Origin II #1 Review

Writer: Kieron Gillen

Artist: Adam Kubert

Colorist: Frank Martin

Origin II #1

Wolverine’s origin story continues as Logan tries to live his life in the Canadian wilderness.

The Ups: Kieron Gillen made a very smart decision to use a 3^rd person narrative to tell this story. With Wolverine it’s very easy to tell it from the first person and have Logan brood about his past, but keeping the narration distant from Wolverine made the story more about what he was experiencing rather than what he thought about it. This allows Gillen to show how Wolverine feels and reacts to certain situations without bogging the reader down in monologue. Adam Kubert’s art lends itself well to the feral nature of the story, and the art is just as gritty and visceral as it should be. Frank Martin adds to this art by using a pallet consisting of whites, reds, browns and grays. This makes the majority of the art muted, and bold red colors are used to draw attention to the action. The use of heavy reds is due to there being a lot of blood, but it also serves to make the art look like a cave-painting which adds another layer to the story.

The Downs: The story is very self contained and includes very little of Wolverine’s actual past. While the issue does a great job of showing Wolverine’s character, the story of his origin doesn’t advance very much.

Overall: This issue was more of a character study on Wolverine than an origin story than anything else. The art is amazing and carries most of the narration so visual readers will really enjoy this issue. The story is fairly simple but it shows who Wolverine really is in a very pure and concentrated way. The plot may have been a bit lacking for something that will be part of a larger arc, but this issue had enough character development to still make progress in the overall scheme of the arc.

Grade 4 of 5