Review: ‘Wolverine’ #3 Improves By Promising Something Different

In a couple of key ways, Wolverine #3 is an improvement on the previous two issues of the series. It promises something more than just a recitation of Wolverine tropes set against a snowy backdrop. Yet at the same time, the issue also showcases some of the challenges this volume of Wolverine’s solo series is struggling to overcome. 

Carrying on from the previous issue, Wolverine #3 is built around Wolverine’s efforts to protect the adolescent Wendigo from Department H (and himself from the Wendigo) while teaching the Wendigo to control his bloodlust and animalistic urges. In its way, this is yet another Wolverine trope being showcased: Wolverine as the reluctant mentor to an impressionable teenager. Here, the tropes succeeds mostly because it ends: by the close of the issue, Wolverine has passed on his teachings, and parted ways with the Wendigo.

If that sounds like damning the issue with faint praise, well, it probably is. But the willingness of writer Saladin Ahmed to deploy this trope then quickly resolve it while at the same time moving Wolverine out of the “running through the woods, avoiding his responsibilities” stage of the book, is both appreciated and promising. 

Similarly, the epilogue, in which Cyber returns, now possessed by the gold-hued adamantium-hating entity introduced in issue #1 doesn’t add a whole ton to Wolverine #3 itself. But it does suggest better things ahead. The return of this subplot after its complete absence in issue #2 both makes it clear that Ahmed hasn’t forgotten about it and suggests it’s not meant to be too much of a slow burn.

The way the subplot is blending something new in this anti-adamantium being with something old by having it target members of Wolverine’s Rogues Gallery also bodes well for the book, a way to do something new and familiar at the same time.

Yet for all that, Wolverine #3 is far from a perfect issue. For the third issue in a row, the story is set in a wintery white landscape, with essentially the same overarching plot as the previous issues (Wolverine evades Department H, who mistakenly think he’s killed a bunch of people).

The Frank Miller-esque internal captions of Wolverine are also wearing a bit thin; at times, it almost seems like Ahmed doesn’t trust artist Martin Cóccolo enough to render the plot (or readers to glean it from the art), resulting in overwritten, repetitive captions that tell what the art is — or could be — showing.

In the end, Wolverine #3 is a better issue than its predecessors. But most of what makes it better is the way it sets up the series for better things in the future. Both the return of the subplot involving the possessed Cyber and the promise of Wolverine finally getting out of the woods (literally) and into some other kind of setting represent positive developments for the book.

For now, this issue features more of the same: competent execution of familiar Wolverine tropes with solid, engaging art. Hopefully the developments it portends will elevate the book to something more in the future.