Tastes Great, Less Filling: Reviewing ‘Wolverine’ #2

Wolverine #2 is a ‘jelly doughnut’ comic. It “tastes” (ie looks) great, but there’s little substance to it. It’s all empty calories. To be fair, jelly doughnuts are tasty. There are certain elements to a Wolverine story that the average reader expects to find, and there are plenty of Wolverine comics out there which somehow muddle that up.

So it’s to writer Saladin Ahmed and artist Martîn Cóccolo‘s credit that this issue at least delivers what it says on the tin, so to speak: we’ve got Wolverine, in the woods, doing his soulful tough guy narration, wanting to be left alone but getting dragged into a conflict because of his better nature, with claws and violence ensuing. And it all looks great — something else plenty of other Wolverine stories don’t have going for them. But that’s about all there is to it. 

After the events of the previous issue, Nightcrawler is gone but Wolverine is still in the snowy woods. In the wake of Cyber’s attack, he’s now being hunted by some goons from Department H (Canada’s SHIELD, basically), whose anti-mutant schtick is really the issue’s only sop to the the muddled “everyone really hates mutants, for reasons” post-Krakoa status quo. While evading them, he comes across a Wendigo (a monster brought forth by human cannibalism whom Wolverine encountered in his very first appearance). They fight, etc. 

Ahmed tries to inject a little nutritious intact into the jelly doughnut by establishing that this Wendigo was a teenaged boy forced into cannibalism by unfortunate circumstances, and by drawing a parallel (noted by Wolverine) between the Wendigo and Wolverine (who was also transformed into a monster by forces outside his control). The effort is appreciated, but the pathos and thematic resonances aren’t deep enough to change the fact that the real star of this issue is Côccolo. 

Though Cóccolo does struggle occasionally in drawing the Wendigo’s face consistently between close-ups and distant shots, Wolverine #2 is otherwise a gorgeous looking book. The action sequences are a particular standout — the hits are drawn in such a way that they feel impactful. Cóccolo shifts perspective effortlessly, such as in one standout two panel sequence in which he moves both Wolverine and the “camera” across the axis of Wendigo’s arm at the same time. A two page spread in which Wolverine learns of the Wendigo’s origins via a journal he wrote before his transformation, rendered as a comic within the comic, is another highlight. 

Colorist Bryan Valenza once again deserves a shoutout, managing to render the snowy backgrounds with enough texture and depth to keep the action from taking place against a nondescript background. The oranges of the Department H’s soldier’s suits glow. Each establishing panel makes it clear where the light source is located. A four panel, one page sequence in which Wolverine and Wendigo evade Department H at night is rendered entirely in full black, except for the backgrounds of each panel, which change color to showcase the passage of time. It’s gorgeous.