Wolverine and Kitty Pryde #1 // Review
It’s 1985. Logan and Kitty are spending a bit more time in Japan. She’s got training to do. He’s there to make certain that she’s able to train. There are quite a few distractions that are going to reveal themselves in Wolverine and Kitty Pryde #1. Writer Chris Claremont returns to a much earlier era for the two iconic characters in an opening issue drawn by Damian Couceiro. Color comes to the page courtesy of Carlos Lopez. It’s a fun return to a couple of Claremont’s X-Men prior to the mess of multi-mutant crossovers that would scramble what had been a very tight Marvel mutant continuity.
Kitty’s angry. It’s keeping her from being able to focus on the fight that she’s in. Thankfully it’s just a training session. Wolverine is trying to get her to maintain focus, but she’s got A LOT going on in her head and it’s not going to be easy. Things might go a bit better when the two heroes run into some considerable problems later-on with a street villain by the name of Kill. Kitty and Wolverine find themselves facing someone who could put innocent lives in harm’s way. With any luck, they’re both prepared for it.
Claremont was a genius in working with larger ensembles of characters. The original Kitty Pryde and Wolverine series from 1984-1985 didn’t quite have the impressive impact of the Uncanny X-Men he had been working on at the time. Decades later Claremont returns to the Kitty/Wolverine dynamic with an appealing pacing and overall sense of drama. He’s clearly still got a profound understanding of the inner psychology of these characters where they were before the mutant massacre of 1986 and the Fall of the Mutants in ’87 had separated them. He went to Australia. She went to the U.K. It’s nice to see them together from an era before that.
Couceiro’s art lacks some degree of finess and impact. The action feels stiff when it should feel lithe and graceful. The aggression and percussion of the combat suffers a bit as a result. There IS a strong sense of drama flowing off the page, but it feels a bit too amplified to feel quite as naturally as it could. To his credit, thogh, Couceiro finds a style that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the page in the era in which this series is set.
Though it’s clearly not looking to grossly exaggerate the style and pop culture of the 1985, the pacing, art and overall execution feel like something that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the comics rack in the Jim Shooter era of Marvel. Between this and Spider-Man Vs. Godzilla, the mid-1980s Marvel Universe seems to be making a bit of a comeback...if only for a few weeks or so. This IS a five-part mini-series. It’s nice to see Claremont come back to the X-Men for a few issues.
