Wolverine (Vol. 1) #3

"Loss"
Published: November 1982
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Frank Miller
Inker: Josef Rubinstein

What's Going On?
This issue plays out an awful lot like John Lennon's "Lost Weekend" away from Yoko; Logan's relationship with Mariko is a defining point for his character, so seeing him with another woman in the 1980s feels a little strange and very temporary.  It seems that, in the aftermath of horrifying Mariko with his berserker side last issue, Wolverine has been hitting the bottle/strangers and carrying on a passionate affair with Yukio.  It may not be love, but they are kindred spirits enjoying each other.  Two things pop up to spoil their good time.  The first is Wolverine's old police chum, who asks for Logan's help taking down a shadowy figure in the criminal underground who has suddenly consolidated power.  The second is the fact that Yukio has been assigned to kill Logan, but hasn't.  Not surprisingly, both issues come to a head soon enough.  Yukio kills Logan's friend and Logan then pieces together the plot; Yukio has been working for Shingen since day one, helping him kill important criminal leaders so Shingen can reign supreme in the Japanese criminal underworld.  Just when Wolverine thought he couldn't get any lower, he finds out that he's been played for a chump.  That doesn't necessarily mean he has given up, though...

Art!
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I am getting less impressed with Frank Miller's pencils as the series goes on.  The backgrounds seem to be less and less detailed, and there are some shots that make the anatomy of the characters questionable.  Here's an example of the limited background (keep in mind that this is an entire page of art and writing)

That's just...awful.  A waste of space and probably the only time a Wolverine fight scene could be misinterpreted as a sequence where he clicks his heels in the air.  And I am really starting to dislike Miller's take on Logan's face.

It looks like it has been cut and pasted from another piece of art, especially when you compare it to some of the more detailed close-ups Miller does.  One face looks like it was done in the style of Hanna-Barbara for a classic team-up episode of Scooby-Doo, and the other looks like Miller is trying to be photorealistic.  I don't even like his detailed work with Logan's face; I think he's making Wolverine too clean-cut, too chipper, and too chiseled.  Plus, his take on Logan's bizarre haircut is the most exaggerated to date; Byrne and Cockrum at least made it plausible for that hair to exist without two bottles of Aqua Net.

Miller's work with Yukio is even less consistent. In some scenes, she looks almost elven, while in others, she looks disfigured. 

Well, I think she looks lumpy, anyway.

Even with a weaker outing, there are still some stunning pages from Miller. The silhouettes on this page, combined with the ink-line-free coloring in the background, were very cool.

Writing!
I'm still not very happy with Yukio and Wolverine being lovers --- keep in mind that this was back before we knew how old Logan was, and before he had a string of romances in his own title --- although Chris Claremont does a pretty good job justifying it as something two primal people would naturally fall into.  Given the later development of Yukio's character, it was odd to see her murder a police officer.  The turning point of the series comes at the very end of this issue, and it is pretty effective, especially as a manifesto for how the character would be written for the next 10+ years.  Claremont inexplicably forgot how to write a monologue that sounds anything even remotely like Wolverine, but at least the opportunity for character growth wasn't missed.

Who are you, and what have you done with Wolverine?

Retrospectively Amusing:
- Wolverine's impossible, shaped-to-resemble-his-cowl haircut never looked ultra-realistic, but this is the first issue where it just gets silly.  It looks like he's smuggling handlebars on his head.

- While it is not unusual to see superheroes looking sad on the covers of their comics, it is pretty odd to show them being just...depressed.  Especially when this is not an ongoing series, but the penultimate chapter of this limited series.  Every other cover in this series shows Wolverine being a badass.  This one looks like he's hung over.

Uncanny X-Men #163

"Rescue Mission"
Published: November 1982
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Dave Cockrum
Inker: Bob Wiacek

What's Going On?
After healing himself and destroying the Brood egg planted inside him at the end of the last issue, Wolverine comes back to rescue his friends.  There are just a few problems with that.  First of all, the X-Men are under a powerful illusion, making them think that they are at a fancy space party.  Second of all, they do not realize that they are all incubating eggs from the Brood Queen, and they will die when the eggs hatch.  Luckily, Cyclops and Storm have started to see through the illusion, which makes the whole "let's skedaddle" argument a lot easier.  Instead of just escaping, though (Storm leads a team to try and regain control of their spaceship), Wolverine wants to kill the Brood Queen.  That goes against the X-Men hero code, though.  Right when Wolverine is about to kill the Queen, he (and the rest of the X-Men fighting) are teleported to the safety of their spaceship by Storm's team.

Subplots, oh the Subplots!
- The hits keep coming for Carol Danvers.  Three years after her bizarre and rapey exit from the Avengers (circa Avengers #200) and two years after Rogue stole her Ms. Marvel powers and turned her into a normal-ish person (in Avengers Annual #10), Carol Danvers is apparently no longer strictly human.

- Heeey, people on Earth are missing the X-Men!  This is the first we've seen of anyone reacting to the kidnapping of the X-Men in this book (although the New Mutantrs graphic novel showed off Moira MacTaggart and Xavier mourning).  Oddly enough, they seem to know exactly what is going on.  That's a little odd, but I'll assume that the presence of Corsair in this scene means the Starjammers have been looking into things.  That's still a little sketchy, but it almost makes sense.  It is odd that we haven't seen Professor Xavier since the kidnapping, though...hint, hint...

