Just when Wolverine retired, they pulled him back

The following contains major spoilers for Glutton #1, on sale now from Marvel Comics.

During the golden age of comics, National Comics, the creators of Action Comicsthreatened to sue, or even outright sued, several of its comic book competitors for what National felt was copyright infringement on its character, Superman. Now, were some of these competitors simply making their own versions of Superman to try to cash in on Superman's success? OF COURSE they were, but at the same time, it shows how broadly defined the intellectual property laws of the time were, that you could look at two superheroes with super strength and say, “Oh, okay, that's an infringement.”

Intellectual property laws don't always make sense today (a good example is the absurd decision in the Dr. Seuss Estate lawsuit against what SHOULD be considered a protected parody of Star Trek, Oh, the places you will bravely go!It was NOT protected, and all these ridiculous claims against songs for being “inspired” by other songs. Blech. It's all disgusting), but they have come a long way since the 1940s, because now we all know that it is possible to realize a similar concept and still be something unique and distinctive.

I say this because Glutton #1 (written by Saladin Ahmed, drawn by Martín Cóccolo, colorist Bryan Valenza, and letterer Cory Petit) follows the same ground as numerous past Wolverine stories, but what ultimately matters isn't the concept itself, but rather what you DO with it, and Ahmed and Cóccolo do a lot of that, so I can't blame them too much for going with such a familiar concept.

Why does Wolverine live in the woods?

Following the dissolution of the Krakoan era of X-Men, and in particular the things Charles Xavier had to do at the end to save the universe from the Dominion (what's interesting is that some of the concepts Kieron Gillen tackled in that story are now key parts of his excellent new Image series, The fantasy of power), Wolverine becomes completely disillusioned with society and decides to abandon it and join a wolf pack in the Canadian wilderness.

The problem for him is that the very detached lifestyle he seeks is what his old enemy, Cyber, is choosing to use as an opportunity to eliminate Wolverine, as he figures Wolverine is now at his most vulnerable since he cut himself off from the rest of the X-Men and the wider mutant subculture. So Cyber ​​goes after his prey. However, SOMEONE ELSE is looking for Wolverine and finds him first. That someone else is Kurt Wagner, Nightcrawler, Wolverine's longtime X-Men teammate and friend, who needs Wolverine to join him in the X-Men once again.

What drives Wolverine to come out of the cold, so to speak?

Cyber ​​tries to draw Wolverine out by attacking a group of campers, brutally murdering one in the hopes that Wolverine will try to stop him. The campers, of course, don't take kindly to being sucked into the middle of a brawl, even more so when they realize that Wolverine and Nightcrawler are mutants. Ahmed does a wonderful job here establishing that, okay, yeah, we can all agree that bigotry is horrible, but damn, it's pretty hard to be mad at these people for blaming Wolverine and Nightcrawler when their camping trip suddenly turns into them getting shot as part of a mutant brawl. Orchis had the world poisoned against mutants pretty good during the Fall of X, and now the side effects of that poisoning are bearing some poisonous fruit.

Martín Cóccolo was making some of the best art of his career on Thor Immortaland he brings that expertise to this issue, as it's excellent, and colorist Bryan Valenza really captures the muted tones at the beginning, and the brighter hues when Wolverine finally pulls out the superhero costume Nightcrawler brought him to defeat Cyber ​​before anyone else gets killed. Cory Petit's use of different captions for each character narrating the story works well.

There's a clear battle between Wolverine and Cyber, and ultimately the key to the issue is when Wolverine realizes that he can either kill Cyber ​​or go make sure Nightcrawler (who was injured in Cyber's attack on the camp) is okay, and in an issue where Wolverine tries to assert that he's left his humanity behind, this moment makes it clear that he never will, as he's too good a guy for that. It reminds me of a classic Wolverine/Nightcrawler moment in The X-Men #140, where Wolverine explains his sense of morality to Nightcrawler. That issue is a bit dated in the intervening years (since Wolverine has killed a LOT of people since then), but the basic sentiment still holds true all these years later.

Wolverine going “savage” and then being forced to return to humanity is a common Wolverine storyline, but does it really matter that much if it's returning to such a deep, nourishing well? Additionally, the issue ends with Ahmed making it clear that he's introducing a NEW concept and a NEW enemy to Wolverine's history, something to do with Adamantium, which promises to be an interesting take on the future story, as it melds together the various aspects of Wolverine's life.

This was a very positive start to the new Wolverine ongoing series, and the art is simply fantastic. I hope we see Ahmed and Cóccolo working together for a long time on this series.

Source: Marvel