I Reads You Review: THE INCREDIBLE HULK AND WOLVERINE #1

THE INCREDIBLE HULK AND WOLVERINE #1
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

WRITERS: Len Wein, Mary Jo Duffy
PENCILS: Herb Trimpe, Ken Landgraf
INKS: Jack Abel, George Perez
COLORS: Christie Scheele
LETTERS: Artie Simek, Michael Higgins
EDITOR: Roy Thomas, Jim Shooter
EIC: Jim Shooter
COVER: John Byrne and Jack Abel with George Roussos
48pp, Color, $2.00 (October 1986)

In the summer of 1986, Marvel Comics published The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine #1.  This was a one-shot, single-issue comic book that reprinted The Incredible Hulk #180 and #181 (cover-dated November 1974).  Issue #180 (cover-dated October 1974) contained the first appearance of Wolverine, as a cameo in the final panel of the last page.  Issue #181 features the first full appearance of Wolverine.  Of course, Wolverine is a member of the X-Men and one of Marvel Comics’ most popular characters.

The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine #1 also includes the short story, “Wolverine and Hercules,” which originally appeared in Marvel Treasury Edition #26 (1980).  “Wolverine: The Evolution of a Character” is an essay at the back of this comic book.  It is written by former Marvel writer and editor, Peter Sanderson, and details the creation of Wolverine and also provides a fictional biography of the character.  This text piece includes spot illustrations and other art drawn by John Romita, Paul Smith and Joe Rubinstein; John Byrne and Terry Austin; John Romita, Jr. and Dan Green; and Frank Miller and Joe Rubinstein.

The Incredible Hulk #180 finds the Hulk returning to Canada.  There, deep in the Canadian woods, the emerald behemoth finds himself caught in a conspiracy involving Marie Cartier and Georges Baptiste.  Marie’s brother, Paul Cartier, bears the curse that transforms him into “the hideous cannibal beast,” known as the Wendigo.

Marie has devised a plan to transfer the Wendigo’s form to the Hulk.  Events don’t follow her planning once Hulk and Wendigo engage in an epic battle.  Meanwhile, at a top secret Royal Canadian Air Force Tracking Installation, military authorities are not about to allow the Hulk to rampage through Canada again.  They’re sending something called “Weapon X” to take care of the green giant.

The Incredible Hulk #181 begins with Wolverine revealing himself to the Hulk and the Wendigo and launching himself into their battle.  This three-way fight devolves into a death match between the Hulk and the Wolverine.  Meanwhile, Georges Baptiste makes a fateful decision about him and Marie Cartier’s plan to save her brother from the curse of the Wendigo.

When The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine #1 arrived on newsstands and in comic book shops, it gave me a chance to read the story in which Wolverine made his first appearance, and I was ecstatic about that opportunity.  I would read the story again in a single-issue facsimile reprint of The Incredible Hulk #181.

I long ago lost or sold my original copy of The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine #1, but a recent at sale at super comics retailer Mile High Comics’ website allowed me to get another copy.  I had forgotten that even with a $2.00 cover price, The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine #1 was just a cheapie reprint.  At a time when comic book publishers, large and small, were moving to heavier and whiter paper stocks, Marvel Comics printed The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine #1 on newsprint.  The print quality ranges from mediocre to tolerable, and the colors don’t “pop” off the page the way they do today.  With newsprint, things like details, borders, and lettering can fade or even not fully print.

I think that at the time this was originally published Marvel Comics was printing anything that would help with their market share and that could make a lot of money with little investment.  The Hulk stories here were bought and paid for over a decade earlier, and who knows if the creators got any royalty payments from this reprinting.  Like I said, high return on low investment.

That aside, I like these old Hulk comics.  Writer Len Wein’s ability to create a compelling story out of monster comics and supernatural melodrama is a sign of the skill that made him a standout comic book creator and editor in the 1970s and 1980s.  Penciller Herb Trimpe, one of my favorites, mixes the dynamism and fury of Jack Kirby (who was obviously an influence on Trimpe) with the cartoon mysticism of Steve Ditko.  This is classic comic book art and graphical storytelling – monster comics and mystic mumbo-jumbo.

It is also fun to look at this early Wolverine-in-the-raw, which is practically nothing like what the character would become in the decades that followed his first appearance.  So I grade this comic book not on the cheap newsprint reproduction, but on the fun old comics.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


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I Reads You Review: WOLVERINE Volume 1

WOLVERINE VOL. 1
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

WRITER: Chris Claremont
PENCILS: Frank Miller
INKS: Josef Rubinstein
COLORS: Glynis Oliver (#1-3), Lynn Varley (#4)
LETTERS: Tom Orzechowski
COVER: Frank Miller with Lynn Varley
EDITOR: Louise Jones
REPRINT EDITOR: Ann Nocenti
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Terry Kavanagh
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Jim Shooter
ISBN: 0-87135-277-X; paperback (1987)
96pp, Colors, $4.95 U.S., $5.95 CAN

Wolverine received his first solo comic book in the form of a four-issue miniseries, entitled Wolverine, which was originally published from September to December 1982.  Written by Chris Claremont and penciled by Frank Miller, Wolverine tells the story of Logan/Wolverine’s mission to Japan to learn why the love of his life has rejected him.

