Wolverine: Origins #9

December 26, 2006

Quick Rating: Meh
Title: Savior Part Four
Rating: Parental Advisory

Seeking the Carbonadium Synthesizer, Wolverine remembers his past with the Black Widow.

Writer: Daniel Way
Art: Steve Dillon
Colors: Dan Kemp
Letters: Randy Gentile
Editor: Axel Alonso
Cover Art: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Marvel

So let’s recap here – Wolverine has found out about some son he never knew he had who is currently being mind controlled by some obscure evil people. Omega Red, meanwhile, is dying, so he’s kidnapped Jubilee because somehow this will help him get his hands on a device that the Black Widow has. Wolverine wants the device too, because it can synthesize the mysterious element that can negate his son’s healing factor without killing him, the same element that’s killing Omega Red – Kryptoni… um… “Carbonadium.” Wolverine stops during all this, of course, to remember a time he trained the little girl who would grow up to become the Black Widow.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

There only seem to be two purposes behind this series: show Wolverine in his brown and orange costume that everybody likes so much and work in as many continuity shoehorns as possible. The problem is, all of these continuity implants are only serving to make even more confusing a character whose past is responsible for half of the Tylenol purchased by Marvel readers annually, most of it pretty much out of the blue.

Elevating a frustrating storyline is Steve Dillon’s artwork, which is always good. Dillon’s strengths lie in characterization and storytelling. The only caveat, unfortunately, is that (Punisher notwithstanding), Dillon’s style isn’t particularly effective on a straight-up superhero story, so that brown costume that is in fact half the reason for this title’s existence doesn’t actually look that good.

This whole book feels superfluous to me.

Rating:5/10