I Reads You Review: WOLVERINE and BLACK CAT: CLAWS 2 #1

WOLVERINE & BLACK CAT: CLAWS 2 #1 (OF 3)
MARVEL COMICS

WRITER: Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray
ART: Joseph Michael Linsner
COLORS: Dan Brown and Nick Filardi with Ian Hannin
LETTERS: Jeff Eckleberry
COVER: Joseph Michael Linsner
32pp, Color, $3.99

Chapter 1: “Back and Forth”

I have to be honest. I only bought the first issue of Wolverine & Black Cat: Claws 2 for the art by Joseph Michael Linsner. I’m not a big fan of Lisner’s work, but I like it enough to look at it when I get a chance. Apparently, there was a first Wolverine & Black Cat: Claws miniseries (3 issues, 2006) that I ignored.

Wolverine (A.K.A. Logan) is practically everyone’s favorite member of the X-Men (though mine is Storm). Black Cat (A.K.A. Felicia Hardy) is a cat burglar extraordinaire and Spider-Man femme fatale. Wolverine & Black Cat: Claws 2 #1 takes place after the events of the first series and finds Wolverine and Black Cat back in New York City. They’re enjoying an evening of food and romance at a swanky eatery. Meanwhile, their adversaries from the first miniseries, Arcade and his partner White Rabbit, have also found their way back to NYC to give Logan and Felicia a dose of revenge.

The prolific writing team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray can deliver on an action premise (see Radical Publishing’s Time Bomb). Claws 2 is a simple superhero fight comic book with no pretensions to be a character drama or landmark miniseries. There’s violence, humor, and the threat of Wolverine engaging in sexual intercourse. Claws 2 proves that even the team that delivered on the nail-biting Time Bomb can deliver a tepid, mildly humorous, X-Men product.

The art and graphical storytelling by Joseph Michael Linsner look as if they belong in a Marvel comic book from the 1970s or 1980s. Linsner’s drawing style is like a new version of Dave Cockrum’s drawing style with touches of Wally Wood and Eric Stanton. Marvel’s EiC-turned-CCO once referred to a comic book artist friend of mine’s drawing style as passé. Considering that statement, I’m surprised that Linsner’s “old school” graphical approach has anyplace at Marvel, especially in the industrial part of this publisher/trademark maintenance firm that cranks out Wolverine comic books every hour on the hour.

Still, there is an innate charm to Linsner’s work, and his compositions and page designs yield results that really do look like genuine comic book graphics and visuals instead of looking like paintings trying to be comics. His storytelling has a sense of humor and imagination.

I would say that readers looking for something different in Wolverine should give Wolverine & Black Cat: Claws 2 a try. That difference is Linsner.

B

[This comic book features a five-page preview of The Punisher #1, a new series from writer Greg Rucka, artist Marco Checchetto, and colorist Matt Hollingsworth with covers by Bryan Hitch.]