Wolverine: Infinity Watch #2 (of 5): Marvel Team-Up Featuring Wolverine and Loki

Wolverine: Infinity Watch is a comic that, quite possibly, nobody asked for – but that isn’t stopping writer Gerry Duggan from doing his best to make it as fun as possible. Now that the players have all been assembled, Duggan forgoes any real pretenses of doing anything other than having a blast and just lets everybody be themselves and voila, let the scene write itself.

Also, there’s a bat with “time diamonds” embedded in it, because this isn’t already enough comic-booky comic book!

Alas, now that the table is set and all the players are in place, there’s no real surprise to any of the proceedings here. It’s straightforward to a fault, right up to Loki’s resolution for the Warbringer fight (which shouldn’t fool any reader for a second). Wolverine does Wolverine things. Loki eschews direct conflict and resorts to his usual bag of tricks. The big alien guy does… big alien guy things. And of course our walking MacGuffin, Hector Bautista, wanders around cluelessly, wondering just how the heck he got into this mess!?

I can’t really blame Gerry Duggan for this; after all, he didn’t come up with the bizarre idea of making Wolverine a keeper of an Infinity Stone. He’s just playing the hand he’s been dealt (or more precisely, assigned by an editor). To his credit, this issue is a step up from the last – rather than being tonally all over the place, it’s at least consistent but lacking any real stakes. And that’s the problem – if you’re going to write a comic about Wolverine, Loki, Future Phoenix Wolverine, Old King Thor, an Infinity Gem, a flying longboat, a bat with time diamonds in it, a ‘roided-out alien warrior, the kitchen sink, and I think Jimmy Hoffa’s body – you need to go big or go home. Make it the most insane, over-the-top thing anybody’s ever read. Instead, this issue plays it about as safe as non-alcoholic beer: sure it looks and even tastes like the real thing, but in the end leaves you empty, sad, and dissatisfied.