Getting Lost In The Shuffle: Reviewing ‘Wolverine Vol 7’

Krakoa has fallen, but Wolverine has other things to do. Tracking down his clones and teaming up with his pals. Not like his people are in the middle of a fight for their very existence.

It’s a star-studded affair in Wolverine Vol. 7, which collects issues 37-40 of the current run from Benjamin Percy, Juan Jose Ryp, Ibrahim Moustafa, Frank D’Armata, and Cory Petit.

Talk about a real mixed bag of issues.

We see the clone plot wiped out in one issue, as the Hulk shows up and we get a Wendigo Wolverine. Captain America takes a break from helping the X-Men to shoot pool and team-up with Logan (while never mentioning to Logan that other mutants are still alive). There is a jaunt to Wakanda to deal with Orchis stuff, and then one with Spider-Man to do the same.

Percy at least keeps the Orchis of things in there so that it does have some ties to Fall Of X, but only tangentially really. Though to be fair, the whole Fall Of X banner of stories were a hit and miss situation with very little shared DNA.

Wendigo Wolverine is at least a fun story.  All the right levels of brooding and self-reflective but also doing awesome things. The Banner/Hulk dynamic from their own series bleeds over a bit and is handled well here. Clearly, it was for nostalgia’s sake, with the connection to Wendigo and Logan’s first appearance, but I’ll let it pass. It worked quite well.

As I’ve said before, and will say again, Percy writes a really good Logan.

Captain America and Logan have shared so many stories that it might as well be a genre of it’s own. The wild quiet loner with berserker tendencies alongside the by-the-book golden boy former soldier. Where would this one rank amongst them? While it’s not fair to really compare decades of stories, this one would probably be solidly in the middle of the pack.

Basically, it’s Logan and Steve trying to do a heist (steal back stuff stolen from Krakoa) on an Orchis ship, only to find someone beat them to it. Turns out that someone is the folks from the Legacy House, the group we’ve seen numerous times in this series. They procure (usually through illicit means) rare items of the unnatural/supernatural/super realm to auction off to big buyers.

The issues with Black Panther and Spider-Man though are through and through mediocre. Just standard fare Wolverine fighting, slicing, and dicing through people and things. Both have Orchis bits that lead back to Logan’s reconnection with mutants over in X-Force (a series also by Percy) but really don’t detract from the series very aimless feeling.

Unfortunately, the problem with this run of issues (and chunks of the series) is that nothing feels revolutionary or new or intriguing. Just a lot of been there done that wrapped up in Fall Of X wrapping paper. While mutants are around doing mutant things in this event, Logan has been catching up with old friends all as some way for him to now realize in his head “Oh I can’t do everything alone” and “we should not close ourselves off from all humans.”

Pretty sure Logan has learned the whole ‘lesson’ of not having to do things solo a billion times over the last few decades. A whole arc just to get to this point again feels pointless. Honestly feels like a lot of FOX is the line spinning wheels to get to the actual final event, after speeding up to end the line so that Marvel can reboot the line to be more status quo classic in 2024.

Artistically, it’s all fine. Ryp continues to do what he does in the series, still a bit less static than when he first came on board the series. Some interesting fight scenes are showcased, though some of the facial expressions are borderline demented in a few spaces where I don’t think they were meant to be.

Moustafa has an art style that does lend itself to a Wolverine story. Dark, dense, heavy, and quite rough fits the character. Some of the facial stuff is a bit off here or there but generally it’s fine. There is some good movement and placement, some of the panels working quite well to showcase the scale and danger of the Stark Sentinels and Orchis forces.

Some of the colors are solid and pop. Others feel a bit muddy and rough, which again could be to the fact that there is only so much one can do in such bland settings. D’Armata has a smooth sort of style to the colors, and they flow pretty well for the most part. Giving some life to the surroundings and the heavy fighting nature of this story arc.

A ton of the lettering comes from the very verbose Logan captions we get here. Petit does what he can with them, finding ways to make them flow and work. In some cases, there are just so many they sort of load up and make panels feel crowded. That being said, they do nail the voice and personality we expect from Logan.

Most of the characters featured, including the lead, are not very verbose at times. So outside of the captions, and some beats with Spider-Man, there isn’t a ton for Petit to do. What is there though works. With flairs in the dialogue bubbles that make things have volume, tone, weight, and personality. Petit just knows how to make words work. Also love the use of sentence case that just sets the tone, allowing those modifiers to stand out more.

Wolverine Vol. 7 is now available from Marvel Comics.