Art!
This is more of the same from Cockrum.  The science fictiony scenes work best for him and are the most entertaining.  I thought his moderately subtle work with Carol Danvers and her "cosmic eyes" was quite well done.  There is also another scene of Wolverine cutting loose that is well done.  As for the issue, it's pretty solid.

Writing!
Chris Claremont may be the master of the simmering subplot, but here we see him actually progressing the main story.  This works quite well, except for the single scene set on Earth.  Look at this scene featuring Corsair:

Let me set the scene for you: Corsair has just teleported to Earth with his son, Havok.  Havok explains that his brother, Cyclops, and the other X-Men have been kidnapped by an alien race.  Havok fires a blast of cosmic energy (his mutant power) in frustration.  Vorsair is apparently taken by surprise, despite standing right next to his son.  What do we take from this?  Corsair is a terrible father who can't pay attention to his children, even when they have been kidnapped by killer aliens.  He is, though, a little slow on the cosmic draw.

Retroactively Amusing:
- Ignoring the fairly cool "cosmic eyes" on this page, I have to say that I love how quickly Carol Danvers' hair goes from sweaty and tortured to poofy hair-blown.

COSMIC EYES and HAIR VOLUME

Space torture apparently volumizes.

- I get what Cockrum is going for in this dream sequence --- a moderately subtle hint that the X-Men will turn into the Brood.  It is kind of funny seeing X-Men uniforms on thoraxes, though.

All in all, this is a solid issue on its own and it works well in the larger series.  This is one of those rare stories that are devoted to progressing the plot, and still manage to do justice to the characters.

Wolverine (Vol. 1) #2

 

"Debts and Obligations"
Published: October 1982
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Frank Miller
Inker: Josef Rubinstein

What's Going On?
Wolverine in recuperating at Yukio's, after his loss to Shingen in last issue.  He awakes to find ninja assassins, a group known as The Hand, about to attack.  Wolverine protects his new friend, and a bunch of faceless ninja cannon fodder serve their purpose and die. 

To repay his debt to Yukio, Wolverine offers to scare (and mmmaybe kill) the crimelord that sent The Hand after her.  Little does Logan know that Yukio is secretly working for Lord Shingen; she is tasked with the job of eliminating Shingen's only remaining rival in the Japanese criminal underworld --- and then she is to kill Wolverine!  Gasp!  Ignorant to all of that, Wolverine helps Yukio get where she needs to go.  In the process, Wolverine protects Mariko from an assassination attempt.  You would think that would earn the man some points with the little lady, right?  Well, to protect her, Wolverine went berserk and slaughtered a bunch of assassins before her eyes.  It seems that "savagely killing" is not one of Mariko's turn-ons, so she is horrified and Wolverine is extra depressed as the issue closes.

Worth Noting:
- This is the first time Wolverine faced The Hand, and the first time The Hand were seen outside the pages of Daredevil.

- Yukio as a lusty assassin?  Yeah, that happened.  Most, if not all, of Yukio's later appearances cast her as a carefree adventurer, rather than a hardened killer.  As for her attraction to Logan, I believe that is also something kept to this miniseries.

Art!
I was pretty happy with Frank Miller's pencils in the first issue, but a few things started to bother me in this one.  Why is the art so sparse?  There are a lot of panels here without any background whatsoever and Miller's attention to detail comes and goes, sometimes noticeably on the same page.  The action sequences are all still choreographed well, but I don't know if Miller ever really captures the savagery of Wolverine.  Wolverine berserk looks a lot like Wolverine in control to me.

Even with those issues, there are still some stellar pages that play toward Miller's love of the over-the-top.

Ninjas are terrible marksmen, apparently

Writing!
This issue is interesting, in that it has Wolverine do what he does and he still ultimately loses.  That quickly becomes a theme for Wolverine, but this is the first major instance of it I can recall.  Really, this is one of the few times to this point where he has been shaken up (the Proteus and Dark Phoenix stories being the others).  Claremont keeps the series going with lots of action and some subplot advancement.  He was a little less successful with the fleshing out of Yukio, though.  This is her first proper appearance, and she comes across as dangerous and mysterious, which is good.  It's a little weird seeing her hit on Logan so shamelessly, but it kind of fits her wild character.  There are a few points with Yukio, though, that are just painful to read...

Retrospectively Amusing:
- The first page of this issue has Yukio being frightened and pleading for Wolverine to wake up and fight.  In no other scene does she act desperate or ask for help, even when surrounded by ninjas about to kill her.  The page works on its own, but when you consider the character Claremont was trying to mold here, the same character who plays "chicken" with the bullet train in the next issue, it sticks out like a sore thumb.  Issue-to-issue contradictions are pretty common, especially early in a character's development, but page-to-page contradictions are always amusing.

- Yukio introduces her catch phrase in this issue: "Gotcha!"  She only uses it in her first few appearances, but it is awkward every time it is used.