Broken Frontier

With his past now revealed to him, Logan’s lust for vengeance is in full swing. How far will he go before the people who have wronged him are forced to face his wrath? Find out here.

This is the big one for Wolverine fans. He’s getting a second title to go along with the flagship book, and a trio of talents was brought in to get this inaugural issue off to a rip roaring start. First of all, Marvel commissioned covers from E-I-C Joe Quesada and another one from Michael Turner. To top that all off the company then tapped up and coming writer Daniel Way and the very talented Steve Dillon to chronicle the character’s exploits.

So with all the right people in place, the first issue of Origins debuted this past Wednesday. The story was indeed a fierce one and it opened with an armada of SHIELD agents dealing with an attack on the White House. Colonel Duggan is in charge and he is in a heated debate with the Madam Secretary when his com link is suddenly cut off. It doesn’t take long for Duggan to realize Wolverine is responsible for the shenanigans, but he is powerless to stop the vengeful rogue mutant from reaching his intended target. But that’s the least of his worries when the military decides to intervene with a plan of their own, assuring Duggan that they have a weapon to neutralize Wolverine.

Now with a story as thrilling as that is, it doesn’t take long to read through this issue. Daniel Way’s script is lean on dialogue, but heavy on the action and it all works for my money’s worth. There’s enough sense of mystery here to keep you guessing right up until the end, and I thought a key scene was introduced at the end of the story to suggest some major fireworks for the next installment.

Artist Steve Dillon provided some fireworks of his own with reliable artwork that bristled on every page. Steve employs a lot of facial close-ups for storytelling, but he pulls back quite a bit in the latter half to allow for some serious chops to be displayed. I wasn’t sure his style would work here at first, but once I laid eyes upon this issue I was somewhat taken back to his glory days when he worked on Preacher for Vertigo. There is a slight comparison to his work on that brilliant series, but you can see he has matured a bit over the years too.

In the end, I found this issue to be a thrilling start to what could obviously be a classic series many years from now. All the right ingredients were in place to make this series a successful one, and if all plays out a major punch-up is destined to take place in issue number two. So pick that one up and find out for yourself. I know I will.