Acts of Treason
WOLVERINE
42: Vendetta!
OPENING
ARGUMENTS:
MICHAEL: Well, let’s see. Wolverine fights
some dudes and then plans to fight some more dudes. That pretty much covers it,
right?
You can’t
go too wrong with that plot, I guess.
And since
I don’t really know anywhere else to bring this up, I’ll ask it now: why the
hell does Humberto Ramos still get paid work? I mean,
seriously. I can barely tell what the hell’s going on three-fourths of the time
with this dude’s stuff, and he’s literally made me stop reading titles before,
I find his stuff that horrendous and incomprehensible. I’ll try to bring up some specific choices in
here to back up this assertion, because art is honestly very subjective. I
understand that there are people out there who probably enjoy Ramos’s stuff,
and I’m not trying to be bitchy or posture about this, but I seriously think
this guy is worthless. Comic art has to do one thing, in my opinion: tell the
story. Love or hate Sam Kieth, I can always tell his
characters apart and understand what’s going on in the story. Ditto Kelley
Jones (even if I didn’t love his huge Batman ears, I’d still be fine
with it because I could tell it was Batman).
JASON: Wolverine fighting people? Check.
Humberto Ramos=Icky art? Check. Huge bat ears? Um.
Check. Ok, looks like Michael and I are on the same page here, so lets jump
into the book!
Page One
MICHAEL: Ah, good. They’ve set up that
Wolverine is a scrapper. Without this splash page devoted to explaining his raison
d’etre, I would have been totally lost. And what
makes it better is that they’re not just wasting this splash on some throwaway
villain—we actually care about the ones presented here. So just a brilliant way
to showcase Wolverine’s natural fighting instinct all-round.
JASON: Wolverine’s the guy with the
claws, right?
Page Two
MICHAEL: Huh? Whatever. Apparently one of
Wolverine’s powers is ‘removable jaw.’
JASON: I think his action figure has
that. So, on Wolve's day off, he goes through the
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe looking for people he hasn't beaten up
yet.
MICHAEL: ‘Let’s see … Stilt Man? Nah, too
obvious. Hm. Rocket Racer? I feel my sexuality shriveling just thinking about
it … Damn. I’ll just have to find some unknown cult this weekend. Not like
anything will be at stake.’
Page
Three, Panel 2.
MICHAEL: Man, that guy’s chipper. I mean,
seriously. If I’d just seen this mystical-chinned midget take down all my guys
in two pages, I’d look a little less like I was ready to shout out a rousing
chorus from a choice “Pirates of Penzance” song and
perhaps a bit more serious.
JASON: 'Bruce Campbell is
Wolverine, this fall on NBC.'
Page
Three, Panel 4.
MICHAEL: Artie? His name is Art? Art the
Crusader?
Page
Three, Panel 5.
MICHAEL: Wouldn’t it be sweet if there
were an added speech bubble here for the Crusader that said, “Ah! My eye!” ????
JASON: Or maybe “Eye think not!” Ich. Nevermind, I’m glad he
didn't.
Pages
Four-Five, Panel 2.
MICHAEL: Logan’s seriously never read the
Bible? I mean, considering how damn old he is … and considering that we saw
that when he hangs out in Oregon he reads a ton of books, this seems a bit
unlikely. Hell, I’ve read most of the damn Bible and I’m a confirmed
atheist.
Also, is
this supposed to be a thinly-veiled reference to 9/11? Unless I’m mistaken, the
people responsible for 9/11 were Muslims and most of their religious books were
written either less than a thousand years ago or just over that amount, not
really accounting for ‘thousands’ of years ago. Though, of course, Wolvy here is referencing the current events only, so
perhaps it’s only meant to make us think of 9/11 … but man. I thought
the 9/11 Spidey issue was unsubtle.
Pages
Four-Five, Panel 4.
MICHAEL: I want to see Wolverine fight a
spoiled toddler (perhaps this is brilliant foreshadowing? I can see it now:
“Vendetta: Finale! Wolverine vs. The Spoiled Toddler!”).
