Wolverine # 50 Review
Author:Jeph Loeb
Pencilers: Simone Biachi and Ed McGuinness
Inkers: Simone Bianchi, Andrea Silvestri, and Dexter Vines
Colors: Paul Mounts and Dave McCaig
Every time a new writer wants to explore the relationship between Sabretooth and Wolverine, it's always the same thing. Is he Wolvie's brother, father, sister, or molesting uncle? Jeph Loeb wants to be the first to set the record straight! Well, he is about 15 years too late. Larry Hama already cleared up the fact that Wolverine and Sabretooth have no relation whatsoever. So what's there to say about this issue then?
Well if you've read issue 95 of the original Wolverine run, you've pretty much read this exact same issue. Wolverine wants to fight with Sabretooth so he goes in the mansion and they duke it out. At the end Wolverine pops his claws and it continues. Nice cliffhanger, so Wolverine is to become Sabretooth? What does this exactly mean...I hope they don't go where they shouldn't but after all this is Marvel. There was a nice flashback of Logan's birthday and the death of Silver Fox, fantastic Jeph Loeb actually did some research....holy fuck, someone else who likes to read backissues. The back up story was a worthless retelling of Hulk 181 in a dream phase, but it did have a nice little slap in the face to remind us that there was a title called Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk out there that hasn't wrapped up.
The art is really stunning, because this is mainly one long ass fight with some flashbacks of Lupine (wolf creatures). It is very dark and gritty and they keep the fight interesting from page to page, which is hard to do if half the book is made up of a brawl. McGuinness' art is an extreme opposite to contrast the first story, it's very light and cartoony. It really amazes me how much this guy has not improved over the years, he still has the exact same art style from Wolverine Annual 1996, but hey his anime/pop art style really seem to hook people, so to each their own. On a side note I did enjoy the homage to the old color printing method used for the backup story.
The story while not unique is still entertaining enough, sure the dialogue is stereotypical Wolverine and Sabretooth, but hell the way some books are being written nowadays, I ain't complaining. Just don't understand why there had to be a backup story, wish there was more of the first story. B-
"I hope they don’t go where they shouldn’t but after all this is Marvel."
Ugh. I hope they don't explain Wolverine and Sabretooth's relationship like they did in Earth X. That they're both from some weird opposing tribes of wolf people. Terrible.
I loved the McGuinness part
That doesn't even make sense though. The Wolverine tribe was smarter because they had tools and Sabretoothes were beastlier. So Sabretooth would evolve into Wolverine not Wolverine to "become" Sabretooth.