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Jun 8

All-New Wolverine #8-9 – “The Box”

Posted on Wednesday, June 8, 2016 by Paul in x-axis

After Squirrel Girl dropped by for issue #7, All-New Wolverine stays in surprisingly flippant mode for this two-parter, bafflingly billed as a “Road to Civil War II” tie-in.  Now, I’m not reading Civil War II, because from the sound of it it’s basically Minority Report with Inhumans, which doesn’t sound like an improvement.  So I can’t say for sure that these two issues contain nothing that’s relevant to Civil War II, but it’s certainly tempting to conclude that a “Road to…” banner is Marvelese for “even we couldn’t bring ourselves to claim this was an actual tie-in story”.

The plot, then.  SHIELD raid a baddie (who I guess might be something to do with the crossover, but if so, it doesn’t matter) who’s auctioning off a dangerous box.  The box is retrieved but a bunch of agents go missing.  Maria Hill drags Wolverine in to help investigate, then reveals that she’s actually the second choice, because they previously sent old Logan in, and they’ve lost him too.  Wolverine/Laura isn’t best impressed by this, since she doesn’t regard him as the real Logan.  At which point it turns out that the dangerous weapon in the box is a pheromone that drives Fin Fang Foom into a violent rage, and the whole thing goes utterly nuts.

So the second part of this story consists, pretty much entirely, of Wolverine travelling down Fin Fang Foom’s gullet in order to retrieve Logan from his stomach, having a brief team-up with some Avengers which I guess might be setting something up for the crossover, and then luring the big dragon out to sea where he can be dealt with safely.  It’s all pretty much insane.

As I said with regard to issue #7, I’d much rather read Wolverine played this way – as the put-upon voice of reason in a lunatic world – than in an entire world which is as grim as she is.  Not only is the contrast better this way, but it’s just a more cheerful book to read.  We’ve seen over the years that Laura can easily turn into a grindingly bleak character, which can work in small doses, but as a lead, she’s more effective when she’s allowed to just be cool as well.

And there are some very smart character bits in here too.  Tom Taylor and artist Marcio Takara do a fantastic job with the rapport between Laura and her younger clone Gabby, who’s settling into a role as the cheerfully enthusiastic one.  It’s a bit of a Batman and Robin relationship, come to think of it, which has always been an influence in pairing the original Wolverine with teen sidekicks.  The added element here is the idea that Gabby is illustrating what Laura could have been, with the uncertainty about whether it’s something she could ever recapture.  But she serves a great job in keeping the tone light and in helping to bring Laura out of herself by forcing her into a mentor role.  (Probably wisely, the story is careful to describe them as sisters rather than to position Laura as a parent.)

Granted, you can query the evident assumption that everyone’s already heard of Fin Fang Foom, since there’s no real attempt to explain what the big dragon actually is.  And you can certain raise an eyebrow at the “driven into a frenzy by pheromones” thing, given that the “trigger scent” schtick was pushed so heavily with Laura herself for such a long time, and doesn’t get raised here at all.  Yes, Laura’s a bit busy in this story, but you’d think that would be more of an issue for her here.  That said, it’s hard to tell whether or not this is a deliberate choice – it would be a very strange thing to overlook.  It’s conceivable that Laura’s failure to rise to the bait might be intended as a deliberate character point, but there are no real clues here one way or the other.

Then again, Taylor started off the series seeming to grossly overstate Laura’s relationship with the original Logan, and it became clear as time went on that it was more a case of Laura overstating it.  Which brings us to the old Logan.  He’s used a little oddly here, running errands for SHIELD, which really isn’t quite right for the character as Jeff Lemire has been writing him.  Lemire’s version of the character largely seems minded to stay out of everything he doesn’t have a direct stake in, and it’s far from obvious why this particular mission would have been of any great interest to him.  Again, depending on your level of charity, you might assume Taylor is getting to this, but there’s not really anything in the story to suggest it.

