Wolverine is arguably the most famous
comic book character created this side of the 70’s. However, regardless of your view on that debate, he
certainly is the most overused and burnt out character in
contemporary comics books. As a member of the Avengers, leader of
half the X-Men, Principal of The Jean Gray Academy, Protector of China
Town and struggling father - it’s safe to assume he has a pretty
busy life. So much so that, with all his appearances, readers were
all pretty much getting more of the same week after week.
That was
of course, before Jason Aaron (Scalped, PunisherMAX) began his work
on the character.
Wolverine : Weapon X
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This is where all the madness of the
current run started. After the main Wolverine title was handed over
to Logan’s son Daken, Marvel announced the new ongoing Wolverine:
Weapon-X by rising star Jason Aaron. For those of you who aren’t
familiar with Aaron’s work, this guy has a very twisted mind and is a very mind-blowing storyteller. With Weapon-X, Aaron gave us
Wolverine as he was always supposed to be written: Badass, yet
intellectual and sophisticated. In Weapon X, without too many
details, we have one excellent arc after one another, some delving
deep into his mind while others unleash the animal. Oh yeah, he
gets a girlfriend too. Bet you wanna read this book now, dontcha.
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| ... and Emma Frost is amused |
Wolverine : The Red
Right Hand Saga
With the relaunch of the Wolverine
family of titles in 2010, Jason Aaron got the well deserved title of the de-facto Wolverine writer. With an initial run of arcs lasting seventeen issues, Aaron scripted a tale of Wolverine answering for past
crimes from a mysterious organization called The Red Right Hand. I’m
not gonna give away too much, but you can guess these are essentially
people who are pretty miffed with Logan, and have something worse
than death in store for him.
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The first arc follows Wolverine’s
soul going to hell, while a demon possesses his mortal body.
Excellently written and with art that fits perfectly into the nigh-biblical tone of the script, the arc was an excellent look at
Wolverine’s strength of character and sheer badassery, as he
proceeds to make his body his own, and everyone in hell his b*****s.
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The second arc sees the animal inside
Logan face-off against the demon within, while the still possessed
Wolverine faces off with the out-to-kill-him-for-the-greater-good
X-Men. Plenty of ‘Snikt!’ moments later, Wolverine deals with and faces the many
facets of his mind and heals his brain, starting with the revenge section.
Now super-p****d, Wolverine sets out to show The Red Right Hand who
their daddy is. (considering the ending of the next arc, I know this
is in poor taste.)
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The third arc has, till date, one of the
best endings I have ever seen. I’m not gonna spoil it here, but I
assure you, it is slick and extremely elegant at the same time. The
arc sees Wolverine attack the Red Right Hand while facing a series
of Mutants out to kill him, but when he does get to them, he suffers
a fate that is actually far worse than death. In a genre/medium where
characters are killed off and then brought back almost non-stop,
Aaron has managed to create a severe impact on both Wolverine and the
reader.
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Wolverine then retreats into the wild,
living with a pack of wolves, while his friends seek him out to bring
him back to the land of the sane. This two-parter serves as an
excellent way of preparing Logan for what is to come in
X-Men: Schism and
his responsibilities thereafter.
Schism and Thereafter
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With Schism, Aaron brought up a rift in
the X-Men, leading to Cyclops leading a much more militaristic team
of X-Men in Utopia, while Wolverine reopened the Westchester Academy - now named it after Jean Grey instead of Charles Xavier. The event led to
Wolverine getting an even bigger role in the Marvel Universe, due to
his becoming leader of half the X-Men, while also introducing
brilliant villains in the form of the new, underage Hellfire Club.
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Aaron is currently writing two
Wolverine ongoings,
Wolverine and
Wolverine and the X-Men.
The current arc of Wolverine sees him fighting underground drug
dealers with Dragons as carriers who stole all his money - a storyline
with a much-needed lighter touch after all the dark stuff that has
been happening in the series so far. Wolverine was last seen in the
stomach of one of the aforementioned dragons...
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... while Wolverine and the X-Men,
two issues old now, sees the Hellfire Club in the most weirdly
awesomest ways, during the first day of "The Jean Grey Academy" in the
middle of a Government inspection.
This is Wolverine in a situation
he is really not comfortable in, which is sure to lead to some
excellent character development.
Now, if only Aaron would get down to
writing Deadpool...
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