Wolverine #16

Well, the past several issues of this series have been fantastic in my opinion, with issue #14 pulling down a perfect score. Will the streak of awesomeness continue? Or will this series finally come back down to Earth?

Wolverine #16:

Summary: So Wolverine has given up his humanity(again...) and is living amongst a pack of wolves(again...). While running with his pack, some armed goons approach and tranquilize the wolves, walking amongst the dazed animals looking for strong specimens. The men kill the wolves who don't meet their criteria and spot Wolvie with a few tranq needles sticking out of him. The men figure Wolvie was a wild man and debate whether they should bring him back to civilization, since they'd probably get some sort of reward for finding a modern day Tarzan. The leader of the men decides against taking Wolvie to civilization since they didn't have a cage to house a wild man, and orders his men to kill him along with the wolves they weren't taking, at which point one of the men shoot Wolvie in the head. Meanwhile, Melita is interviewing Wolvie's various friends and teammates to see what they thought about him. Some time later Wolvie wakes up and decides to get revenge for his massacred pack. Wolvie finds the men responsible in a cabin in the wilderness and sees that they were preparing to let the wolves loose in a pen and record the action. With that, the claws come out and Wolvie does away with the scumbags. Before he leaves the cabin, Wolvie picks up the scent of some other humans and opens a door discovering a bunch of bloody and maimed children, at which point he realizes that the men he killed had been throwing the children to the wolves(literally!) and then recording the sick scene. Wolvie takes the children to the nearest town where they are met by their grateful parents. From there, Wolvie heads off alone and tries to make sense of his life... Had he not murdered his own children due to the Red Right Hand, he never would have left civilization, and would have never rescued the captive children. While Wolvie is rolling that little chestnut around in his head, Melita and a who's who of Marvel's heroes arrive to see if they could convince Wolvie to return from his self-imposed exile. Realizing that although he'd done some terrible things, he'd also done a great deal of good, Wolvie decides to head back home with his woman and the heroes.

Thoughts: Um, that's it? After all of the awesomeness that was the first 15 issues of this series, with Wolvie going to Hell, being tormented by the Red Right Hand, killing his bastard children and leaving society, THIS was how he returned? This issue really didn't do much for me. I mean it was an okay “Wolvie is a hero” story and all, but it was a BIG step back from the prior several issues to me. I mean at the end of last issue Wolvie was trying to commit suicide as penance for murdering his children, at the end of this issue he's back with his various teams? Just like that? I knew Wolvie was going to eventually return to civilization(duh!), but I thought there'd be something more profound that would have Wolvie come back. Instead we got Wolvie killing bad guys, saving children and having a superhero intervention... Meh. Like I said, this was a good comic, but as an ending for a storyline as epic as the Wolvie Goes to Hell/Wolvie's Revenge stuff? I was expecting something better.

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.Wolverine's a lumberjack and he's okay!