At any rate, despite his involvement being a big reveal in part one, Logan actually has very little to do in part two, where is job is mainly to get rescued.  It’s clear that he’s in this story mainly to bring him into the book so that Laura can interact with him properly next time.  Laura is instantly dismissive of him when he’s first mentioned – she’s happy enough to rescue him, of course, but she resents any suggestion that she ought to acknowledge him as a proper version of Logan or feel any particular affection towards him.  (“He’s from another dimension, or the future, or both.  He’s not Logan.”)

So there’s a good kick to the epilogue, which establishes that this version of Logan actually did act as a father figure for his version of Laura, precisely the sort of relationship that Laura wanted to have with the original.  That’s a nice set-up which makes me really interested to see what happens in the next story – which will hopefully be as marginal a Civil War II crossover as possible.

Bring on the comments

  1. mark coale says:

    As a longtim fin fang foom mark, perfectly fine and cute story.

  2. Chris V says:

    No, it wasn’t THAT mysterious box.

    —————————————

    Civil War II seems like it’s going to have a lot of comic books where Marvel plaster the banner of “Civil War II” somewhere on the cover, but the contents of the issue just happily move along the series’ current story, without bothering with the cross-over.

    It seems like a bad strategy. Fans who want to read the entire Civil War II cross-over are probably going to be upset. Fans of the regular series may stop reading the book for the period where it’s perceived as being part of the cross-over.
    It seems that it can only lead to pretty much everyone getting upset, except readers who just happily keep buying their regular books without paying attention to the banner glaring at the top of the cover.

    Iron Man’s recent story-arc also got the “Road to Civil War II” banner, but also seems to have only the most peripheral connection with the cross-over.

  3. Alastair Binyon says:

    It’s always difficult with tie-in to work out how much should be tied in, but it should always reference why it is a tie in. From what I know of civil War 2 all it needed was Maria Hill saying that a Pre-cog had warned them of a disaster if they did not get the box. I am not a fan of the original but most of the “road to” issues such as Spider-man were focused on the right and wrongs of vigilantism over control, a new road to should introduce the reader to the idea of proactive action and precognition. It does not have to be heavy but to earn the sticker should be there.

    A tie does no have to derail your story but it does have be relevant to the main plot, a good writer can do both.

    (obvious exceptions are House of M, Secret Wars 3 and AOA are the are all alternative universe)
    Secret invasion show a Skrull
    Inferno demon
    Secret Wars II, have the beyond pop over to use the loo.
    Civil War 1 make inconsistent statements about government control regardless if they fit your back story or make sense.
    Act of vengeance fight someone new.
    AvX attack people first with out talking when you have been friends for years and then provoke people who have god like powers for using them in a postive manner and and when the get ticked off tell every you were right about how dangerous they were.

  4. wwk5d says:

    If you count the actual miniseries, Road To issues, tie-in miniseries, and other tie in issues, Civil War II will almost account for 100 actual issues of comics. I highly doubt all of those comics will be even remotely related to the actual story. But, Marvel and DC have been doing this for years now, and completists almost always prove them right. Don’t most issues with Event Crossover Banners on them get a slight sales bump overall? Maybe this will be the even that will change that, who knows.

    I haven’t read these issues, but it doesn’t seem they have anything at all to do with CWII, but who cares, Marvel must think some suckers who don’t read this title with buy these issues just for the banner.

  5. My taste in comics has been drifting towards the more light-hearted stuff of late–my main Marvel titles are Howard the Duck, and Squirrel Girl. (And Vision, which is light hearted only in a dark humor kind of way, but never mind.) But I’m really digging the All-New Wolverine approach that combines the light-hearted stuff with some character pathos. Taylor’s really impressed me with this title.

  6. Puzzled says:

    This is the stupidest tie-in book in a long time but it’s a pretty decent X-23 story. This Orphan Black series is the best I’ve ever liked Laura. Although the Kyle and Yost books were ok.

    The worst was probably when Bendis wrote her the exact same as every other teenager.

    It’s a shame more of the xbooks couldn’t be fun sci-fi superhero books like this one. For me it’s by far the best xbook going. Not brlecause it’s amazing but because the others are less than… extraordinary or uncanny. Or ‘all new.’

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