By Phil Jimenez, Scott Lope, Richard J. Isanove & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-605-2
Company kick-start initiative Marvel NOW! having reinvigorated the entire continuity, assorted X-stars began life anew and Savage Wolverine was launched to spotlight tales outside the usual helter-skelter, non-stop progression of Marvel Universe continuity.
This grimly dark and moody collection – gathering issues #12-17 (published between February and June 2014) – captures two of the feral fury’s most brutal sagas in a bloody volume reaffirming the character’s charnel-house underpinnings.
Ever since his early glory days in the All-New, All Different X-Men, the mutant berserker known variously as Wolverine, Logan, Patch and latterly James Howlett has been a character who appealed to the suppressed, put-upon, catharsis-craving comic fan by perpetually promising to cut loose and give bad guys the kind of final punishment we all know they truly deserve.
Always skirting the line between and blurring the definitions of indomitable hero and maniac murderer, Wolverine soldiered on: a tragic, brutal, misunderstood champion cloaked in mysteries and contradictions. Then society changed and, as with ethically-challenged colleague the Punisher, final sanction and quick dispatch became acceptable and even preferred options for costumed crusaders…
Debuting as a throwaway foe for The Incredible Hulk in a tantalising teaser-glimpse at the end of issue #180 (October 1974) before indulging in a full-on scrap with the Green Goliath in the next issue, the semi-feral Canadian mutant with fearsome claws and killer attitude rode – and maybe even caused – the meteoric rise of the rebooted X-Men before gaining his own series, super-star status and silver screen immortality.
He hasn’t looked back since, although over the years many untold tales of the aged agent (since the miniseries Wolverine:Origins revealed the hero had been born at the end of the 19th century) have explored his missing exploits in ever-increasing intensity and torturous detail.
Thus Wolverine’s secret origin(s) and increasingly revelatory disclosures regarding his extended, conveniently much-brainwashed life have gradually seeped out. Cursed with recurring and periodic bouts of amnesia and mind-wiped ad nauseum by sinister or even well-meaning friends and foes, the Chaotic Canucklehead has packed loads of adventurous living into his centuries of existence – but until relatively recently hasn’t remembered most of it.
This infinitely unploughed field has conveniently resulted in a crop of dramatically mysterious, undisclosed back-histories, and ‘Come Conquer the Beasts Part 1: Claws and Teeth’ by Phil Jimenez (with additional input from Scott Lope) reveals the undying Wild Rover’s ancient connection with Africa and particularly a tribe of elephants with whom Logan has a semi-mystical relationship…
Now that beloved tribe is dying out: another callous casualty of the man-made extinction event caused by Asian and Arabian hunger for ornamental ivory and animal parts for the moronic, misconceived Chinese Medicine trade…
On one of his visits Wolverine encounters the stomach-churning results of organised poaching and is compelled by rage and disgust to do something about it. Following the bloody trail back to a staging post in rogue state Madripoor he is shocked to find one of his most trusted human friends neck-deep in the gory, indefensible business…
‘Come Conquer the Beasts Part 2: Death in Its Eyes’ further explores the crisis caused by human superstition and greed as Wolverine calls in the X-Men to help stop one pitifully small operation whilst being ultimately helpless to affect the ghastly global ongoing atrocity…
This is a tale filled with tragedy, hopelessness, small moments of vicarious indulgence and even gallows humour, but the message is what’s really important. Uncompromising, stark, breathtakingly brutal and packed with enough facts to appal any rational, clear-thinking individual, this is comics propaganda of the very best kind: horrifying, impassioned and strident, a true call to arms for all decent people to make self-serving governments act now…
Just as dark but remaining faithfully locked into ferocious fiction, the eponymous 4-part ‘Wrath’ by Richard Isanove takes us back to 1933 to reveal Logan’s own trip down the Road to Perdition, beginning when he was a rum-runner smuggling booze from Canada into Minnesota.
His contact is storekeeper Elias, a fellow survivor of the Great War just trying to keep his four kids safe and well fed in the depths of the Great Depression. Sadly, selling illegal hooch is a dangerous game for independent little guys and, when representatives of the Chicago mob arrive demanding a cut, things very quickly get out of hand…
In the bloody melee, Elias dies and both kids and gangsters discover that Logan is nothing like an ordinary little man…
With Elias dead Logan is honour-bound to take his kids to their aunt in Sterling, Colorado, but psychotic button men Pierre-Anselme AKA “Frenchy†and Sergio (don’t call me “Marionâ€) are deadly opponents and despite being maimed by the feral Canuck, manage to escape with pretty Matti – a valuable prospect for the mob’s cathouses…
Recovering from the assorted Tommy-gun and grenade wounds, Logan drags the kids –Sofia, Peter, and poor consumptive Vicky – in pursuit and soon rescues Matti – but only after another incomprehensible bloodbath.
However Logan makes a critical error in leaving Marion and Frenchy alive and the vengeance-crazed thugs relentlessly follow, using all their Chicago connections to turn the venal and corruptible local law-enforcement officers against the fugitives…
Doggedly moving on the party makes friends with “Okies†and other Dust-Bowl economic fugitives but the mobsters are equally determined and remorseless in their pursuit, leaving a trail of bodies and ultimately taking an unimaginable, unforgivable toll on the children, their tragedy-soaked family and the man called Wolverine…
Short, feisty and indomitable, Logan has always threatened and promised an explosion of visceral, vicarious ultra-violence and grim, gritty justice at every moment and in this slim, savage collection the fact has never been more impressively realised.
With covers-&-variants by Jimenez, Isanove, Chris Samnee, J. G. Jones and John Cassaday, Wrath returns the mutant megastar to realms and milieus largely ignored in recent mainstream appearances, living up to its named promise with brooding, bloody blisteringly bombastic, shocking sagas: a stirring reminder of past glories and uncanny adventures still to be revealed…
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.