For the last decade or so, readers have become used to trade paperbacks arriving shortly after the publication of the story arcs and miniseries that they collect – sometimes as soon as a month after a story arc or series conclusion.  Once upon a time, trade paperback collections were not common.  Wolverine, which collected the miniseries, Wolverine (Vol. 1 #1-4) was published almost five years after the original miniseries first appeared on newsstands and in comic book shops.  Even the indicia for the trade paperback was nothing more than the indicia for Wolverine #1 with a few changes to indicate new dates and prices, as well as the change in Marvel Comics’ ownership.

I suggest that before jumping into this series (and it is worth jumping into) that you read Chris Claremont’s introduction to you story.  That introduction appeared in the original version of the Wolverine trade paperback.  I must note that I am reviewing Wolverine from a 1987 first printing of the trade paperback.  I don’t know if the introduction has appeared in subsequent collected editions of the miniseries.  Claremont explains how he approached the story and why he used it as an opportunity to redefine Wolverine.

For a time, this book was a personal favorite, one I subjected to numerous readings, but I think it has been close to two decades since I last read it.  Reading it for the first time in a long time, I found that (1) I still love this story and (2) there is something about it that has been nagging at me.  After finishing my recent read, I figured out what that something is.  Chris Claremont and Frank Miller were working together to tell the same story, but they were telling it by using different genres.

First, the plot of the 1982 Wolverine miniseries:  Wolverine is spending time away from the X-Men in Canada.  He discovers that all the letters which he has been sending to Mariko Yashida, the Japanese woman he loves, have been returned unopened.  She does not respond to his telephone calls, nor will anyone connected to Mariko help him make contact with her.

Wolverine travels to Japan, where he discovers that Mariko has entered into an arranged marriage to Noburu Hideki.  This arrangement has something to do with a debt incurred by Mariko’s father, Shingen, Lord of Clan Yashida, whom Mariko once believed to be dead.  Wolverine confronts Shingen only to be easily bested in combat by the clan lord, and then, finds himself marked for death by The Hand, an organization of ninja assassins.  Wolverine’s only ally may be Yukio, a mysterious woman of questionable motivations, who is crazy in love with Wolverine.

Claremont states in the introduction that he and Miller “wanted to utterly, ruthlessly and seemingly irrevocably destroy” Wolverine.  They would use their story to make the character better.  Neither creator was interested in the Wolverine that, at the time, was so popular with readers.  That was Wolverine the “pint-sized, hell-raiser with a hair-trigger temper.”  Claremont wanted a character that was more complicated.  Why just play Wolverine as a “psycho-killer” and an animal when he could be a human who struggles with his killer/animal nature?

Claremont reveals in the introduction that he saw Wolverine as a “failed samurai.”  Thus, he wrote a story in which Wolverine struggles to attain pride, self-respect, and honor, while circumstances require him to be a berserk killer.  By exploring this conflict and struggle, Claremont uses character to drive the plot rather than have plot drive the character, which is what would happen if the story was simply about Wolverine killing his adversaries and other assorted people who want to kill him.  Basically, Claremont tells Wolverine’s story as a samurai drama with a side of existential crisis.

Meanwhile, Frank Miller tells Wolverine the character drama as a kind of crime thriller and martial arts ninja movie.  Miller’s popularity with comic book readers isn’t just because of the many unique and varied drawing styles that he has employed over the better part of forty years of drawing comic books.  Miller captures readers with his graphical storytelling – using graphics and illustrations that are connected to tell a story, but Miller does this in an especially visually arresting manner.

Miller has mastered design, not just in the way he presents pages, but also in the way he composes content within panels, connects one panel to another, and how he uses and manipulates space.  He uses the comics medium to suggest, to evoke, to prod, to provoke, and even to challenge his readers.  He goes beyond simply engaging imagination; he goes after the reader’s emotions, and that is what his pencil art does in Wolverine.  Miller tells this Wolverine character drama by visualizing the struggle between man/samurai and animal/killer with bracing depictions of battle, duels, violence, and tests of will.  Whereas Claremont uses dialogue and exposition, Miller uses visceral action.

What else can I say?  I loved going back and reading Wolverine in anticipation of the movie, The Wolverine.  This film is apparently based in part on Claremont and Miller’s seminal Wolverine miniseries, and the filmmakers could not have made a better choice.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux