WOLVERINE: REVENGE #5: The Only Way Back Is Down

Wolverine has always been that warrior walking a hard path. Some writers try offer him redemptive moments in his journey in their tenure as his writer but he always returns to violence. He’s the best at what he does and what he does isn’t very nice. Except when you dig into that idea, it’s interpretation can have different meanings. The first part: He’s the best at what he does. Hickman doesn’t stray from this idea at all in this series. Wolverine has murdered his way through this entire storyline, regardless of the punishment he’s taken in the process and always come out on top in all the physical confrontations because he literally is the best at the physical violence, that has characterized this entire mini, brought to life superbly by Greg Capullo and company.

The second part: And what he does isn’t very nice. This takes form in several ways in this series. I am not going to defend Victor Creed in any way shape or form here, not ever but Wolverine chopping pieces off of him over the years in this series instead of just ending it is hardly the act of a 100%  honorable man. That’s definitely not very nice. Wolverine has used subterfuge several times in this series and he uses it once again in his confrontation with Colossus’s son. Again the not very nice part. However Hickman chooses to give Wolverine his redemptive moment using that subterfuge on two levels. One is to mislead Colossus’s son into believing himself victorious over Wolverine by leaving him for dead in Limbo, the other is Wolverine accepting that the revenge he sought has never made him better inside and that now that he is in “hell” per se, he needs to stay there to try give Colossus’s son peace and maybe a way past the cold emptiness of revenge, something he has never been able to. This is something I’ve always liked about the idea of Logan as Wolverine is that he is, despite his attempts at redemption, a failure and a slave to his baser nature. Hickman embraces this idea this last issue and as we reach the last page he circles back to the idea that Wolverine is the best at what he does and what he does isn’t very nice, even in hell!

There isn’t any critique I can offer here for the art other than to say every single panel is absolutely flawless from Capullo, Townsend, Sinclair and Petit. From the quiet opening conversation between Piotr and his son made all the more poignant by the matched blue of father and son’s eyes. From the angered mad expression of Sabretooth’s face as he uses himself as to basically commits fastball special suicide to the gory close up detail of his blood dripping off Logans claws into the sand in tight vertical paneling or how Wolverine sees Colossus in the face of his old friends son in their final confrontation, everything is gorgeously sumptuous, perfectly inked and beautifully colored from everyone concerned.

If we have to bandy about terms like “a perfectly drawn Wolverine comic” then I’m pretty confident in saying that this final issue is from an artistic point of view definitely a candidate in that department.