Friday, June 5, 2009

Wolverine Origins #36

Here's my first Wolverine Origins review for this blog. For the record, I've collected every issue of this series from the beginning and have been mostly pleased by things. I've enjoyed the stuff with Daken, and hope he winds up with a series of his own somewhere down the road. This issue is written by Daniel Way. Daniel has written this comic from the start, so he has a great feel for these characters and situations.

-We begin this issue with Wolvie trying to find his son Daken and prevent him from affixing a piece of the Muramasa blade to his claws. What's the Muramasa blade you ask? Good question, allow me to explain. The Muramasa blade is a mystical weapon that can counter a healing factor. In other words, the blade prevents someone with a healing factor(like Wolvie)from healing. As a matter of fact, Wolvie used the blade to behead and kill(for now at least)Sabretooth in an issue of "Wolverine" a while back. Daken has gone to the evil genius known as the Tinkerer to preform the procedure.

-Wolvie follows Daken's scent, but keeps running into Victor Hudson, a giant bruiser who was sent by Romulus(he's the guy who has been secretly pulling Wolvie and Daken's strings for years)to stop Wolvie.

-While Wolvie keeps getting stalled by Victor, Tinkerer begins the work on Daken.

-Eventually Wolvie manages to get past Victor and makes his way onto the train Tinkerer was using to work on Daken. Wolvie finds Daken in a tube, ala Wolvie during his time in the Weapon X program, and moves to attack Tinkerer for his role in this whole situation. Before Wolvie can get his claws on Tinkerer, Daken breaks out of the tube and pops his claws, revealing that the procedure was a success and that Daken now possesses two claws(the ones under his hands)covered with the one metal that can slay Wolvie.

-Wolvie tackles Daken, and is VERY cautious to avoid Daken's claws. Daken tells Wolvie that their mutual enemy, Romulus, is on board the train, but Wolvie responds that Romulus WAS on board, but that Wolvie let him get away in order to prevent Daken from going through with the procedure. Daken is obviously pissed that Wolvie allowed Romulus to escape and stabs Wolvie in the chest with his claws. Luckily for Wolvie, Daken choose not to deliver the killing stroke and refrained from using his new Muramasa coated claws.

-Daken leaves Wolvie bloody and unconscious, but still alive. Wolvie wakes up later and heads to Russia, now more determined than ever to find and kill Romulus. This issue ends with us discovering that Omega Red is also in Russia, being moved to a new prison facility... Hmm, I wonder what's going to happen next issue!

I really enjoyed this comic. Now, I will admit that I vehemently hate the whole Romulus aspect of this storyline, mainly because Romulus' involvement is just TOO far fetched to believe. I mean really, this Romulus guy has been jerking Wolvie around for almost 100 years, and Wolvie only realized this recently? I get that Wolvie couldn't remember all of his past until after the House of M mess, but still, wouldn't SOMEBODY have found evidence of Romulus?

If you ignore Romulus(like I try to)the rest of this story was solid. I like Daken a lot, as I stated in the opening paragraph, and I continue to enjoy reading the way Daniel is developing Daken's character with each passing month. I'll also admit that somewhere deep down inside, I take some twisted enjoyment at the fact that Daken can almost always kick Wolvie's ass. The past couple of years Wolvie has become truly unstoppable(if you don't believe me, check out Wolvie's "Civil War" x-over, where all of his skin is blown off and he regenerates back from his skeleton!), so it's nice to see that there is at least one character that Wolvie can't just squash like a bug. For a score, I'll give this comic a very solid 8 out of 10. Now if only BENDIS would stop misusing Daken over in Dark Avengers I'd be a very happy camper.

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