All Loganed Out: Reviewing ‘Wolverine’ #25

Wolverine is a character that at this point in publishing history, has done just about everything possible. That’s what happens when one character becomes so popular that they at times are appearing in a half dozen series while anchoring multiple solo titles and mini-series at any given point. One of those things that he most assuredly has done is star in a very boring comic book issue. 

I know this because I read Wolverine #25. 

Now that being said, one can go back to my review for the last issue and even the past few before that where I speak of what this title and the creative teams behind the issues have done so well. Right now I feel like I was on what I thought was a steady train that suddenly turned out to be actually a roller coaster, as I’m plunging down to the lowest lows without warning. 

After a really solid opening issue that brought Solem and the Hell Bride back into the picture, that pointed to an epic showdown pitting Solem and Wolverine against the Hell Bride and Progenitor (from A.X.E.: Judgement Day event), this issue just killed all of that. Honestly, this is an issue where Logan just monologues at the reader for almost the entirety of it. No lie, I had to go back through the issue again because there were so many captions scattered around the bits of action and dialogue that my eyes glossed over and I didn’t even read what was there. 

Just as I feared last issue, I still do not care about Solem and won’t have to since the character ends up just running off with the Hell Bride by the end of the story. Seriously all of this just to have them all puttering around the ice for most of the issue, only to have the blood feud ended cause Logan decides to save her with a fire and a coat rather than kill her when she’s freezing and alone. All of that build-up for it to just be simply defused. 

Not saying I needed them to engage in some drag-down knock-out fight, but damn. It’s almost like Benjamin Percy remembered that Solem and Hell Bride were dangling plot lines and went “Crap better get to them” and rushed through it. It’s disappointing cause most definitely he could have done so much more with them and this forgotten plotline with more room and some more focus. Also, Logan getting special treatment with his judgment being totally different than how the Progenitor has worked for anyone else is just some sigh and eye-rolling-worthy stuff. 

Once again Federico Vicentiti and Frank D’Armata do some really solid work artistically here. Despite all the monologuing, there are some great visuals that really lift the issue up. Vicentini has a great sense of depth and detail and there is a roughness to the work that helps make the few actions scenes we get, and even the walking/talking scenes, pop a lot more. Colorwise things are very blue and white with their location, but D’Armata makes it work and feel weighty and colorful despite that. All the muted but colorful elements on the characters and from their weapons and such helps break up the overwhelming cold feeling (which is great as it sells the location more by letting the reader feel that coldness in a way). 

I cannot wait to see what Vicentiti is going to do over in the new Miles Morales: Spider-Man series. 

Yeah, it felt like this issue was monologuing at me a whole ton, but lettering wise Cory Petit did his usual great work. Fantastic use of sentence case in order to set the baseline of conversation, allowing the bigger or changed font to be the louder or softer dialogue. There were a few spots where the captions and dialogue felt like they overlapped a bit but that’s mostly cause they had to fit in where they could with there just being so much to put on the pages around the artwork. 

I’m torn on the big celebratory backup that marks the twenty-fifth issue of this series. Percy shows off again how he can write a great Logan and the artwork from Juan Ferreyra, Kyle Charles, Andrea Di Vio, Klaus Janson, Emma Kubert & Guillermo Ortego, and Greg Land (normally not a huge fan but it works here) and Jay Leisten is solid through the story. All of these artists tackle a different aspect of this basically montage of Logan moments story, giving their own energy and power to the clawed mutants’ frenzied life. Ferreyra and Frank Martin bring a lot of great color work across the various pages of the story, matching the energy and style on display. 

Where I’m torn is in the fact that this is a story that I would like even more, if it was not a caption-monologuing story tacked onto the back of another caption-monologue-heavy story. It just felt like by the time I finally closed the issue that Logan had been monologuing at me directly for far too long and I was ready to be done listening to him blather on. 

Logan buddy, pal, I like you but I think I need a bit of a breather from you, at least till the next issue. 

Wolverine #25 is now available from Marvel Comics.