Savage Wolverine #1
With no idea how he got there, Wolverine finds himself stranded in the Savage Land with no one but the lovely, but vicious Shanna the She-Devil to keep him company (poor little guy). With a S.H.I.E.L.D. science team missing, Logan must piece together the mystery of his sudden appearance because the natives & the wild life are getting restless and on the Savage Land, restless can be the death of you.
The Team
Written & illustrated by Frank Cho (Jungle Girl Omnibus TP, Mighty Avengers Vol. 1 : The Ultron Initiative). Coloured by Jason Keith. Published by Marvel Comics. Marvel Now.
The Pros & Cons
Now I’m gonna get this out of the way and I’ll probably sound like a perv, but I’m gonna state the obvious here, as a red blooded heterosexual human male, I gotta say… Frank Cho can draw women! Damn! Now that I got that out of my system, on with the review. Letting Wolverine loose in the Savage Land is great way to let a much beloved character blow off some steam and after the whole AVX shenanigans, he certainly deserves it. Here, he can let his berserker rage mode go up to 11 without worrying about some pour innocent schmuck getting in the way. For those of you that don’t know, the Savage Land is an extremely remote and dangerous area from another dimension that time forgot. Think Jurassic Park with a dash of King Kong’s Skull Island and you’ll get what I mean. Logan can slice n’ dice through massive jungles, cave men & dinosaurs and be the best and what he does, because what he does… well you know the rest.
The story is written by Frank Cho, who delivers a fairly straight forward story that has wall to wall action & bloody violence on a land that certainly earns its name. The reason as to how & why Wolverine just suddenly drops out of the sky is kept from the reader and that’s good, you need a little mystery, even in a Wolverine title. Now I’m a little behind on the happenings of the Savage Land, but I’m hoping for an appearance or two by Ka-Zar, Zabu & maybe even Sauron. Cho’s illustrations, let’s face it people, look stunning as always with thick green jungles, brutal Neanderthals & terrifying raptors. Thanks to Jason Keith’s colouring, Cho’s drawings are bursting with life, just like the creatures that inhabit this cursed jungle who would love nothing but to rip & tear into the flesh of anyone foolish enough to be a tourist. At least in Jurassic Park you can stay in the vehicle.
The Outcome
With current titles like Wolverine Max, Wolverine & the X-Men & the March release of Wolverine, if this keeps up, the character will have more titles than Batman. Unfortunately, there’s not enough green in my wallet to get everything but we’ll see how this new series progresses. Is it groundbreaking work? Not by a long shot. Is it an entertaining first issue with potential? Hell yes!
A Look Inside
Comments
Skipped this one. There are just too many Wolverine comics now. If I could've found the Skottie Young variant I would've picked it up.
Cho's art was fantastic and yes, Shanna looks amazing. I think the writing tried too hard to push it into the Noir Detective with Wolverine's narration just repeating everything Cho drew anyway, "I walked on a path" and "There were artifacts and documents strewn on the desk." Yes, the issue isn't in braille so we can see that, thank you. The flashback portion was just another example of redundant exposition over visuals. I really think almost the whole story could have been told without any dialogue whatsoever, it wasn't hard to follow and Cho's art is so good it seems like a shame to cover up so much of it with boxes and bubbles.
I hated that from the preview but I still purchased it, and I am torn because I will keep buying it because the art and premise are great. Lovecraftian ancients and dinosaurs and Shanna. Is it too much to hope that Cho would hand writing over to someone else who can cut out the fat?