Review: Marvel’s Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #1 by Charles Soule & Oliver Nome

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Death of Wolverine The Logan Legacy #1 Marvel 1Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #1

Written by: Charles Soule
Art by: Oliver Nome
Cover by: Oliver Nome & Sonia Oback
Lettered by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: $3.99

Note: This is a review of the digital version which can be found on Comixology.

Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers for this issue and Death of Wolverine #4!

Death of Wolverine The Logan Legacy #1 Marvel 2 Death of Wolverine The Logan Legacy #1 Marvel 3 Death of Wolverine The Logan Legacy #1 Marvel 4 Logan Legacy #1 Death of Wolverine Ohio Comic Con variant

Summary (contains spoilers): In Croatia, someone has taken X-23 prisoner. She soon discovers that this same person has taken Sabretooth and Daken prisoner, as well as a cloaked figure who is keeping to himself.

Soon after, Deathstrike is brought in as well. Daken says that this has to be about Logan. Deathstrike tries to escape, but their captor uses the code word “caterpillar” which causes her to collapse.

The cloaked figure reveals himself to be Charles Xavier, which is odd since he’s supposed to be dead (but, I thought Daken was dead, too). It is revealed that this is really Mystique in disguise. Elixir is brought in as a prisoner too.

Their jailer arrives and asks, “Have you ever heard of a scientist named Dr. Abraham Cornelius?”

It is revealed that Dr. Cornelius had captured each of them at some point and implanted four trigger words in their minds. One to put them to sleep, one to control them, one to kill them, and a mysterious fourth word.

The jailer says that they had been working for Cornelius, and had no idea. He wants to know what they were doing. And that is the end…

OH MY GOD!  It’s the Red Hood!!

Review: I will admit, my disappointment in the end of Death of Wolverine probably had a huge impact on my ability to enjoy this issue. I definitely felt a big “that’s it?” moment at the end of Death of Wolverine. I didn’t review that issue, so I don’t want to harp on it too much, but I thought it wasn’t all that much of an “end” for one of Marvel’s biggest characters…I also thought the story had some strange logic flaws (“Adamantium is rare and real hard to work with so I have to take it back out of any dead test subjects…but I plan to have an army with thousands of adamantium-laced soldiers!” Good luck with that).   But we’re not here to review that issue…

My colleague Paul Miranda reviewed it here (he was much more positive than I was).

The biggest problem I had with The Logan Legacy #1 is that nothing at all happens. It is all all advertising for “what is coming later in this series.” I wouldn’t mind if it was subtle foreshadowing…in fact, there is a panel late in the comic where the jailer bluntly spells out what the format of the series will be, which I thought worked well.

But too many pages off this issue are exactly like this. “X-23? Why are you wearing superhero colors now?” “Well…see The Logan Legacy #2”

“Deathstrike? Why are you thinking of a sword?” FIND OUT IN LOGAN LEGACY #4!

It just felt really heavy handed…and they don’t quite explain how Mystique knew what Deathstrike was thinking about…just because she looked like Xavier, doesn’t mean she is psychic.

I don’t really have any problem with Charles Soule. I like his work on She-Hulk and Letter 44, and for the most part, I enjoyed Death of Wolverine until we got to the anti-climatic ending. BUT, I think he is spread way too thin, and this issue felt more like a cheap cash grab that a necessary follow up to the Death of Wolverine.

I will say that I thought the characterizations in this book were good.  I thought everyone had their own voice and felt right.

Marvel kind of shot themselves in the foot here. They are trying so hard to convince us that Wolverine is going to stay dead…”Honest, this time! No matter how often we have reversed death in the past, this time it will stick.”

Not only does no one really believe it’s going to stick, but even the Death of Wolverine story has shown how fleeting death is in the Marvel Universe. Dr. Cornelius came back…Daken has come back. Marvel is not even pretending “Dead is Dead” any more.  So I can’t imagine Wolverine will be staying as an adamantium statue for all that long…

Oliver Nome’s art was good, but honestly it didn’t feel like he had too much to do here other than draw a lot of pictures of characters standing around in a prison cell. The brief fight between Daken and Sabretooth looked good, and I did like the quick shots we got from future issues, but I am not sure I will be sticking around to see them.

Death of Wolverine had a promising start, but at this point, I think Marvel has milked it for all it’s worth. The Logan Legacy started off with a pretty dull and uninspired issue. I like the idea of an anthology of stories involving the characters Logan is involved with…but I would much rather see stories with Kitty, Jubilee, Storm, and Nightcrawler. This just feels like the B-Team, and not a way I want to spent 28 bucks over the next 7 weeks. I think I am pretty much just done with these tie-ins and will stick to Axis and Spider-Verse.


Title: Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #1
Written By: Charles Soule
Art By: Oliver Nome
Company: Marvel
Price: $3.99
Pros:
  • Characters are well done.
  • Art is good.
Cons:
  • Never feels like anything other than a cheap cash grab.
  • Nothing really happens….the whole issue is “if you want to see cool stuff, you have to buy future issues.”
  • How did Daken come back to life anyway?
  • Since when is Mystique psychic?
Is it worth your $3.99? 6.5/10 – There is nothing particularly bad about this comic…the writing isn’t awful and the art is good, but I definitely felt like it was just a cheap cash grab without a whole lot to it.   You really are better off just passing on this one.
Mike Maillaro is a lifelong Jersey Boy and geek. Mike has been a comic fan for about 30 years from when his mom used to buy him Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Adventures at our local newsstand. Thanks, Mom!! Mike's goal is to bring more positivity to the discussion of comics and pop culture.