Charles Soule Archives

Welcome to this week's Four-Color Bullet, the only comic book review column not rebooting with an all-female cast. This week in the comicsverse, those guys at Marvel bring us the second issue of Avengers vs. X-Men: AXIS, wherein our heroes learn the horrible secret of the Red Skull's Genoshan Re-education camps; Edge of Spider-Verse #5 introduces us to another player in the upcoming Spider-Verse saga: SP//dr; and Wolverine is dead, but who will be shaped more by his legacy? His allies or his enemies?, in Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy. From DC this week, Part One of The Amazo Virus begins in Justice League #35; Huntress and Power Girl return home to defend it from the forces of Apokolips, in Earth 2: World's End #2; and Raven's night out lands the Titans in trouble, in Teen Titans #5. Writer: Charles SouleArtists: Steve McNiven and Justin PonsorMARVEL "Death of ..." issues in comics are almost always gimmicky. Ask those of us who were around when Superman died, or even when they retconned Jean Grey's death in X-Men. The death of Wolverine, while assuredly not permanent, was handled in a very non-gimmick way. Fans knew for some time that this was coming. It wasn't like the good old days when if a character died, you didn't know about it until you read the issue. Death of Wolverine #4, and the entire series for that matter, has been great. Charles Soule, who is one of Marvel's best writers, did a fantastic job at writing a well-paced story no one had done before. Aside from his death, which does happen, we see many favorite allies and enemies, reminding us what a long and storied life Logan had. Throw some Steve McNiven and Justin Ponsor art, this series was just about as good as it could have been. I have a gripe ... one solitary gripe ... but we'll get to that in a minute. I'm not coming out with spoilers of any sort. If you were a Wolverine fan of any caliber, you need to read this series. This comic book nerd thought it was a heroic and touching send off that was very Shakespearean to me and honored one of Comicdom's most iconic characters. For decades, fans read Wolverine's famous dialogue: "I'm the best there is at what I do," often followed by, "and what I do ain't very nice. Bub." What Wolverine does this issue confirms his being the best. If that last page doesn't stir something, I'd almost say you're not a fan of literature. My only real gripe, is that I felt that it didn't have to take four issues to tell this story. Sometimes it felt like Soule wanted to add more but didn't have the time. This was just a great series, and the final issue was powerful, and just one of the best Wolverine stories I've read in a long time. And now that Wolverine is dead, his legacy will live on. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. Because it looks like Marvel's 2015 Secret Wars reboot ... well ... I wouldn't count the old Canuck out for long. And that wraps up this week's Four-Color Bullet. For the next four weeks, I'll be ... busy, so you can catch your favorite comic book review column on Saturdays during that time. As for my whereabouts, stay tuned to SCIFI.radio for that info. They'll have interesting pics. It's a great time to be a comics fan. See you next Saturday! -30-

Four-Color Bullet: ‘Death of Wolverine’ #4

Comic Review: She-Hulk #1

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