Wolverine

• Writer - Greg Rucka
• Artist - Darick Robertson
• Colorist - Studio F
• Lettering - Chris Eliopoulos
• Ass't Editor - Warren Simons
• Ass't Editor - John Miesegaes
• Editor - Axel Alonso
• Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada

Brotherhood

Summary

  The story is told from the point of view of a waitress named Lucy Braddock, whose words in this issue are told from a diary that she kept. She wonders about Logan, a frequent patron at the restaurant that she worked in ... a man she refers to as "Mean Man" and lived by himself in an apartment directly across from her own, whether he had ever been lonely or scared. To her, she's always scared and lonely, or maybe just lonely, but in any case, her view of the world is that it's a mean world ... "full of mean people with mean hearts who do mean things". And, it's because of this that sometimes, you have to be mean in order to survive. Survival, to her, is "the name of the game ..."

  She wonders why "Mean Man" never asked her of her story, thinking he never cared. But deep inside, she knows that's not the case because she believes he thinks he already knew it, remembering how he left her a $12 tip for an $8 meal one day. She thinks she figured him out though, thinking that maybe it's only the "meanest of them all who can afford to give a d@mn". She wonders when "they" will be coming for her, to take her home, a place where she didn't want to go. She would rather be killed than going back. She wonders whether Logan knew about killing, thinking back to the night when Logan returned to his apartment with a knife protruding from his upper leg and going through the agony of pulling it out as she peered out from behind her door. She remembers how she saw Logan the next day, back at the diner that she worked at, without a scratch on him. In her words, "that's how I knew you were my guy".

  She recalls one day that he had left his book at the diner, wondering whether he did it on purpose to give them a good excuse to meet and having her make the first move. She remembers later that evening, talking with Logan for the first time and seeing his apartment: a barren room with nothing but a bedsheet on the floor, a simple desklamp, and many books strewn across the ground. She asked whether he just read all day, to which Logan replied he does do other things. She asks him about who stabbed him, and that if he got stabbed doing a mean thing to a mean guy, it would be cool. He asked her whether she read a lot, to which she replied that she writes nowadays. She mentions that she'd let him read her stuff only if he could find it because she keeps them hidden. Lucy asks to borrow a few of his books, to which he agreed. As she left the apartment, she asks whether he could look out for her, and he agrees.

  She believed his word, and in her journal, she wrote how she believed this night would be the first night she could really sleep and not worry anymore with him protecting her. She writes how she couldn't tell him everything, but that he would have to figure out some for himself (as she is doing by hiding her journal inside one of Logan's books that she borrowed). Other people will say they want to help, when it would just be nothing but a lie. She refers to himself as the one who "got away", but when the day that her "brothers" come to get her, she's counting on him to make it right. She's tried to tell others about it, to tell the truth, but they wouldn't listen to her stories because she lacked proof, and the only real proof will be when they take her body off in a bag. She apologizes to Logan for burderning him with this task of her, but begs for Logan to correct what was wrong when she is murdered and forgotten by the law enforcement as just another runaway murdered, and to never forget her.

Summary

  Wolverine is relaunched, although for some reason Marvel have chosen not to stress the point on the cover. Actually, it's an odd cover all round - you'd have thought they'd want to avoid versions of the character that don't have the trademark hairstyle, especially when we're this close to the film. It's a nice enough picture - by Essad Ribic, I think - but it looks more like a vampire.

  To all intents and purposes this is just a change of creative team. The renumbering is presumably to emphasise the change of style and the move away from what Frank Tieri was doing on the book. Which is a tactful of way of saying that the book is moving upmarket. Fine by me.

  The traditional approach to Wolverine solo stories, dating back to the first miniseries, has been to write them from Wolverine's perspective. Generally they're accompanied by first person narration. The effect, of course, is to put you in Wolverine's head. Greg Rucka, in common with the recent fill-ins by Daniel Way, goes in the opposite direction, by writing the story from the perspective of an outsider. However, while Way was basically working with the idea that Wolverine shows up as a familiar figure, Rucka sets out to stress how odd and alien the character would be to most people who encounter him.

  And that's the meat of the first issue, really. There's a plot - it consists of a waitress who's being hunted down by somebody or other spotting Wolverine as a regular customer in her diner and setting things up so that he'll do something about it when the baddies finally come for her. But it's not a plot-heavy issue. It's more about mood and trying to distance the audience from the lead character again. That said, it probably goes a little far in that direction. Wolverine remains on the periphery for much of the story, leaving Lucy as the real protagonist of this issue. She's the only character that readers get to connect with, and given what happens to her at the end, that leaves the reader adrift.

  Darick Robertson's take on the character goes back to the earlier versions which emphasised him as a small, compact bundle of testosterone. He's meant to be short - that's sort of the point of naming him after a small vicious animal - and somewhere along the line the height has crept up to an extent that starts to erode the design. Of course, the viciousness isn't quite there these days - he's a more passive and contained character, particularly in this story. The art hints at the other aspects of the character without letting us get too close. I love Robertson's work, and this is no exception. He's a fabulous storyteller, and he's playing up all the right elements of the character for this particular approach.

  And yet...

  It's too light on plot to work as a first issue, and it leaves the audience more closely connected to a character who's not going to be seen again. To be honest, it's not really quick enough off the blocks. I can see that it's trying to re-establish the whole approach to the character and get rid of the idea of putting us in the character's head. It's successful in what it sets out to do; unfortunately, it really needed to do more. It's okay, but I'm underwhelmed.

  Rating: B