Review: Wolverine #31

Benjamin Percy has a style of writing perfect for a Wolverine book. This book has thrived under the able hand of Percy and issue 31 is aided even more by a clear conflict and the stellar art of Juan Jose Ryp.

This arc answers anyone who has ever wondered what would happen if Beast used all of his brain power towards nefarious ends. We saw some of this with Beast in the original Age of Apocalypse. Beast can sometimes use questionable means to justify his ends. Here his goal is to ostensibly save Mutantkind. In this pursuit he is willing to kill Wolverine and resurrect him again in the hopes of wiping his mind and removing his teammate as an obstacle.

Unfortunately as with most situations, Logan got better. With his memory restored Logan lashes out and kills Beast. But of course Beast has contingencies with both a fungal attack in his former body and the creation of many new ones.

The issue begins with the new Beast taking a part of Krakoa like a living sentinel. Meanwhile Beast’s corpse attacks Logan. The art by Ryp and the colors by Frank D’Armata in this fungal and physical attack are top form. Every panel is a suitably gruesome treat while still somehow feeling believable. Wolverine takes down the corpse as the current Beast starts taking down threats to mutant-kind and makes his way to his cloning factory.

Wolverine takes Jeff and Maddie Bannister back to Krakoa for medical care and informs X-Force of Beast’s betrayal. They discover vital data about Kraokoa and Beast’s plans have been wiped from the system just as Beast transmits a message to all of them ‘terminating’ their services. The issue ends with Beast pronouncing an end to X-Force and his new program ‘Weapons of X’ which are a vast number of Wolverine clones.

This book is interesting, clear, has a great conflict that is ramping up in new ways. The art is dynamic without ever being confusing. This arc takes us down a new path against Beast, but it is nice to have a clear concise enemy and hero in an X-book.

Writing: 4.5 of 5 stars
Art: 4.3 of 5 stars
Colors: 4.0 of 5 stars

Overall:
4.2 of 5 stars

Writing: Benjamin Percy
Art: Juan Jose Ryp
Colors: Frank D’Armata
Publisher: Marvel

Author Profile

M.R. Jafri

M.R. Jafri was born and raised in Niagara Falls New York and now lives with his family in Detroit Michigan. He's a talkative introvert and argumentative geek. His loves include Star Wars, Star Trek, Superheroes, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Transformers, GI Joe, Films, Comics, TV Shows, Action Figures and Twizzlers.