Cool Comics Love-in
August 28th, 2006 by david brothers | Tags: ign, jubilee, mark millar, Marvel comics, omac, superman, wolverine
You know what’s cool? Wolverine, that’s what.
He was overexposed in the ’90s, and up til now, yes, but listen. Gavok put it best when he said that Wolverine’s problem was never overexposure, but overimportance. Wolverine was suddenly a Big Deal, and well, that kind of sucks. I like my Wolverine to be the guy whose idea of a disguise is putting on an eyepatch, a cowboy hat, and demanding that people to call him Patch. It worked.
Do you know why it worked? It worked because it was obviously Wolverine, and he was obviously insane if he thought that people were going to believe that stupid disguise. So they played along and pretended that an eyepatch was as good of a disguise as a pair of eyeglasses and a slouch. Wolverine is crazy. Do you know what crazy people do when you point out that they are, in fact, crazy? They cut you up with foot long adamantium claws, that’s what!
I didn’t mind the issue of Wolverine where Nitro blew up all his skin and they grew back in something like two minutes. It was goofy and stupid, but it was pure Wolverine and pure pop comics. It was that crazy action I want to see Wolverine get into.
I’ll be honest. I hated Mark Millar’s Enemy of the State. His dialogue and characterization were off and poorly done. But… Millar had good ideas. I’m not so fond of Wolverine Beats Up The Marvel Universe/The Hand/Everything/Superman, but having him fight hordes of ninja is what Wolverine is all about. Johnny Romita’s art was on point even when Millar’s story left me flat.
Wolverine is a guy whose gimmick is six sharp claws, a bad attitude, and a crazy healing factor. Instead of running down the stairs with Frank Castle and Danny Ketch like a normal person, he’s going to SLIDE DOWN THE BANNISTER screaming about how he’s the best he is at what he does, and what he does is bannister-sliding, bub, don’t you ferget it! When he gets down to the bottom, he’s going to oh, I dunno, punch Cyclops in the stomach a few times, call Jubilee “kiddo” or something, then go off and cut something with his claws, all the while screaming about how he is the best he is at what he does, and what he does isn’t pretty/is calling Jubilee kiddo/is punching out Cyclops/eating Wheaties.
You know, this may be the reason why Marvel Comics won’t return my calls. I’d write Wolverine so well that they’d have to go back and retroactively fire anyone else who ever worked on him.
Wolverine rocks, so give the poor guy a chance. There is a reason why he became so popular during the ’90s. He’s a good character with a neat hook. The ’90s were rough on him, but they were rough on everyone.
What characters do you folks inexplicably like? We got any Shatterstar, Boom Boom, or USAgent fans in the house?
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Hmmmm, yes, I agree. Wolverine *as* Wolverine can be pretty awesome. Wolverine as Super Awesome Dude Who Could Totally Beat Up God And Also Galactus, not so much.
I’m a guilty Shatterstar fan. Though honestly I could not tell you why. The double bladed sword, the headgear, the shoulder pads, dude was like a armed linebacker with down’s syndrome.
I love USAgent. I dunno why. I loved Avengers West Coast, and it kinda sprang from that. I hated his forceworks costume though. Oh, so was Force Works. But Iron Man had some great armor during that period.
[…] I’m not a Wolverine fanboy or anything, but I do like the character. I like him when he’s done right. As hermanos mentioned before, my problem with Wolverine during the 90’s was that they tried to make him too important. Normally, he shouldn’t be leader of the X-Men. Here, though, it’s done just right. It takes two issues to tell it, but we get a good story that shows the X-Men, all their Earth-bound supporting characters and even the rest of the hero community getting taken down in less than one fellow swoop. Even though Cable and Magneto get top billing here, what we have is what I consider to be one of my all-time favorite Wolverine stories. […]
I like USAgent. I’ve read some of his solo stuff, New Invaders (it’s mostly New Invaders that made me like him; I was just won over by that one issue that was a crossover for Enemy of the State), Omega Flight, and I think that’s about it. People say he’s like Ultimate Captain America, who I like. My like isn’t inexplicable so much as it is . . . stupid. I like him because he’s Captain America, in a black costume, with super-strength, a machine gun, and some dumb ideas but a generally good heart. The non-Captain America costumes didn’t do much for me.
Like a lot of people, I guess I have an idealized version of the character in my head that, if pressed, wouldn’t stand up to the real version of the character on the page.