Death of Wolverine Series Review

Title:	Death of Wolverine
Contributors:	Charles Soule Steve McNiven
Publisher:	Marvel
Issue #:	1 - 4
Year:	2014
Pages:	128 Pages
Age Rating:	16 (Language, Violence, Gore, Adult Themes)
Story Grade:	A
Art Grade:	A

So, outside of the gimmicky death of [insert character name here] story plot companies like to use to make some money, I can't find any fault with this fantastic series. I can't blame Soule and McNiven for cliché sales driving stories. Soule does a fantastic job of picking this story up and making it fantastic and under McNiven's skilled hands, we have a beautifully drawn, action romp in which Wolverine is doing what he does best; being a bad ass, kicking ass, taking names and making no apologies about it.

And while Wolverine has a deep history, Soule has truly made this a standalone series. People who have never read a single Wolverine comic or watched any of the movies will be able to pick this series and enjoy it from start to finish. But "knowing" the history of Wolverine does have its benefits when reading this series.

The series starts out with this premise, Logan has lost his healing abilities and the word has spread that The Wolverine can be killed. And since Logan has made more than his fair share of enemies during his long historic life, most of which have died centuries ago, Logan now has a bounty on this head and people are coming to get paid and get their revenge.

I now know where Charles Soule was for the months that She-Hulk took a crap. Soule has done a fantastic job developing a complex plot around how Wolverine will die. There won't be any spoilers here, but I will say this, I enjoyed the whole four run series very much and based on the way he died, Wolverine can't come back.

Steve McNiven has done a bang-up job on the artwork in this series. Crisp, clean, gritty and lots of shadowy contrast in the art really appealed to me.

There are truly moving panels of art in these books and worthy of the A grade I have given MCNiven.

If you haven't checked it out by now, you are likely out of luck if you hope to get it from you LCS. But as of this writing you can head to Ebay to get your copies, which are currently listing for as little as $3.99 but are also as high as $14.95 for the non-variant covers.

All in all I grade this series a solid A. Soule and McNiven have taken a known, and despised, sales bumping tactic and made it a satisfying and entertaining journey for the readers. Kudos to them.

Until next time... The next time I read this series I am going to have Queen's "Who wants to live forever" looping in the background.