Killing In The Name: Reviewing ‘Wolverine’ #47

When Sabretooth and Wolverine go to war, the losers are those caught in their extremely seismic wake. Chapter seven of the Sabretooth War sees the bodies continue to pile up around the duo as the roughness hits a whole new level in Wolverine #47.  

This pre-climactic chapter comes from Victor LaValle, Benjamin Percy, Geoff Shaw, Alex Sinclair, and Cory Petit.

Talk about a real mixed bag scenario.

Not saying there were not a lot of ideas in place, but this story is really showing some “not meant to be ten chapters long” strains. What started as a spirited energetic sprint is very much a slow ambling walk, tinged with hope that a quick finish might still be possible. A lot of moments that dragged out too long. Mixed with plenty of telling on top of the showing.

Moments like the use of the seed Nekra has been carrying since the first Sabretooth miniseries hit like a blast of room temperature air. Neither hot nor cold, but more just a thing that happened. Deaths are just mostly glossed over, after momentary sentiment. As if Krakoa resurrection is still a thing rather than basically being one two feet out the door already. Even Creed’s (soon to be overcome for sure) fate are matter of fact ambiguously lackluster.

What LaValle and Percy deliver is fine, nothing bad. It just it feels like they were obligated to go this long rather than wanting something tighter and more compact.

Not a fault of this team, but can someone please just put Forge’s power sapping gun (last seen in Inferno) on the do not use list? Honestly at this point it’s beyond ridiculous that it’s always just around for someone to use and temporarily depower folks. Pretty sure it’s been destroyed before but always comes back. A (briefly) powerless Wolverine…wonder what that might be like?

More of the roughness really creeps into what Shaw has on the page. It’s here that one begins to see some potential cracks from the accelerated scheduling of this event. Even taking every other issue out, Shaw and Cory Smith tackled around five books worth of art (assuming the first and last are both duo work) with issues out twice a month.

Some of the depictions of characters are murkier, action a little harder to pick up on, and some of the sharper roughness feels a bit blunted. Even at lower power output though, it still gets the job done. Capturing the tone and delivering what the story needs.

Same can be said of the colors. Sinclair keeps bringing the darker tones mixed with those fiery vibrant super themed color palate styles. Hitting the right vibe as needed, keeping a consistency to the whole story that it very much could use.

Another space to find that visual energetic consistency is the lettering from Petit. Characters have plenty to say and it’s brought to the page in a logical and flowing way. While some of the emotional depth is missing from the story overall, the lettering isn’t flat in its absence.

Once more this issue moves somethings ahead while very much fitting into the realm of calm before the storm mentality. A tighter, timed, more focused story likely could have been given in a shorter amount of issues.

Then the series would not be ending on that magical (albeit meaningless these days) issue number fifty. Honestly, that would be a price worth paying for the stronger version of this story.

Wolverine #47 is now available from Marvel Comics.