Wolverine #70 - Mobile Edition

Marvel Comics
Wolverine #70
By Geoff Hoppe
January 2, 2009 - 20:55

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Mark Millar
Penciller(s): Steve McNiven
Inker(s): Dexter Vines
Colourist(s): Morry Hollowell
$2.99 US

LEFT FOOT GREEN, GODDAMMIT! LEFT FOOT GREEN!

In Wolverine #70, the big secret fans have been waiting for since last summer is finally revealed. And it’s a PLOT HOLE. As if you couldn’t guess, there are spoilers ahead.

Wolverine #70 opens where #69 left off, with Logan about to tell Hawkeye why he turned pacifist. Fifty years ago, when America’s super-villains launched the sudden, overwhelming sneak attack that annihilated all superheroes, there was an unpleasant happening at the X-Mansion. Most of the X-Men’s rogues’ gallery showed up and, true to form, Wolverine massacred them to a man. Only after the slaughter did Wolverine realize that those “villains” he just killed were actually the X-Men. Spider-Man b-villain Mysterio had overpowered Wolverine’s senses and used him on his own teammates.

At first, I liked Millar’s choice of Mysterio. It’s an effectively bitter surprise to have a second-rate, unexpected villain kill the X-Men. Then I remembered the forty odd years of series continuity Millar apparently forgot.

Let’s get this straight: the (arguably) least powerful of the X-Men—the one without laser vision, super strength, flight, kinetic energy powers, or, most importantly, freakin’ telepathy—gets duped by an ex-magician turned half@$$ villain who used to get trounced by Spider-Man on a semi-regular basis. As Wolverine unwittingly cut his way through the X-Men, both Jean Grey and Professor Xavier—two highly intelligent adults who, without blinking an eye, could make half of earth’s population firmly believe they were Gary Coleman—were apparently too dumbstruck to think and/or react to a team member who they know has a history of anger management issues.

Millar has left “implausible” in the dust. “Implausible” is the price of comic books going down, or a lingerie model getting turned on by all of my Calvin and Hobbes books. Wolverine #70, dear reader, is full, Spaceballs-plaid ludicrous. It’s a comic book—an admittedly far-fetched medium—taking things to a brand new level of impossibility. It’s like the Green Arrow killing the Justice League of America, or Hugh Hefner not dating skanks with daddy issues.

At least the art team of Millar/Vines/Hollowell is characteristically solid. If only they had something decent to draw.

Worth the money? Maybe sorta could be in one sensNO.