Wolverine #56
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Howard Chaykin
Like most other Wolverine solo issues in the past 2 years, this one is awesome. The best part about these stories is that while they appear in the Wolverine book, they don't feature Wolverine very prominently. This issue's plot is fairly simple. It features a naked Wolverine in a pit getting pumped with lead every ten minutes. The story is about a man named Wendell, who does the shooting of Wolverine. After six weeks, Wolverine starts talking to the guy and gets under his skin. Wolverine knows a lot about Wendell, and keeps asking him about hit relationship with his father, his abuse, and his crappy life that he leads now. Wendell's job is to show up at 8am everyday and shoot Wolverine, for no apparent reason. There are a lot of soldiers guarding the place who take no notice of Wendell, and the secretary of the joint ignores Wendell as he looks lustfully at her every day. Once Wolverine gets under Wendell's skin, Wendell goes on a journey to find himself, and correct his familial issues, in a rather direct way.
After the abysmal and pointless storyarc by Jeph Loeb the last 6 issues, I was going to drop this book. I jumped on it for Civil War and Humberto Ramos, and ended up staying on after that, hoping that Loeb would bring something cool to the table. I grabbed this issue, hoping that like the other one-shots, it would be good, and I was correct. Jason Aaron writes a good tale, and if Wolverine was in a pit being shot at for 10 issues in a row talking to his shooters, we might have a better series. I'm still considering dropping the book, but I think I'll see what Marc Guggenheim has in store next issue. I enjoyed what he did with the Civil War tie-ins, and his Flash run, so I'll give his return to the book a shot. When I was first exposed to Howard Chaykin in New Avengers last year, I was unimpressed, but his style really works here. I think Chaykin is staying on for Guggenheim's run so I'm looking forward to that as well. His Wolverine is good, similar to Darick Robertson's, but I might give him a shot on New Avengers and put Yu back on Wolverine. Like Superman this week, this is an oversized book worth the $3.99. You won't be dissapointed. B+
