I’m not a big fan of superhero deaths, for both the obvious reason (that superheroes can never, ever stay dead) and because of way most superhero death stories play out. In almost all cases the deaths are played for shock, and come mostly out of left field. For years this characters has been an unstoppable, unbeatable force and then, whoops, a lucky bullet gets them, or a big grey spiky guy from space punches them to death. The deaths may be surprising, but they’re rarely narratively satisfying.
Writer Charles Soule largely avoids this in Death of Wolverine, which has just been released in a spiffy hardcover edition, by treating the death as an inevitability. Wolverine has lost his healing ability, a power he relies on more heavily than any other superhero relies on any one superpower, and as such he’s living on borrowed time. Because of this approach, Logan’s death doesn’t feel like a frustrating “gotcha” moment, but rather a cathartic finale.
Along the way, Soule has some fun really digging into what life would be like for Wolverine without his most crucial power. For starters, everything hurts, particularly bursting his claws out of the back of his hands. Retracting them is almost as bad, as they basically inject a load of bacteria straight into his bloodstream. Of course Logan’s personal discomfort is of secondary concern to the fact that every bad guy on the planet wants to kill him now that he can actually die. At first Logan thinks the unending waves of assassins are just old scores coming to roost, but when he uncovers a larger plot to capture him for some nefarious purpose, Wolverine is forced to go on one last globe-trotting adventure.
Soule doesn’t really throw a lot of curve balls in terms of where Logan goes and who he meets in his final adventure. The story starts off in Canada, heads for the fictional Asian playground of Madripoor for the middle stretch, then ends in a shadowy lab and features Viper, Sabertooth, Kitty Pryde, Lady Deathstrike and other regular cast members from Logan’s life. I won’t spoil who the final villain is, but the reveal makes perfect sense in a circular “it ends as it began” sort of way.
You can argue Marvel could have gone for a more creative, more out there end for Wolverine, and perhaps a higher-profile, more singular writer like a Dan Slott or Grant Morrison may have delivered that, but Soule’s straightforward approach isn’t without its charm. The death of Wolverine is a story that’s pretty much been waiting to be told ever since he was created, and the character has so many dangling blood feuds and unresolved relationships, I imagine the story largely wrote itself. Yes, Death of Wolverine is surprisingly low-key, but it’s a story about letting go of your anger and finding peace, so the tone feels appropriate.
On the art front, Steve McNiven isn’t the most distinctive of pencillers, but his overall draftsmanship is rock solid, and he gives the book a certain needed feeling of dignity. Ultimately though, the real star of the book art-wise is probably Justin Ponsor, who brings Death of Wolverine to life with an impressive, painterly color palette.
Of course, Death of Wolverine was only a four-issue miniseries, so in order to fill out this collection we get a ton of bonus content. A lot of it is filler, including a full “director’s cut” of the first issue (I’ve never really got the point of this gimmick) but there is some fun stuff as well. We get an interview with Wolverine creator Len Wein, which is pretty charming stuff, even if he and the interviewer end up mostly talking about the Guardians of the Galaxy movie for some reason. It’s also nice to have all the many, many Death of Wolverine variant covers in one spot. One oddity though – all the bonus content only covers the first two issues, with there being no sketches or director’s commentary or anything for issues #3 and #4. I would have liked to see some behind the scenes talk about the actual moment of Wolverine’s death, but I guess Marvel didn’t want people to flip to the bonus content first and spoil the story? I’m really not sure.
Will Wolverine stay dead? Of course not – Marvel has admitted as such, but if Logan could actually die, this would be a fitting final chapter. As it is, this is good, succinct story any generation of Wolverine fan should be able to enjoy. Wolverine is an icon now, a corporate mascot, so he never gets to stop fighting, but at least Death of Wolverine lets him put his claws away and rest for a while. If you have any affection at all for Wolverine, you won’t regret tagging along with him on his “final” adventure.
A copy of Death of Wolverine was provided to the reviewer by Marvel Comics.