Wolverine #66 reunites the “Civil War” creative team of Mark Millar and Steve McNiven for a comic that’s technically solid, but leaves a lot of questions.
In the first of an eight-part series, Millar seems to be writing a riff on “Unforgiven.” Wolverine, now calling himself simply Logan, is retired from fighting. Fifty years in the future, all the superheroes have been defeated, and supervillains have divvied the United States up among themselves.
Logan lives in California, now called Hulkland, under the protection of the Hulk’s not-so-nice hillbilly grandchildren.
Logan’s late on the rent, so the Hulks come to beat him up. He fantasizes about retaliating, but can’t.
He gets the chance to make some money and get his family out of debt, so he takes it — leading us into the probable cross-country trek that will likely fuel the “Old Man Logan” storyline.
McNiven’s art is great. He captures the Western-like feel of the landscape and the variety of the characters populating it. It’s a departure from his slick “Civil War” style, but completely appropriate for the material.
Maybe Millar will explain the reasons that have made Wolverine so downtrodden and out-of-character as “Old Man Logan” starts. As it is, “Wolverine” 66 is an interesting what-if with outstanding art that perhaps wears its influences too strongly.
Millar has said in interviews that his “Wolverine” will tie in with his “1985″ (which I liked a lot) and his “Fantastic Four” (which I have liked parts of), so it’ll be interesting to see how all that comes together.
– Matt Price