Mutant edition

In anticipation of the new X-Men: Origins - Wolverine movie coming out today (Friday, May 1st), I thought I’d review a few recent Wolverine novels released by Pocket Books. Each of these novels takes place during a different time period in Wolverine’s history, offering the readers new insight into this character. So click past the break for a trilogy of short mildly spoilery reviews of Wolverine: Violent Tendencies by Marc Cerasini, Wolverine: The Nature of the Beast by Dave Stern, and Wolverine: Election Day by Peter David.

I happened to have read these books in the order in which they happened to the character Wolverine, starting with Marc Cerasini’s Violent Tendencies. This book takes place just days after the events of Weapon X, the original graphic novel that shows the experiments that led to Adamantium being bonded to Wolverine’s skeleton. Wolverine has escaped the lab and is now hiding out in the Canadian mountains. But his presence has drawn the attention of a nearby town, a community that wants nothing more than to be left alone. Meanwhile, the Canadian government isn’t ready to give up on the weapon they just spent a lot of money to develop, so they deploy another meta-human group, Weapon Null, to recapture Weapon X. What happens when these three sides clash is what makes up the bulk of this story.

Of the three novels, I was most intrigued by this one due to its time period - being immediately post-Weapon X. I wasn’t let down, we get to see Wolverine try and work his way back from the animalistic red rage that has resulted from all the lab testing and find his humanity again. I was also pleasantly surprised to be introduced to the Weapon Null team, a group of bio-cybernetically enhanced humans who are predecessors of Weapon X. As each member of this freakish team is sent to face Wolverine, we get to see Wolverine prove why he is the best. At the same time, I wasn’t at all impressed with the townspeople who were introduced in this novel to provide a more ‘human’ side to the struggle. None of them were particularly appealing to me, and mostly I just wanted them to get out of the way and let the story get back to Wolverine battling the Weapon Null team. Still, I enjoyed the book and I can recommend it, especially for fans who want to see a little more about Wolverine from the time between Weapon X and when he joined Alpha Flight.

Speaking of Alpha Flight, I was more than pleasantly surprised to find references to Wolverine’s time with the Canadian Superhero team in Dave Stern’s The Nature of the Beast. This novel primarily takes place in the weeks just following the tramatic events of the comic book story Fatal Attractions, where Magneto ripped the adamantium out of Wolverine’s body. Wolverine’s healing factor has not yet fully recovered from that event, so he has gone into seclusion in the Nevada desert. But it isn’t long before a shadowy organization tracks him down, and they have plans to perform some new tests on him. It all links back to his time with Alpha Flight, and a mission that went wrong. The story spans from Las Vegas to Hong Kong and back again, as all the pieces come together in an intricate puzzle.

I really loved this book, almost to the point where I couldn’t put it down. In contrast to the Wolverine comic from this period, which I felt was rather weak, this book really shines a light on what Wolverine felt like in the aftermath of what had been done to him. He has nightmares about Magneto, he doesn’t have all his usual senses or powers to rely on - and yet he is still the same character inside, someone who tries to do his best to help folks less fortunate than he. The new characters introduced in this book made for good additions to the story and felt like they should always have been a part of this corner of the Marvel Universe. Dave Stern also wasn’t afraid to link his story into the larger Marvel U by bringing in Alpha Flight and including references to the High Evolutionary and other characters and events. For me, this book fit perfectly into the existing timeline and added depth that I think the character previously lacked in this period. So if you’re a fan, I highly recommend this book.

Finally, and closest to the current timeline of the comics, is Peter David’s Election Day. This story must take place before the M-Day event, a comic story which reduced the Mutant population of the world to just 200, due to the preponderance of Mutants present. In fact, the novel starts with Wolverine on a mission to recruit a mutant to the X-Men. This mutant is like a walking lie-detector test, his skin color changing to red when someone lies when talking to him. He’s in the Army and already starting to face the prejudices against Mutants when Wolverine shows up, but before they can do much more than be introduced, the commander of the base asks for Wolverine’s help. A terrorist organization has kidnapped a high school boy and threatened his life if the American people do not vote out the current administration in the White House. Wolverine is tasked with trying to track down the boy, and he’s given whatever resources the government can provide, including this new mutant. As they start to track down the organization that kidnapped the boy, they uncover a mutant mercenary group that used to work for the government; a group that has a vested interest in seeing one particular politician’s star rise in the election.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this book. I guess I enjoyed it, but definitely not as much as the previous two Wolverine novels. For starters, considering Peter David is a regular writer for a number of Marvel comics, there were no references to other characters from the Marvel U nor were any used in this story. I found that disappointing. Then there are the myriad of coincidences. The book is trying to be labyrinthine with it’s plot of who’s working for whom, but ultimately it just feels too haphazard and too convenient. The politics play a large part in the story, but were ultimately too generic to really hold my interest. It’s not a particularly action packed book, though things pick up at the end when Wolverine finds himself on the evil terrorist organizations’ secret island base - but again, that statement makes it sound a little like a bad James Bond movie. The supporting characters, such as the mutant lie-detector, aren’t really interesting enough in their own right, yet they begin to have their own plot separate from Wolverine which I was only mildly interested in. I feel like this book just didn’t focus enough on Wolverine, but the parts that did were enjoyable. I can’t say I would not recommend it, but I also don’t feel I can highly recommend this novel either.

And that ends this very special Wolverine centered edition of the column. I hope you enjoyed the three reviews and that if you’re a fan of the character it inspires you to read one of these, or any of the other recent Wolverine books. And of course, please feel free to click on the link to our forums to discuss.