JASON: I think that “Spoiled Toddler” is
a euphemism.
MICHAEL: For what? His penis?
JASON: You figured it out in one guess.
Good for you.
Pages
Four-Five, Panel 5.
MICHAEL: Ooh, me, too. Well, I prefer
creamed corn, but you know. Regular corn’s not bad, either. I detassled corn one summer. Man, that job sucks. Uh. What’s
going on, again?
JASON: NOOOOO!!!!! He killed innocent
corn! I hate Wolverine now! I hate him!
MICHAEL: But don’t you see? He had no
choice. Art the Crusader pushed him to destroying that corn!
JASON: Corn killer!!
Page Six,
Panel 4.
MICHAEL: Wonder why we don’t get
the name of the closest bar? Unless “Here Bar” is its name.
JASON: Crap, now I'm thirsty. I'm going
to go get something to something to drink. I'll pop back in a bit.
Page
Seven, Panel 1.
MICHAEL: I want this panel in wallet-size
so I can carry it around and use it whenever someone asks me, “What do you have
against Humberto Ramos?” What the fuck is going on
here? Wolverine is apparently three and a half feet tall—max--or else
his entire body has been smushed into the seat as if
it’s a garbage truck. I’ll give him credit, though: chairs look great.
Page
Seven, Panel 5.
MICHAEL: With the copious overkill of
goofy one-liners and silly metaphors in this book, I’ve by now begun to hear
the voice of Keanu-as-John-Constantine for Wolvy’s
speech. “Welcome to my world, Artie.”
Page
Eight, Panel 1.
MICHAEL: The unsexiest
use of the boyshort look ever. If only Ramos could
draw, this would be one of my most favorite panels in a comic ever.
Also,
apparently there was a bit of a mix-up with the letterer. As it sits, the sfx (which prompt her to say her line) don’t start until
panel 2, so taken out of context, this panel just seems very surreal.
“[I’m a]
surgeon.”
[Turns
off pager. Dead silence. Beat.]
[She
stares at him in eery quiet] “Jeez. They really do
keep you busy.”
JASON: Mmm. I
love slurpees. Did I miss anything? Hey, who's the
scruffy guy?
MICHAEL: I’m not sure, but I hear he’s the
best at what he does.
Jf;
And what he does is kill corn.
Page
Eight, Panel 2.
MICHAEL: I guess Guggenheim is new to the
Marvel universe, so I should really be cutting him some more slack here, but yeesh. The first dozen or so times this joke was done, it
was pretty amusing. Now …
Page
Eight, Panel 4.
MICHAEL: Five kinds of bad? What would
constitute six? And what are the five kinds of bad that this constitutes?
Fruit, vegetable, that stuff inside a Twinkie …
JASON: The Five Kinds of Bad are: 1-
Crystal Pepsi. 2- TRL. 3- Used Tissue, crusty. 4- Used Tissue, moist. 5-
Syphilis.
Page
Nine.
MICHAEL: Pretty good backdrop here. I know
a lot of pencillers hate putting in backgrounds.
Maybe this is why Ramos gets work. ‘The people look like functional retards,
but man, he draws chairs and buildings and s#!t, so let’s sign his ass up.’
Page Ten,
Panel 2.
MICHAEL: Who is this guy and why would he
care about Nitro’s real name? I guess this is all just hinting at some other
plotline, so we’re not supposed to know, but still. Seems a bit odd.
Page Ten,
Panel 4.
MICHAEL: Man, that would be menacing or …
interesting or … hell, even ironic … if I knew who this guy was. Or what s/he
wanted. Or cared. Maybe it’s John Waters. I think he believes that irony’s
dead.
JASON: I wonder if we may have found our
Hate-Monger at last? This shadowy figure seems to have a pretty good idea
what's going on, even though the Stamford incident is just now getting national
airing.
Page
Eleven, Panel 1.
MICHAEL: Heyyyy,
this looks familiar.
