Wolverine MAX #1 Review

Wolverine (MAX) #1

writer- Jason Starr

artists- Roland Boschi/Connor Willumsen

Wolverine, Logan, James Howlett- whatever you want to call him, he's the best there is at what he does. This October, what he's doing is breaking into his own MAX title. MAX is Marvel's “Explicit Content” imprint and it was made for edgy violent characters like Wolverine. Let's face it, his super power is to heal any wound, but why have that mutant ability unless you're going to compliment it with a fist full of claws and a boot full of butt kicking action? He's been slicing and dicing his way through comics since Incredible Hulk #181 back in 1974, and finally he's allowed to do it right in his own book.

At least that's what I'd hoped. In this issue, writer, Jason Starr throws the “F” word into some painfully forced monologuing as well as a panel with a tiny image of Wolverine having sex, and totally misses the point of writing this character into a MAX book. With the comics code a thing of the past, mainstream comics are edgier, darker, and go places they wouldn't have dared twenty years ago, so he wastes the character's potential by writing just another mainstream story. Starr also falls back on that old Wolverine default of amnesia. When the X-Man's plane crashes near Tokyo and he's the only surviving passenger, he emerges from the ocean clueless as to who he is. Notice the sarcasm when I say, “We've never seen that before.” Diehard Wolvie fans are going to burst when they see what Starr is doing to their mutant. In the scene where Wolverine fights a shark and swims to shore, we see that he's had his legs severed in the crash. He grows them back by the time the ambulance rushes him to the hospital. Why is this a big deal? Everyone knows that along with claws and a super mutant healing factor, Wolverine has an adamantium laced skeleton, and everyone knows that adamantium is unbreakable. Everyone except Jason Starr. There's also the standard flashback sequence we've seen a million times. Even though he has amnesia, Wolverine contemplates his brutal past and the wake of death and destruction he's left behind. I hope I'm not making the story out to be more interesting than it actually is. After all, he's supposed to have amnesia.

Unfortunately, the art in this book isn't any better. Roland Boschi's main story artwork feels inconsistent. It takes me back to Wolverine art from the early 90's but after a page or two, Wolverine almost looks like a totally different person. Connor Willumsen's flashback art tanks even more than that. His style does no justice to this character or any other and is actually the most offensive thing about Wolverine MAX #1.

I really don't like talking down a book this much, especially when it's a character I love in a book I've been anticipating, but I honestly can't find anything I like when there's so many things that turn my stomach. I'll keep my hopes up for the next writer/artist team to come on to this title, until then, I urge Mr. Starr and company to read some comics. Maybe they'll learn something.

*all artwork represented in this review is by Roland Boschi and Connor Willumsen for Marvel Comics