Broken Frontier

The S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier gets hit by hundreds of super-villains. The world needs Wolverine but his deprogramming isn’t complete...

The more I think about it, the more I appreciate the decision to get Mark Millar to write Wolverine. Essentially, Marvel’s problem is that they have painted themselves into a little corner with their flagship character. He is absolutely indestructible in any meaningful sense of the word. This poses a significant challenge to anyone seeking to write a Wolverine story because there isn’t anyone Wolvie can’t beat and no beatings he can’t recover from. For that reason, to make it seem like Wolverine is at all in danger requires a mind prone to exaggeration and overstatement. Case in point: what makes hundreds of super-villains flying into a giant hovering warship more exciting? Answer: the super-villains are actually resurrected zombies with bombs!

The villains infiltrate the ship and proceed to destroy as much of the thing as possible. Unfortunately, Wolverine is still offline as his deprogramming is incomplete. Inevitably he gets released and proceeds to deprogram himself by killing as many villains as possible! This issue pretty much turns into one giant kill-fest as villains are introduced then summarily executed by the pissed off Wolvie.

Millar puts a small amount of plot and character development into this issue but seems rather uncomfortable with the change of pace. The issue flows much better when it is just blood, guts and violence! His super-villain dialogue is rather dire; they sound more like boys sneaking into the girls’ dorm rather than hardened killers on a rampage. There is a pretty cool scene with Nick Fury and his underlings that puts Millar on my dream list for a new Fury mini-series but his Northstar is pretty so-so.

I’m not a fan of Romita Jr.’s artwork but this issue is really rather good. There are a couple of splash scenes that capture the enormity of the situation quite nicely. The opening scene of countless zombie villains with bombs is an instant heart starter while a later scene answers the age old question of what happens when you drop a giant helicarrier on a mid-western farm! A mention should also be made for the Greg Land cover which has a strong design sense and stands out quite well.

I would certainly like to see more plot in each Wolverine issue as even over-the-top action becomes numbing before long. There are indications that this story is at a tilting-point now. I hope that it tilts in a satisfying direction and doesn’t spoil the fun and excitement that has preceded it!

-Matthew Clark