Can You Feel The Pain? Reviewing ‘Wolverine’ #29
by Scott Redmond
Overview
There is only so many times one can go down the same path before it starts to just become far too routine, and that is very much where ‘Wolverine’ is as a title and character currently. Some interesting nuggets are consumed by the all too familiar tropes that have plagued the character for decades, with not a bit of relief in sight.
Overall
7/10When a character has been around for decades, it can begin to feel like one is following them in circles. Adventures that have been visited numerous times rear their heads over and over, and stories begin to sort of meld together capturing the same feeling. Basically, a lot of been there done that distilled into whatever format their medium of choice employs to tell these adventures.
Currently, the Wolverine series from Marvel Comics embodies a lot of that feeling.
This does not make the series bad overall, but it is not particularly good or memorable in the scheme of things either. It sort of just exists, amongst the long list of Wolverine series that we’ve had in just the handful of decades since the character got popular enough to go solo. As noted in these reviews, Benjamin Percy writes a solid Logan. The issue is that this version of Logan is one that we’ve seen in similar stories over and over and over (insert a lot more overs here) again. Just this story alone could have one substitute Beast for any number of other bastards that have mind-controlled Logan, or have the overall setting changed for any other number of times Logan has gone berserk/feral/been forced to relive his worst memories or nightmare versions of his memories overall.
There is a whole monologue montage nightmare section where Logan pontificates for the millionth time that pain is what made him, that he is pain, and really the pain is being a fan reliving these beats again.
Compared to previous issues, one that is basically 75 percent flashy montages actually works with the more sort of glossy slick static sort of art style of José Ryp. It captures the barbaric nature of what is happening and what happened to Logan, even if the action sort of feels like just a shot captured in a camera to be looked back at. Some of the shots of the people outside the pit move a bit more than others. Everything color-wise is also a bit glossy, but the shadows and toned-down nature of many of the colors from Frank D’Armata work with the story.
We get a ton of inner monologue in the issue and Cory Petit makes it flow easily, capturing that Logan sort of quality to how it’s built. What little other dialogue there is sets well and is full of all the right emotion and tonal qualities needed.
Wolverine #29 is now available from Marvel Comics.