The new Wolverine series Logan once again donning his disguise of Patch, this time to infiltrate a criminal auction, the Legacy House, in order to gain a lead on the location of his old Team X colleague Maverick.
Where other X-Men titles have focused on the super heroics of the mutant heroes the Wolverine book has a much more grounded feel to it, taking more of a spy thriller angle to its stories, and this particular arc is a perfect example of why it works so well with the character. It doesn't take much rewriting to make Logan into a regular man in this story-line, remove his adamantium claws for example, and it would still work and be engaging, the story of a man who was brainwashed into being a killer who's looking to help his old friend.
I think this is a large part of why this issue works so well, it's a very human story, a story that relies of the evil that people do to each other to be effective, rather than something grand like an alien warlord coming to conquer the world. It makes it more interesting because writer Benjamin Percy has to make it connect to Logan as a person more than anything else.
Percy has dropped in a number of flashbacks to Logan's time with Team X throughout the book, flashbacks that not just show some of the clandestine missions that the group were sent on, but that Logan and Maverick helped each other through their brainwashing, developing mnemonic techniques to break through the mental conditioning put upon them, which would not only eventually help them to get away from Team X itself, but also comes in handy later in the issue when Logan and Maverick come face to face in the present.
One of the more interesting parts of the book, however, is the Legacy House itself. An elite organisation for criminals, it offers the wealthy a chance to collect interesting artefacts related to heroes. For example, there's the mask that Captain America was wearing when he was frozen in ice during World War Two, the gravestone that Kraven the Hunter buried Spider-Man under in Kraven's Last Hunt, and even the severed hand of Wolverine himself; though there's little explanation as to how they have something like that.
I really liked the idea that criminals and shady folk would want to collect rare items like this, and there are a number of familiar faces wandering around the auction, the Kingpin probably being the most recognisable here and one who instantly stands out. With people in our own world who collect the strange and unique, from people who own pieces of sunken ships or Nazi memorabilia, it's not hard to imagine something similar taking place within the Marvel Universe.
The artwork, provided by Adam Kubert, has a much grittier feel than some of the other X-Men books, and when coupled with the colours of Frank Martin it makes for an issue that feels a lot grimier than most. It helps to show that this isn't a story about brightly costumed heroes, but about the grim underbelly of the Marvel universe, and how more often than not Wolverine has ended up in some nasty places throughout his life.
The issue ends without resolving much, leaving readers on a cliffhanger that promises more action and excitement to come in the next issue, and I for one am eager to see what comes next; and hopefully learn some more about the Legacy House whilst we're at it too.
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