JASON: It's kinda
like watching CNN--every five minutes they show you the same thing.
MICHAEL: Heyyyy,
this looks familiar.
JASON: It’s kinda
like watching CNN—every five minutes…
wait a second…
Page
Eleven, Panel 2.
MICHAEL: Is ‘sneaked’ right here? It’s one
of those tricky verbs like ‘swim.’ Still, it just makes Tony sound dumb.
If I were him, even if I were confident of my grammar, I would have chosen
another way to phrase that sentence.
JASON: People cleaning up rubble, Cap
and Iron Man just standing around. I think this may have been the first time
continuity has been kept this well in an X-Book.
MICHAEL: This isn’t an X-book! Wolverine
doesn’t start with an X! Or … does it?
Page
Eleven, Panel 4.
MICHAEL: I love this whole page. It
doesn’t really make any sense, but it’s like, ‘Civil War: the Concept
Phrased as Dumbly as Possible.’
Page
Twelve, Panel 1.
MICHAEL: “Who cares if she’s in the third
grade?” Brilliant writing. We’re talking Tony Award-nominated material here. I
think this line exemplifies this whole story: fun idea, but really poor
execution (oh, how I hope that isn’t the case for CW altogether). It’s
like, a) what he’s telling us about the character we don’t even care about
because this woman is a total mystery, and b) it’s done so poorly and trying to
be all smooth but failing that it just hurts. Yes, I get it, he’s trying to
pinpoint this woman’s character very quickly. She’s the type of woman who …
enrolls her kid in the arts at a young age. Am I supposed to dislike her for
this? I’m baffled about pretty much everything on this page.
Page
Twelve, Panel 5.
MICHAEL: Are we watching a cut scene from
“The Sopranos” at this point? Seriously, dude. And who is Paul? Do we know him?
These cut scenes in this book just confuse the hell out of me. No, no, their
very existence offends me.
JASON: You know what I was just
thinking? I was thinking that what this book needs about right now, is a page
devoted to a swimming pool. All this non-stop action make me really want a
breather, and this just fits the bill. One full page of a pool.
Page
Thirteen, Panel 1.
MICHAEL: So, yeah, the whole ‘not looking
for Nitro’ thing does seem odd. But it seems unusual, too. If the whole
superhuman community was out picking up debris after the massacre, you’d think
they or SHIELD would’ve formed some sort of task force to bring Nitro in. It
feels very contrived, as if the entire reasoning behind the nonexistence of a
squad to bring in Nitro is ‘because Marc’s got control of that over in
Wolverine.’
JASON: Wolverine’s talking. Not in full
sentences. No. Not Wolverine. He's eating.
MICHAEL: Eating corn.
JASON: Nitro's gone. No one's looking.
For him. Not Cap. Not Iron Man. Nobody. But Wolverine? He's eating.
MICHAEL: … Corn.
Page
Thirteen, Panel 5.
MICHAEL: Sorry. Just as ridiculous as the
Johnny Storm-getting-hit-with-a-bottle scene. The MU is putting the cart before
the horse on this whole registration thing. If the bill was already passed and
Wolverine was either a known hero-hunter or a known rebel, I could see people
being this uncomfortable around heroes, but as it is, a catastrophe happened.
People died. Just like what happens every other 364 days of the friggin year in this world. They seceded to Kang, for
Christ’s sake, but some kids dying in Connecticut is enough for everyone
to suddenly distrust and hate the entire hero community????
JASON: It's frustrating that they want
us to believe that every single person on the face of the planet has forgotten
that the superheroes have saved the Earth on multiple occasions. I know that
suspension of disbelief is mandatory, and I feel like I roll with a lot of
things, but this uber-hatred of heros
makes zero sense.
Page
Fourteen, Panel 1.
MICHAEL: So … we have, apparently, a
really pissed off leprechaun with a do-rag here, as well as a dude holding nunchukas in hands approximately the size of his head, some
guy with an extendable neck, a chubby Iron Chef reject, and a cat. Ready
to take on Wolverine. Were they all sitting together in the restaurant earlier,
thinking, ‘man, that dude pisses me off. Him and his world-saving bulls#!t.
