“Wolverine: Blood Debt” by Marc Andreyko, Steve Skroce, Rob Liefeld, Eric Stephenson,, Joe Pruett, Paul Jenkins, Bill Jemas & Joe Quesada

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Wolverine: Blood Debt” as presented in Epic Collection format, written by Marc Andreyko, Steve Skroce, Rob Liefeld, Eric Stephenson,, Joe Pruett, Paul Jenkins, Bill Jemas & Joe Quesada.

            James Howlett was a sickly little boy. He came from a rich family in Canad. He lived with his kind father John, spiteful grandfather, and slightly mentally unsound mother Elizabeth. His family had a groundskeeper Thomas Logan, who had a son known only as “Dog.” James had trouble making friends, so the estate called in young orphan Rose from the nearby village up to the Hill to be James’ companion. James, Rose, and Dog became best friends and played together everyday, despite Thomas’ dislike for the Howlett’s and their son. Both James and Dog developed romantic feelings for Rose, feelings that were unreciprocated to them both. Thomas went over the edge one night, ultimately leading to the murder of John by the hands of Thomas, the death of Thomas by the newly manifested claws of James, and the death of Elizabeth. After the deaths, James and Rose ran away and joined a mining group, James now being called “Logan.” They did not fit in easily, James constantly being heckled by “Cookie” Malone, an unpleasant member of the group. This led from James growing out of the happy, playful boy he was into the hard-hearted Logan, forgetting his old life more and more with each passing day. The leader of the company, Smitty, fell in love with Rose and were engaged, despite Rose not truly being in love with Smitty and actually in love with James, rather more along the lines of the fact that Smitty could provide Rose with a comfy living that James could not provide. James became a fighter, nicknamed “Wolverine” for being short and aggressive. Dog tracked James and Rose, leading to the accidental death of Rose. James ran off, and truly became both Logan and Wolverine. He also discovered he had a healing factor and could heal from any wound. (He would later have his skeleton enforced by the nearly indestructible metal adamantium and have his memories purged.)

Many years later, mercenary Wade Wilson/Deadpool was contracted to off popular novelist Duncan Vess, who wrote a series about werewolves. Ironically Duncan was so good at writing about werewolves is because he is a werewolf himself. Logan’s friend Kitty Pryde is a huge fan of Duncan’s work, and Logan found himself Duncan’s protector.

            While playing a game of poker with several Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk, Ben Grimm/Thing, Steve Rogers/Captain America, and Nick Fury, beverages are required, and on a simple grocery run, Logan finds himself targeted by the ninja cult, the Hand.

            Logan travels to Japan to visit the grave of his love Mariko Yashida, long at odds with her cousin Kenuichio Harada/Silver Samurai and check on his “daughter” Amiko, who Logan entrusted with his trusted friend Yukio. Harada, Amiko and Yukio are abducted by a Japanese crime syndicate which has old ties with Logan.

            Deadpool returns with his entourage and Wade and Logan have a major misunderstanding, and find out their true enemy is a sinister anti-mutant organization called the Watchtower.

            After a string of underground assaults, Logan and a team of  N.Y.P.D. led by Lieutenant Tara Curson go to investigate. The suspect is subterranean lord the Mole Man. Spider-Man arrives at the underground conflict, but it turns out that these attacks are not actually the Mole Man’s doing, and Logan, Curson, Spidey, and the Mole Man go on the offensive to find the true underground menace.

            Disgraced bounty hunter Zaran kidnaps Amiko to lure Logan into combat to up his standing in the bounty hunter business.

            Now, this book is a graphic novel. In graphic novel format, there are, of course, two major components to the quality of the book: as in any writing, you need a story, and the graphics are the artwork. You can have an amazing story but awful art that makes reading the book an awful experience. Or you can have visual perfection, but the story is so awful you just ignore it and just remember the fact that a picture is worth a thousand words and absorb the visual treat. As far as this book goes, for me the balance was near perfection. When I bought the book, I saw that it contained “Wolverine” #150-158 & Annual ’99 and “Wolverine: The Origin” #1-6, and figured, “Origin,” great, we’re looking at Weapon X for the zillionth time, but the fact that it contained art by Ian Churchill, I figured there might be hope there. Churchill was the artist of the first Marvel comic book I ever bought, way back in 2001, and I loved his art back then. While he only illustrated two issues in the book, I was still so excited to see his work in this book. And when I saw double trouble writer/artist Rob Liefeld worked on this, I was excited even more. I’ve looked back at comics from the 1990s, I always loved Liefeld’s work at both. The comics contained issues ranging from 1999-2002. Now, I’ve said before that every era of comic art has its own characteristics, unique to that time period, a specific style. For me, art from the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s have always been my favorites, and I truly wish this style had stayed, and while current comics have great art, this time period just had a standard that always pleased me. I think the colors from the period were so vivid, and the art was just the epitome of comic book which many current artists don’t actually draw like anymore. I don’t fully know why, it was just something about the art that just… Anyway, let’s talk about the story as you can obviously tell I loved the art in this book. So, yes, “Wolverine: The Origin.” This story had nothing to do with the commonly retold Weapon X story, which has been covered in comics, cartoons, and movies repeatedly. In the 1990s “X-Men” cartoon I grew up with, that story came up in at least five episodes, each showing different bits and pieces, but still that sequence over and over again. This was his childhood. So I got to that point and I thought I’d be reading something along the lines of the opening montage of the “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” feature film, but it absolutely was not, which was a major “thank goodness” for me, because I hated that movie, and the movie would have pleased me a lot more if they took concept from this book and added it to the movie. But no, this was Wolverine starting at the age of twelve-years-old, and the dynamic of James, Rose and Dog’s friendship was entertaining to me. There was a part of the story that almost made me cry, which I can’t actually talk about in this blog, but it was a true defining moment for James. And seeing his transformation from a sweet and sensitive little boy to his tough-as-nails adult self was riveting to me. It’s always been talked about how Logan lost his memories, and looking at this childhood, I can understand why. Some of these memories were not pleasant. I appreciated that it was finally an original origin of something different, and explained why he would both come to be known as “Logan” and “Wolverine.” (It should be noted that “Wolverine: The Origin” was placed at the end of the book, but I reversed it for this blog post for a better chronological cohesion.)

