The opening of the issue is a familiar one, Sabretooth shows up in Japan unexpectedly (he’s like the Spanish Inquisition that way) and proceeds to administer a whooping on Wolverine with designs on killing Mariko. Not exactly an original take right? except Claremont makes it feel like it is, he does this through using Wolverine as the narrative voice and giving Sabretooth the lion’s share of the dialogue, bouncing Sabretooth’s relentless cruelty and terrible way he views the world off the idealism of our young mutant heroes.

Coming back to what I said about Claremont’s take on the characters. The idea of Sabretooth taking on Logan, Rogue, Colossus, Storm, Kitty, Nightcrawler and Mariko seems preposterous by modern standards but Claremont, artist Tom Reilly, colorist Chris O’Halloran and letterer Clayton Cowles sell the idea flawlessly. Sabretooth dishes out as good as he gets and in several cases outsmarts the less experienced X-Men on the team with guile and experience (having a healing factor and being able to take a hit really help) as Claremont gets to play with some of his favorite toys, and does so with the suitable aplomb of an old hand who knows these characters inside and out in the era this occurs in. Claremont uses Creed as a tool of foreshadowing even while the chaos of combat is happening to tease the darkness in one Miss Kate Pryde in a moment that really makes the issue truly additive in the lore of the X-Men and retroactively offers the first look at Kate as Shadowcat. Everybody gets a moment in this, Nightcrawler is suitably the concerned friend, Logan is very much the man attempting to be better than his past, Mariko shows her steel, Storm shows off her aggressive side before being pulled back from the killing by Logan, Colossus and Rogue’s inexperience is shown in an interesting way. It’s perfectly written interstitial tissue that slots flawlessly into existing canon.

As for the art. First of all, it’s an actual crime against us as the X-Men reading community that Tom Reilly hasn’t done more X-Men comics. Between this issue and the Cyclops Snapshots Issue, Tom has produced two of my absolute favorite one shot comics about Marvels merry mutants, ever! There’s a muted grittiness about this issue, helped a great deal by Chris O’Halloran’s muted color palette. Reilly get’s to pack a lot in here. There’s heavy action throughout but Reilly also gets to show some flashback scenes of Storm’s youth as Sabretooth takes on each of the X-Men or several in turn across the course of the issue. Wolverine is only there at the beginning and at the end of the issue so some diehards might be a little upset that the issue isn’t completely focused on Wolverine but I think that by shifting the focus to Sabretooth it makes things far more interesting. There are amazing splashes and clever multigrid panels from Reilly that help emphasize the brutality of the conflict and add incredible dynamism to the whole affair. The splash with Sabretooth dodging arrows early on is just chefs kiss. Cowles is a superb on lettering as always and while McNiven’s cover may be a bit misleading in terms of the story inside. The actual story inside is absolutely perfect.