Wolverine #60 (Early September 1992)

Let's return to Marvel for the last review of the week before tomorrow and New Comic Day(Huzzah!). After that really craptacular LotDCU comic I just reviewed, the bar is set really low for the night. Let's see if this comic can pull me out of the comic book doldrums.

Wolverine #60:

Summary: It seems that Wolverine's love, Mariko, has recently died at the hands of Matsuo, and as such Wolverine has been sitting in front of Mariko's grave pondering his life while Gambit and Jubilee stand nearby helplessly. Eventually Sunfire comes by as a representative of the Japanese government to ask Wolvie to leave the country and not attempt to take revenge on Matsuo. To that end, Sunfire gets the trio of mutants a limo and they head inside and begin their trek towards the airport. Riveting stuff, no? Don't worry, it picks up right now. Back in New York, Sabretooth is enjoying a wrestling show at Madison Square Garden when he is attacked by a Shiva robot. After a bit of a battle(in the ring, which delights the crowd), Sabretooth manages to tear the robot's head off. While Tooth is standing triumphant in the ring, the robot's head zaps him with a mental blast that forces him to relive a Weapon X implanted memory where he was Wolverine's father. John Wraith arrives on the scene and manages to snap Tooth out of his trance, just as a second Shiva robot arrives on the scene. Wraith blows Shiva #2 up and rapidly exits the Garden with a very confused Sabretooth. Back in Japan, Wolverine catches Matsuo's scent while in the limo and leaps out of the sunroof, scaling a building and confronting Matsuo. Matsuo sics a bunch of Hand ninjas on Wolvie, but Wolvie dispatches them with ease. Wolvie the proceeds to chop off the artificial hand Matsuo had received and tells Matsuo that he wasn't there to kill him, instead he was going to take a piece of Matsuo every time the two met, and as such rips off Matsuo's nostril(?!?) with a claw before leaving, ending this issue.

Thoughts: Okay, a few confessions first... I've never been a fan of Wolverine's exploits in Japan. The Wolvie in Japan stuff just never really grabbed my interest. On top of that, the Weapon X program, as it was back in the 90's, was INSANELY confusing stuff! You had killer robots, secret programs, multiple fake memory implants, it was a frigging mess! So that's two strikes this issue had going for it right off the bat. With that said, I DID enjoy this issue for the most part, mainly thanks to the ultra fun Sabretooth/Shiva battle. I've always been a sucker for villain vs villain fights and this one was pretty well done. Sure, it was a bit strange that two Shiva units were destroyed here after Marvel/Larry Hama had shown Shiva to be incredibly tough and able to take Wolvie to the brink, but overlooking that, I did enjoy the Shiva/Sabretooth parts. The rest? Not so much... I mean really, who tears somebody's NOSTRIL off as revenge for the murder of their beloved? Weird...

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.Wow, for a robot Shiva was REALLY bringing the smack talk!