Broken Frontier

Wolverine infiltrates the Xavier Institute, still brainwashed by The Hand. He’s supposedly going to assassinate the President, so all the heroes are in Washington…

Mark Millar’s run on Wolverine reaches its halfway point with the conclusion of Enemy of the State. This issue exhibits a lot of what makes Millar’s writing so popular. It also displays a fair amount of what I find worrisome about Millar’s work and the work of others in his ilk. The aspects of this issue that help make Millar the popular writer he is today are evident in the exciting action scenes and original story structures that keep the pages turning and the mind guessing right to the end of the issue. The worrisome aspects come into effect when we wonder just how it is that Millar separates his characters into those destined to be heroes and those doomed to be victims.

The story begins with a clever and chilling set-up as Wolverine presents himself at the Xavier Institute with more that a few tricks up his sleave. In Washington, the White House is under guard as it was revealed last issue that the target of all this brouhaha is the President of the United States. Wolverine is in Westchester, so how exactly is he to assassinate the President? All this and more is answered in this action-packed issue.

Millar does well with his set-ups, yet his resolutions are a little lacking. I’ve noticed a trend in his writing that he likes to solve problems by having huge vehicles crash through walls. It is exciting and works very well in comic land but is symptomatic on the whole of his writing style. He looks for the flashiest and most grandiose way possible to conclude a scene even if the story would be better served by a more subtle or character friendly solution. I am also disturbed by his tendency to resort to threats of rape to ratchet up the tension in the story. It is as if the female characters are only present as sources of temptation and possible victims. Are we supposed to believe that this is what Wolverine is like without his conscience? Certainly not the Wolvie I know…

The artwork by Romita Jr. is very good in the action scenes and not so good in the character scenes. I don’t like the way he draws faces and figures as I find it incredibly hard to recognise different characters or to decipher their expressions and feelings. His work has never really impressed me but on the whole it does the job well enough as he does have a very good handle on pace and explosive movement.

Millar’s trademark Big-‘n’-Dumb take on Wolverine is still fun to read for a while yet. There’s plenty of meat left on the bones of this plot to keep me reading for now.

- Matthew Clark