Ryan is currently a Senior completing a degree in Media and Cinema Studies at the University of DePaul, which unfortunately does not rest on top of a living island.
In 2014, Wolverine died. The character, I mean. The moniker and title of Wolverine was readily stripped off Logan’s adamantium-coated corpse and taken on by a slew of Marvel characters, most notably by his clone/daughter Laura and an interdimensionally-displaced older version of himself. While both these legacy characters enjoyed in-depth, entertaining stories by a slew of talented creators, eventually the original recipe Wolverine had to return. And while Logan did pop back up in 2017’s Marvel Legacy and Return of Wolverine, his namesake ongoing comic didn’t.
It wasn’t until the mutant nation moved to Krakoa last year that Marvel announced that the main Wolverine title would be returning to stands tomorrow. The highly-anticipated creative team was revealed to be X-Force writer Benjamin Percy and artists Adam Kubert and Victor Bogdonavic. And for some reason, the overwhelming reaction was: “meh”.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand how at first glance the new Wolverine team might not have the same gravitas as character mainstays like Jason Aaron or Chris Claremont. But upon further examination of each creative team member’s past credits and their connection to Logan’s character, it becomes readily apparent that Percy and Kubert each possess a deep understanding of the character’s iconography, as well as a desire to push the character forward in a new Mutant age.
If it isn’t apparent from his twitter feed or halloween costume, Benjamin Percy loves Wolverine. Thankfully, his passion for the character is accompanied by a deep understanding of Logan’s psyche, as well a real knack for writing morally conflicted characters. Percy first garnered acclaim for his thriller novels, which led him into an acclaimed run on Green Arrow for DC Comics. Under the line-wide Rebirth banner, Percy was responsible for reintroducing several long-missing aspects of the Emerald Archer’s character, including his relationship with Black Canary and his trademark goatee. Moreso, Percy’s run explored the contradictions in Oliver Queen’s dual identity as both a liberal crimefighter and part of the economic elite, while using that to introduce new elements to Green Arrow’s life. In the opening Rebirth issue, Canary calls out Oliver on his narrow view on crime, and introduces a jungle-like homeless community that has developed in Seattle’s forest right under Green Arrow’s nose. This kind of attention to the whole of a character would help anchor the genre-elastic Logan after years of ping-ponging around the Marvel Universe across various crossover events, and hopefully bring him back closer to his roots with new ideas.
And while it’s true that Percy is a newcomer to the main Wolverine title, he has been writing Logan for years now, literally clawing his way up. Percy first wrote the canadian knucklehead in the Stitcher Podcast series Wolverine: The Long Night, Marvel’s first scripted podcast series and voted one of Apple’s best podcasts of 2018. The Wolverine depicted in The Long Night is a more classic version of the character, still on the run from Weapon X and lacking long-term memories. Percy uses Logan’s iconagraphy to build a murder mystery against him, when a string of clawed bodies appear across a small Alaskan town. Wolverine is used fairly sparingly throughout the ten-episode series, making his appearances all the more impactful and illustrative of Percy’s understanding of Logan’s core attributes. In one scene, Logan saves a man from a pack of wolves, but berates him for saying he’s lucky to be alive. Percy uses this scene to integrate Logan’s long history of bloodshed, ranging from victims of his assassin days to helpless bystanders of careless superheroing. But instead of dwelling on these sins, Logan chooses to find others to save. This reflects Percy’s overall direction on the forthcoming Wolverine title. After his memories returned in House of M, Marvel spent years digging into Logan’s unearthed past, but thankfully Percy seems to be focused on moving Logan forward and onto new adventures.
Thankfully, those new adventures begin on the Island Nation of Krakoa, where Percy has already made himself at home as the current writer of X-Force. Percy was brought in at the ground level to reinvent the long-running X-title with Dawn of X, structuring the team into more of a Mutant CIA than straightforward hit-squad. Thanks to incredible art by Joshua Cassara, X-Force has been one of Dawn of X’s most consistent titles, and has already featured a number of great Logan moments. By dividing the team into intelligence and operations, Percy recognizes Logan’s strengths as an unkillable slasher and gives some breathing room for softer moments with teammates like Domino and Kid Omega. This strategic divide in the X-Force cast also avoids the pitfall of shoehorning Logan into scenes where he doesn’t need to be, and saves him for when he can enhance the plot. In a recent issue cliffhanger, Wolverine is blown in half. Percy then shifts the book’s perspective to the intelligence side, which builds momentum for Logan’s bloody, legless return later in the issue. By being part of the X-Office writing team so early into this emergent era of X-Men comics, Percy has been able to plant the deep roots of a compelling new story for Logan while getting a feel for the character’s interactions with other mutants.
But a comic would literally not exist without its art team, and thankfully Marvel legend Adam Kubert is supplying pencils for the new series. Kubert has a long record of drawing some of the most well-known, transformative Wolverine stories, going back decades to 1993’s “Fatal Attractions”. In the X-Men crossover, Magneto ripped the adamantium off Logan’s skeleton, leaving him with bone claws for the first time. Since then, Kubert has contributed to a number of other touchstones in Wolverine’s publication history, contributing to the game-changing “Schism”, which saw Wolverine split from Cyclops and form the Jean Grey School, and pencilling the sequel to Logan’s official backstory, Origins II. All three of these stories sought to introduce highly-controversial changes to Logan’s life, from making him a headmaster to a circus animal (Origins II was something). Adam Kubert’s consistent, iconic depiction of Logan aesthetically grounds these monumental shifts in the character’s publication history. In fact, Adam’s Wolverine is seen as so representative of the character that his version is immortalized as a three-story tall standee that towers over Superhero Island at Universal Studios Orlando. Once again, it seems Adam is being called in to bring a sense of familiarity to the title, likely in hopes of drawing in both longtime fans and casual readers who might not recognize Wolverine’s new Krakoan environment.
While the announcement wasn’t initially mind-blowing, the new Wolverine creative team have readily earned their roles in crafting Logan’s heroic endeavors. Writer Benjamin Percy possesses a vital understanding of the character’s core attributes, while also given months of planning and practice thanks to being an early Dawn of X recruit. Artist Adam Kubert continues his long history with Wolverine by drawing the first issue of his new series, kicking off a new chapter that will challenge his familiarity with the character. Even after four years of anticipation, this creative team may prove to be the new lease on life that a resurrected Logan needs.
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
