The Moment We’ve Been Waiting For: Reviewing ‘Wolverine’ #30

After numerous issues stuck under the control of the increasingly just truly awful Beast, Wolverine is somewhat back to normal. Being subjected to reliving memories and nightmares (and forcing us to relive them as well) while being used as a weapon by a deranged person for the umpteenth time has left the clawed one a bit perturbed.

This is an issue where there at last somewhat feels like there is a bit of traction to things because our lead character is back in control and we’re not mostly stuck in his mind or dreamscapes. So that helps tremendously. My reviews of these issues definitely have a more negative tint, but I don’t entirely dislike these issues or this storyline. My main gripe has been and continues to be how routine so many of these stories feel (even though they have their unique flavor mixed in there) at this point in the character’s existence.

Benjamin Percy writes a very compelling Logan, nailing the voice and the sentiment behind the character, and there are times when the story breaks from the routine and points towards something really cool. This seemingly is one of those times as this issue pushes beyond the routine and what we’ve seen before to do a little something different with Logan. While he, and let’s be honest most of us, would love to just gut Beast right now on the spot, thanks to the urging of Sage they are trying to play a smarter game but against someone that is smarter and has been planning contingencies for this sort of eventuality ever since he decided to lean into being a monster.

As if reading the mind of myself and various others out there, Percy gave us one of the most cathartic moments ever to cap off this issue. Of course, it was already rectified with the post-credit scene (and advanced solicits told us this plot was far from over) but it doesn’t take away how damn good it felt. Percy has been telling a long-form story, having spoken in interviews numerous times about having pictured the endgame between Logan and Beast since he began writing the story between this title and its sibling X-Force. I’m glad that Percy has had the room to tell the story as he envisioned it, even if the execution and the slow-pace method being employed in both books are not something I’m keen to see happening.

Overall, though, beyond just that moment, I have to pull back on some of the stuff I’ve said about the past few issues. Not to retract and say I was wrong, but this one goes in a better direction. Not just because Logan is not just out of Beast’s control but because it swiftly moves things forward and has some really interesting and good character beats for various people, including having Sage there to balance Logan in their pursuit of Beast.

There is a glossy sort of slick feeling to the artwork of Juan José Ryp that also has a bit of a stillness or picturesque quality to it. It’s a style that in many of the reviews for this arc I’ve spoken about how it doesn’t really seem to feel like it fits what one would expect from a Wolverine story overall but especially this one, save for how it fits the almost 75% montage dream sequence of the last issue. Overall I still feel this way but, once more, I have to backtrack just a bit because I think the artwork actually works a bit more in this issue.

It could be the fact that this one moves a lot more now that Logan is out and about and we’re moving through a variety of spaces, no more dreams or montages or singular bland spaces, so it feels a little more like it fits the qualities of Logan. It’s still really slick and glossy but that’s not as much of a detractor this time I think. Maybe I’m just riding high on that cathartic Beast-related moment and feeling good, who can say?

Some of that glossiness also comes from Frank D’Armata’s coloring which floats in a space right in the middle between bright flashy vivid and more toned-down natural tones. Plenty of elements have that pop of color we expect from a superhero-related story but there is also a lot of heavier more grounded types of colors that keep us in a more realistic (as realistic as these situations can get) type space.

I will also say that the brutality of some of the moments in this issue, actually feels heavy and dark and in the case of the Beast scene fully deserved and welcomed. Compared to the sort of glossy sort of wrong feeling some of it had previously in the arc, save the moments in the dream sequence that were meant to be somewhat nightmarish and off-putting as Logan’s mind went wild.

Percy has captured a great Logan voice as I’ve noted many times, and letterer Cory Petit has really nailed how to really deliver that voice on the page as well as all the overall voices. The way that the dialogue and captions and the like are spread out, creating a cadence of sorts with the character’s voice. Logan is generally a man of few words so spreading his captions out or spacing out word bubbles in a certain way conveys that and instantly brings that gruff sort of grunty barely talking style character voice right into my head. Compared to someone like Black Tom who has a bit to say and it’s in big full bubbles, and it all works so well.

Wolverine #30 is now available from Marvel Comics