Broken Frontier

Last year, Jonathan Maberry penned a comic for Marvel about the Punisher being the last hero alive on a planet of super cannibals, called Marvel Universe Vs The Punisher. Though similar to Marvel Zombies, this was a hard-boiled look at what if superheroes actually became infected with a zombie-like virus, as opposed to the campy tongue in cheek nature of the Marvel Zombies line. Maberry’s experience with this kind of story (he wrote a fantastic zombie novel called Patient Zero) made him the perfect fit for what could almost be seen as a Marvel Zombies reboot. This year, Maberry is back again with a prequel to Punisher’s battle, a miniseries called Marvel Universe Vs Wolverine.

Whereas Punisher’s story took place a while after the world had been overrun by the infected, Wolverine’s story starts right at the beginning of it. After witnessing Spider-Man’s (Patient Zero, if you haven’t read the first series) episode, he sets out to find out what exactly happened to Peter. Although it’s true that Marvel sometime places Wolverine in the forefront of situations he doesn’t necessarily need to be in, it seems fitting that he sets off to meet with Reed Richards about Spider-Man’s condition. After Reed Richards declares things seem to be isolated with Spider-Man’s case, all hell naturally breaks loose in a series of events that leads to a brutal final splash page.

Picking up the art duties here isn’t the same artist as Vs. The Punisher (Goran Parlov), but Laurence Campbell (Punisher Max, Deadpool Pulp), who is a fantastic fit for this book. Wolverine serves as a sort of tracker and detective here, and Campbell’s art is perfectly suited to convey that feeling. There are some great perspective shots in this book, such as the one where we see the bones of a fan favorite X-Man in the foreground, that make these pages haunting at times.

Maberry is on top of his game here too. His Wolverine dialogue is right on, and although the book can seem a bit gratuitous at times, it never hits that ridiculous level that Marvel Zombies does. When Wolverine is forced to put down a friend, Maberry pays respect to that, and makes it seem like something he would actually bring himself to do.

All in all, if you’re into alternate universes, zombie-esque stories, Wolverine, or just crazy stories in superhero comics, Marvel Universe vs Wolverine is a great start to what should be an insane miniseries. Although we know how the universe ends up, that doesn’t mean that Maberry doesn’t have plenty of surprises for us on the ride there.