Reviewer: James Hatton
Editor: Sean Ryan
Publisher: Marvel Comics
An Unlimited Review – that means two-two-two reviews in one! This month to celebrate his 30th anniversary, Wolverine takes the entire issue by himself – which should be noted is different than the past issues of the revamp of Unlimited where most of the stories had him as a secondary character. This one just puts him in the forefront to tell you two more tales from the grumpy Canadian.
Story Title: Follow The Leader
Written by: Scott Killinger
Penciled by: Rael Lyra
Inked by: Jay Leisten
Colored by: Transparency Digital
Lettered by: Dave Sharpe
In an attempt to teach Wolverine a lesson, and try to teach comic book readers about William Shakespeare, Cyclops sends Wolverine into the Holode– I’m sorry, I mean Danger Room to fight the battles of Henry V. He learns a lesson in teamwork. We learn a lesson in boring storytelling. At the end, not only does Wolverine learn a true lesson about teamwork – he learns that Cyclops is still completely lame to be creating Shakespearan games on the Danger Room.
It’s not a BAD story, it’s just uselessly pointlessly pedantic. Add to the art which is so heavily inked and lined up that Wolverine looks like his face is chipping away and I give this one negative points. Look at the last page of this story, and compare the background to the foreground. The Cerebro chamber/Danger room is clean and looks very simple – then you take these overly musculatured weathered faces of Cyclops and Wolvie and they look like octagenerians. Creepy.
Final Rating – 3.0
Story Title: Bar Stools
Written by: Vito Delsante
Art by: Lee Ferguson
Colored by: Transparency Digital
Lettered by: Dave Sharpe
Our second entry into the Unlimited foray is ‘Bar Stools’ which is about 3 girls trying to pick up guys at a local bar. One of them eyes our friendly Canucklehead and goes for the kill. Wolvie gives them the kind blow off with that whole Peewee’s Big Adventure line. “I’m a loner… a rebel.” and they go on their way. A bad guy shows up
Wolvie beats him up
Wolvie leaves alone
The End.
Now where that sounds kind of pointless, it’s actually a much better story than the first. The dialogue is what makes it though as the art is simplistic, a little TOO much negative space and it looks to much like a Shockwave cartoon. The conversational tone of the whole book speaks volumes of the writer and for a short little story it wasn’t bad at all. Even has a cute punchline. For a short X-Jaunt. I give it two thumbs.
Overall!
So, one bad one good. That’s a 50/50 book, and it’s about Wolverine too, which means it will sell like gold. Back in the day Unlimited used to be a book for stories that fell through the cracks. It was the prime place to begin telling the story of a huge arc without taking focus away from any specific book. It has the ability to be used for so much more than twelve-page wastes of pulp.
