Wolverine #14 // Review
Logan’s in Northwestern Canada when he runs out of a gas. Literally. He talks it up to daydreaming. Too busy thinking about other things to really be all that conscious of the fact that he's running out of gas. A guy like him could smell how much is in the tank. There's really no excuse for it. No excuse aside from simply not having his mind on where he is. Totally unlike him. So he's gotta get out and walk. And in doing so he's going to find a trouble in Wolverine #14. Writer Saladin Ahmed tells a story of Wolverine in a small town with artist Martin Coccolo and colorist Jesus Aburtov.
It takes Logan about an hour to walk from his vehicle to the next town. Unfortunately, the next town looks more or less abandoned. That is, of course, until he gets attacked. Instincts kick in until he realizes that the people attacking him, our rent exactly skilled. They are, however, exactly mutant. And so he feels kind of weird about it. That's when the the mercenary shows-up: Silver Sable. She's been hired to protect the people of the town who all happened to be mutants. Looks like Logan is going to have to help straighten things out for the mutant refugees.
Ahmed has a really sharp approach to what he's doing here. The opening chapter of a remarkably interesting story is bright to the page with a very competent and well structured pacing. It’s a traditional superhero team up that involves an initial combat before they realize they're both on the same side. This would be nauseating enough to be totally annoying or not for the fact that Ahmed finds a way to execute it that feels fresh, novel, and above all really funny. That goes a long way towards securing the term of a story which might otherwise feel kind of hackneyed.
Coccolo and Aburtov Cover the intensity of the motion with fairly deaf hand. The overall mood of the action feels remarkably well defined on the page. The color in this is spectacular in establishing a rural evening’s combat in Northwestern Canada. The stars are out. There's a dull radiance to the moonlight. The action slices and pounds its way across the page with style and poise. It's all remarkably well delivered to the page. And there's a real sense of connection between the heroes and the people that they're trying to help. It all comes to the page with remarkably articulate visual characterization.
The Journey of the lone hero is always a lot of fun to experiment with. The adventure of being explored here is great fun. A lot of it actually has to do with the specific elements of action that are brought to the page by Silver Sable. She's a remarkably appealing character on a whole bunch of different levels and there's never really been truly deaf treatment of her in the many years that she's been around. Ahmed does a remarkably good job with her. It would be nice to see him explore her a little bit more in her own title.
