Know what I like? Truth in advertising. There is violence in this comic, and there is sex. More of the former than the latter, but still a generous amount on both sides.
Know what I also like? Wolverine. People give him crap because he makes so many appearances in so many comics, but I hardly see the problem with that; if a hundred Wolverine comics come out and there all good, that’s not a problem for me. I judge them as they come, thought that won’t stop me from making the occasional joke. Wolverine can be an interesting character, fun to read, he’s popular and he sells – you can’t blame Marvel for putting their best player on the field.
So, here we have a Wolverine book with sex and violence…like most Wolverine books, really, but few put it out there so bluntly. It’s a decent tale, too, with a nice and simple premise – Domino pisses off the Assassin’s Guild and the Hand, the Hand and the Assassin’s Guild try to kill her, she goes and gets help from Wolverine, they kill a lot of people. And she bones him a couple of times.
It’s such well-drawn violence and sex, too – I admit, I haven’t been paying much attention to X-Force, but if this is par for the course I might have to start. Everything looks so visceral, so untamed; when Wolverine starts brings out the claws and the bullets start flying and the blood starts pouring, Dell’Otto’s art does it all justice. He could stand to go easy on the shadows a bit; I know it’s supposed to be dark and gritty, but there were a handful of panels I had to stare at for a few moments before I could process what was happening. For the most part, though, things are clear and you get a great idea of what’s happening with the battle. There’s a good flow, and you get the feeling that there’s this chaotic fight going on, but you’re watching it from all the right angles. Like a movie on the page.
Story-wise, things are simple; I left out spoilers when I summarized in the second paragraph, but really, there’s not much else to it – which is good. The draw here isn’t the story, but action and characters, and we’ve got both in spades. Domino and Wolverine make a good pair; she’s frequently funny and manages to make a bleak story as lighthearted as it could ever be. Wolverine’s his typical serious self, and the two bounce off each other. We’ve got a lot of great moments for a lot of great reasons – stuff like Wolverine fighting a man whose sole power is having big razors where his fists are supposed to be, for instance. The rest of X-Force don’t have much presence here, but that just keeps things short and simple; no need to muddy the waters.
It won’t shake the world, but Sex and Violence gets the blood pumping and the interest rising. Go on. Pick it up. One more Wolverine comic won’t kill you.
