Saturday, November 14, 2015

All-New Wolverine #1

   I didn't mind when Marvel started... (I dunno, is the right work tweaking?) their characters, but the success of those efforts seems to be leading the company off a cliff.

   So Captain America is now the former Falcon, the name Thor belongs to a woman, and now the name Wolverine is also held by a woman.

   The original hero with that name is presumably still dead (for the time being), so his mantle is being picked up by his cloned daughter, the former X-23 (Laura Kinney).

   The story is set in Paris (a bit chilling, given the recent depraved terrorist acts there), as she sets out to stop an assassin atop the Eiffel Tower. She finds the menace has a surprising link to her own history.

   I guess it's nice to see a different take on the character, but is this really necessary? It's a shame X-23 can't stand in the spotlight under her own name (or perhaps they could give her a better one than X-23).

   The art is nice, the story's fine - but it's not really Wolverine, is it? My gut feeling is that passing the character's name around just cheapens the original character and waters down the concept. I'd prefer to see more effort put into writing good stories, not "stunt casting."

   Perhaps the series will prove me wrong - maybe there's a great story there that justifies the change.

   But so far, I don't see it.

Grade: B-

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