            I totally thought “Cry Wolf!” was great. I’ll give you a parallel here: Vess was so good at writing werewolf novels because he himself was a werewolf, so does that mean Rowling so good at writing novels about witches and wizards because she herself is a witch? That’s how that story made me feel. And when you bring Deadpool into it? I love Deadpool, and Wolverine and Deadpool in the same story usually entertains me, and I felt like Andreyko pulled off a masterpiece.

            I loved Skroce’s work on “Blood Debt.” I always love Wolverine stories that focus on Logan’s family. I was touched by his love for Amiko, his “daughter.” It totally humanized Logan in ways that not every author can do. And when she was kidnapped (which actually happened twice in this book in two totally different stories), I just felt it. There was an effect of guilt. He trusted Yukio with his daughter and both were nabbed, I mean, wow. He thought he was keeping Amiko safe, and totally failed. I thought it was a powerful story.

            Again, I thought Liefeld did a great job in “All Along the Watchtower.” Liefeld was actually the author who created Deadpool, and he entertained me with this Deadpool appearance. Usually a writer who creates a character can tell a good story with that character, and I felt like Liefeld totally did this.

            The “Going Underground” story with Spider-Man really entertained me. I first got into Marvel by watching the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon with my dad, and Liefeld/Churchill teaming up was a treat to me. A great writer and a great artist is promising (and while it doesn’t always make a great graphic novel), I thought they made a great story.

            “Manhunt” was also a story I enjoyed. Sometimes bounty hunter stories feel cliché, but I didn’t think this was the case for me, especially since the bounty hunter was a C-List opponent. A-List and B-List bounty hunters against A-List heroes often bore me, the total predictability of the outcome is just forced. And while A-List heroes whup C-List villains, these kinds of bounty hunter stories are my favorite. Don’t ask me why, it’s just how I feel.

            Next, I have to say if I recommend the book and who I think is the best audience. I totally recommend it. I enjoyed this book so much I literally didn’t want to put it down, I finished it in less than six hours. I thought this book was very much self-contained. I feel that anyone, even someone who has never read comic books before can still pick it up and understand it. I mean, it’s literally “Wolverine: The Origin” which is a pretty big hint that it will explain the character (especially since in this particular case in a story never told before). If you’re reading this book with no prior Wolverine knowledge though (and I still encourage you to read this if this is the case), I would advise reading “Wolverine: The Origin” before the rest of the book as it will be a better introduction to the character. But if you’ve never read comic books before and have interest in starting to read comics and want a place to start, this is a good place to start. If you’re reading this review (and if you’re still here at this point, you are THE BEST!) and have interest in reading this book now, I totally say you should look into finding a way to read this, whether you buy it or find it in a library or borrow it in any way, don’t hesitate, read is ASAP!

            Now, a review of mine would not be complete unless I give it a numeric score. I’m very hard to please, so a good score from me is a big hint if you should read this. I score on a scale of one-to-ten. One is: this is awful, don’t read it (which you know I will NOT say); Ten is: read this as soon as you can (which I’ve actually already said, so sorry for the repetition). So, my score is (drumroll please)… NINE! This might surprise you, what with the glowing entire piece, and I don’t exactly know why myself, but I just can’t quite give it a ten. There’s just something holding me back. I would totally love to give it a ten, believe me, I just don’t exactly think it was totally perfect, and it breaks my heart because I thought the stories and artwork were amazing, but it’s just not a ten.

            So right before I sign off, I’m going to say that I’ve literally written over one-hundred posts, dozens of them being reviews, so if you liked this post, I invite you to keep looking at my work. I have a quirky personality, and some of my reviews were for laughs, but I write short fiction and nonfiction, poetry, essays, editorials and other forms of writing (I’m actually an unemployed certified journalist, with a bachelors’ degree in the fields of English and journalism), so I might have other posts you might enjoy, so keep looking at this blog. I do a lot of posts, I post very frequently, so you can keep looking for more pieces From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin. So all I can say now is, Tim Cubbin… out!