Wolverine and the X-Men #26

Wolverine and the X-Men has easily been the most fun out of any X-Book since the ending of Pete Milligan and Michael Allred's X-Statix years ago.  But, unfortunately, Issue #26 is a massive departure from what we've come to expect from the book, and it makes for an extremely jarring experience as this departure comes right in the middle of a story arc. 


Rather than keep up with the punky and up-beat sci-fi feel of the book, Aaron spends a good portion of his time in this issue recounting the story of Dog Logan, Wolverine's brother from the 2001 miniseries "Origin" and frames it with a present day battle between the two in The Savage Land. The recounting of Dog's history takes up much more space than it ever needed to. A story that could easily be recounted in in 2-3 pages is stretched out for most of the book and oversaturated with dialog.  The fight scene in the book also leaves much more to be desired, as it's rather uneventful and serves very little purpose besides introducing another danger for Wolverine's students to face  in further installments of the story. Aaron has really shown that he can do fun, quirky sci-fi stories with this book, but this issue isn't one of them.


Ramon Perez's use of watercolor's during the flashback scenes are absolutely beautiful, they're minimalist and bleak which reflects Dog's outlook on his life. However, when those watercolors are contrasted with the more traditional art style of the present day scenes, the change is abrupt and ruins the flow of the story. Rather than blending the two styles at points when we're about to change between them, Perez has kept them separate, making page turns extremely awkward as the art style abruptly changes to a radically different look. There's nothing wrong with how Perez draws the contemporary scenes, but it seems amateurish on his part for not putting in proper transitions in his art. 
 

Overall, Wolverine and the X-Men #26 was a disappointing entry in the series. One of the highlights from Aaron's run has been the interaction between Wolverine's staff and the kids at the school, and this book has none of that whatsoever, making it seem like just an average Wolverine story.