Let’s get some weapons and go wait in the alley for him in case he decides to
leave that way.’ ‘Yeah!’
JASON: There's two cats Michael. Two!
That's how they plan to destroy Wolverine, nobody sees the second cat.
MICHAEL: They are shifty like that.
Page
Fourteen, Panels 3-7.
MICHAEL: I’m the best at what I do, bub. And what I do is … give out my resume.
JASON: “Current X-Man and Avenger. Able
to type 65 words a minute. Bleach whites like a Chinese laundry. And I make a
killer cup of black joe.”
Page
Fifteen, Panel 1.
MICHAEL: So either a) this group of people
didn’t know who he was, and just assumed he was a hero because he had
funny hair, hence their beef; or, b) they knew who he was but just forgot
about all of his arsenal. And even if they didn’t know exactly who he
was, he’s a superhero or else they wouldn’t be fighting him. Superheroes
have powers.
Page
Fifteen, Panel 4.
MICHAEL: Second time he’s said “Smoke’s
rising.”
‘… Flag
on the moon. How’d it get there?’
JASON: After an intense scene like that,
I could really use a another full page of Paul's pool.
MICHAEL: If Paul’s Pool is successful, I
hear they’re going to do a six-issue limited Ultimate Paul’s Pool.
JASON: Sounds better then Ultimates 3.
Page
Sixteen, Panel 1.
MICHAEL: Again, this looks familiar. On
one hand, I like this idea—crossing over pages from other books to make the
world feel more like a jigsaw puzzle that’s fitting together and less like
thrown-away tatters of rags that Uncle Bendis forgot
about, but … what does this scene really add to the story we’re reading? Am I
gaining a ‘new perspective’ on the conversation I’ve previously seen? Am I
seeing a talk continue beyond the point it did in CW1? Not really. It more feels like Guggenheim
just thought, ‘well, I’ve got 20 pages filled … I only need two more. Hey, Wolvy’s in a couple of pages of CW. Let’s just redo
those.’
JASON: The simple fact of the matter is
that not everyone who reads Wolverine
is reading Civil War, so repeating
this scene for those poor blokes makes sense to me. I have no beef with it.
Page
Seventeen, Panel 1.
MICHAEL: Oh, hey, there was a SHIELD task
force. Good deal.
JASON: Odd that they make is sound like
SHIELD's been looking for Nitro for days, when Wolvie's
been complaining that no one even been trying.
Page
Seventeen, Panel 2.
MICHAEL: Uh. If SHIELD can’t get ahold of this dude, how the hell is Wolvy
going to do it on his own? (A learned voice in my head whispers, “for he is a
former soldier in the Canadian army, former secret agent, former SHIELD agent,
current X-Man and Avenger. Plus,” the voice adds, “there’s the adamantium skeleton. And these babies.” The voice glints in
the darkness.)
Page
Seventeen, Panel 3.
MICHAEL: So, um, why does IM tell Wolvy to “let it go”? Wolvy’s a
tracker and—not to beat a dead horse—ex-SHIELD agent. He worked with SHIELD
pretty recently, in fact. Shouldn’t Tony here be like, maybe, ‘you should call
SHIELD. Maybe you could help the strike force out or vice versa’??? Hell, let’s
cut out half this worthless issue and fill it up with that SHIELD meeting and
see how it went. I’d rather see that than Wolvy
intimidating crusaders and Japanese people for 18 goddamn pages.
JASON: “Let it go, Logan, it's the New Warriors’s fault people died, not poor, innocent Nitro. Let
him be, Logan, just let him be.”
MICHAEL: Dude, if Tony doesn’t stop being
so damned whiny, he’s totally going to break up the band!
Page
Eighteen
MICHAEL: Again, I feel like I’m reading Civil
War by Infants. It’s like, the arguments presented in Illuminati and
CW1 might be too extreme, in my opinion, but at least I feel I can jump
into a reasoned debate with the characters. Here it’s like that meme, that one
that says if you bring the Nazis into the argument, you’ve automatically lost.
Also, these guys are just speaking like 11-year-olds. I just find it impossible
to accept their words as actual trains of thought.
Page
Nineteen, Panel 2.
MICHAEL: Wait, wait, how does this line of
logic work? Cage says the Sentinel is there for Wolvy’s
protection (which I guess was the whole point of the Sentinel Squad thing now,
right? They’re there to watch over the mutants now that M-Day has happened?).
And Wolvy responds with the burning cross line? WTF?
Right. Because KKK members put up burning crosses to protect black
people. It was a sign to all that might do harm to the black person’s home: do
not attack here, the KKK is defending them!
And I
think Wolvy’s mixing his metaphors like they were
Black Russians with bad visas here. To jump from comparing the concentration
camp victims to superheroes to comparing mutants with black people in
uncultured America. I can’t even follow this logical flow. This is seriously
just someone throwing out inflammatory moments of human history.
“Here’s
here for your protection.”
“And what
if that Sentinel on the lawn was a burning cross?”
‘At least
he’s not being crucified on it.’
‘Pol Pot wore the same prescription as you, I hear.’
‘My Lai
wasn’t so long ago, Stumpy.’
And now
we’ve made a Really Adult Point.
Page
Nineteen, Panel 3.
MICHAEL: That’s excellent. Even Cage is
baffled by what the hell that meant.
JASON: I'm baffled also, but that's
because I thought that Cage was antiReg. I guess I
may have gotten the wrong impression somewhere, but Cage being proReg doesn't make any sense to me. Though, half the
people that they chose to be proReg doesn't make any
sense to me.
MICHAEL: Especially since they made proReg blatantly evil.
JASON: I don’t know about that, after
all Logan’s anitReg, and he killed a bunch of corn.
What’s more blatantly evil then that?
Page
Nineteen, Panel 4.
MICHAEL: ‘I need a beer. Maybe some corn.
I love corn.’
JASON: Did Reed forget to pay the
electrical bill for the Baxter Building?
Page
Twenty, Panel 2.
MICHAEL: Oh. That’s Emma? Who would’ve
guessed it?
JASON: I thought it was Dazzler.
Page
Twenty, Panel 3.
MICHAEL: Oooh! Burrrrn! If only it hadn’t been done before and far better
by Joss Whedon I might actually do more than raise an
annoyed eyebrow.
Page
Twenty, Panel 4.
MICHAEL: Hell, even Wolvy
knew that shouldn’t’ve provoked a response. Damn.
Page
Twenty-One, Panel 3.
MICHAEL: Hey, Wolvy.
I found Nitro. He’s attached to your leg.
JASON: If I remember right, when Nitro
explodes, his body turns into a gaseous state, which would mean- oh that's
disgusting!
MICHAEL: Wolvy’s
got a bad case of gas?
Page
Twenty-One, Panel 4.
MICHAEL: Ah, yes, pickups do leave tracks.
That’s … good to know, Wolvy. Thanks for sharing
that. I mean, unless Nitro f#$!ing left in a
pickup truck (in which case I’d guess SHIELD would’ve found him by now), I
don’t see how this non-sequitur adds to the plot.
‘Flag on
the moon. How’d it get there?’
JASON: SHIELD's too busy chasing each
other around with big rubber mallets while wearing big red noses. They can't
find the time to catch Nitro.
Page
Twenty-Two, Panel 2.
MICHAEL: “Those Dogs Got Nothin On Me.” Isn’t that a 50 Cent song?
Page
Twenty-Two, Panel 3.
MICHAEL: Ha?
JASON: Hell, that was the best line in
the book.
MICHAEL: Ha?
JASON: It’s kinda
like watching CNN—every five minutes they show you the same thing.
CLOSING
ARGUMENTS:
MICHAEL: Dear God. Not until I re-read
this and actually pay attention to it did I realize what a steaming pile of dogs#!t
it is. I’ll throw out the bits in Latvia and the chick by the pool—those are
obviously part of a bigger story (I hope …) and therefore not privy to being
judged by the same standards. But ugh. It seriously feels like Marc
Guggenheim took on this assignment and thought, ‘comics. They’re written for
seven-year-olds, right? Man, this is a fairly intense high concept. Better dumb
it down to a prolonged fight scene and make those nasty moral quibbles a tad
simpler, cause I know my kids would have a hard time understanding some of
this.’
Seriously,
this feels like one of the ‘forgotten’ CW titles. As if it was thrown
out as a ‘kiddie’ book and not given much thought.
‘Let’s just have Wolverine chase down Nitro for like six or seven issues and
put Humberto Ramos on it; his family needs food, so I
feel bad for him.’
I mean,
at least with CW, I can hold onto the high concept and believe there’s
something better to come. With this storyline, the high concept appears to be
‘Wolverine tracks then fights a dude.’ Obviously, this might change, but at
this point, it’s just garbage.
JASON: I believe that the opening scene
sets the tone for this book very well- a total plane crash. From top to bottom
this book needs to have full FAA investigation. Damn shame. I love corn.
MICHAEL: I’ll give this book that point:
it’s totally re-ignited my passion for corn. You’ve gotta
douse it in pepper and salt, though, so you’re just eating little squeaky bits
of Tupperware. Nummy.
JASON: Truly, it has. For all you
readers at home, here’s one of my favorite recipes involving corn:
Grilled Corn with Cheese and Chile
6 ears fresh sweet corn, silks removed but husks
still attached
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 lime, halved
1/2 cup shredded queso anejo,
queso fresco, or Parmesan
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
Pull husks up to cover the corn ears and place the
corn in a large bowl or pot. Cover with cold water and place a large plate or
other weight on top of the corn so that it remains submerged. Allow the corn to
soak for at least 1 hour.
In a small bowl combine the sour
cream and milk and set aside.
While the corn is soaking, prepare
a grill or barbecue to medium-high. Adjust the grilling rack so that it sits
about 4 inches away from the fire.
Lay the corn on the grill and cook
for 20 to 25 minutes, turning frequently. Remove and allow to cool slightly.
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
Pull the husks back to form a
handle and brush the ears evenly with the melted butter. Squeeze the lime
halves evenly over the ears of corn, and brush the ears with some of the sour
cream mixture. Sprinkle the cheese evenly among the corn ears, coating on all
sides. Sprinkle the ears evenly with the chili powder and kosher salt. Place
corn in a baking dish and put in the oven for at least 5 minutes, or until
ready to serve.
Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Michael
T Bradley has been reading comics for about 14 years. His Marvel background in
particular involves many a late night in college reading through their “comic
library,” which included a full run of Spider-Man. Every title.
Back to Amazing 19, baby. Spidey is by far his favorite Marvel character (and
important to this series, or so it seems). He pretty much dropped out of Spidey when Todd
McFarlane came along, with brief periods of interest drawing him back (i.e.,
the Clone Saga, some Paul Jenkins stuff, a love-hate relationship with Straczynski, and Spider Man Loves Mary Jane). Beyond that, Michael’s main interaction
with the Marvel universe is David’s Hulk
run and “anything Mark Gruenwald wrote.” So if Quasar
shows up, we’re covered. Also, Michael used to work in a comic store, so he’s
been at least partially in touch with a lot of things that have happened in the
Marvel universe.
Jason
Freston, on the other hand, reads lots and lots and
lots of comics. Jason’s obsession started over 20 years ago and seems to have
taken on a life of its own. Spider-Man is also Jason’s favorite Marvel
character (he even stuck through during the McFarlane years). Currently you can
find Jason reading comics, and occasionally working, at Dragon’s Keep in Provo,
Utah. (You can also generally find Michael there, as well, working on the next
installment of this damned monster of a project.)