See Vampire, Slice Vampire — Reviewing ‘Wolverine: Blood Hunt’ #1

Krakoa is gone, but those who lost their island nation don’t have much time to really mourn what they lost. Chiefly because the skies are dark and vampires are flooding the world, under the banner of the Blood Hunt event.

Wolverine leaps in, claws unleashed, to deal out some vampiric focused punishment in Wolverine: Blood Hunt #1. A blood-soaked tale that marks writer Tom Waltz‘s Marvel Comics debut, as he’s joined by Wolverine veteran Juan José Ryp, colorist Guru-eFX, and letterer Cory Petit.

My goodness this is a wordy comic book.

To be fair, there is plenty of Logan hacking and slashing that most folks want to see, but the amount of words the man is thinking and saying is vast. One of the things I pointed to regularly with coverage of the recently concluded Wolverine series of the Krakoan era, was how wordy it was. This comic took that as a challenge apparently and just doubled it all.

It could be that Waltz has come from many years of writing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of books, full of a big cast of mostly very talkative characters. Maybe that’s just how he envisions Logan. Who can say, well other than Waltz himself.

As a comic, it’s nothing special. It’s pretty much a boiler plate tie-in where it’s just Logan against some vampire soldiers and then it spends a bunch of time flashing back. It feels pretty disconnected from the overall event, other than the title and the world nightfall issue and some references. To be fair, Logan and vampires is one of the leftover dangling bits from Benjamin Percy’s aforementioned just concluded series.

Guess he didn’t want to pick it up and run with it. Can’t blame him really.

Anyone who read my reviews of that Wolverine book will know that Ryp’s artwork is one that I go back and forth with. It’s so slick and glossy and at times can border on images that feel inherently static rather than kinetic. Here it’s in that middle space where more energy can be felt but it’s still not quite fully going with the flow.

Not that there is much to really challenge since it just stays within and right outside of a bar, and then a casino, and then a dark road. At least the action moves pretty good when it happens.

Darkness is all around and bleeds into the colors as Guru-eFx keeps the heavier ominous tones going. Dropping in some bits and pieces that are more colorful, with some vibrancy, to remind us this is a fantastical world of supers. Poor Petit has to find a way to make all the plethora of words fit on the page and not become overwhelming. Unfortunately, that’s a hard task since there are just so so so many words to fit there.

Wolverine: Blood Hunt #1 is now available from Marvel Comics.