What evil lurks in this week’s ComicList? Probably plenty, but let’s cast our eyes toward the light. Unless the evil looks like it’s having a much better time.
Wolverine: Prodigal Son Vol. 1 (Del Rey): Del Rey and Marvel’s mutant-manga hybrid debuts with this story of a teen-aged Logan entering the big, bad world after years in a secluded martial arts academy in the Canadian wilderness. If the unexamined life isn’t worth living, than our pointy-haired X-Man’s life has added value like you would not believe. Doesn’t he have an entire ongoing series just devoted to his origin? Now we have the adventures of Wolver-teen to fill in one of the few remaining gaps, at least in an “Elseworlds” kind of way. (And yes, I know that DC did the “Elseworlds” books. You know what I mean.)
Written by Anthony Johnston and illustrated by Wilson Tortosa, it’s an interesting fusion of two tastes (Marvel super-heroes and shônen manga) that have not traditionally tasted great together. It’s Logan without any of the baggage that might render his ongoing comics impenetrable to people who just liked the character from the X-Men movies and the upcoming solo flick starring Hugh Jackman in a sleeveless undershirt.
Excuse me… I need a moment.
Sorry about that. Anyway, I think it’s got enough recognizable character trappings welded to the young-man-with-a-quest structure that works so well for so many manga series. Purists may howl, but are there even any Wolverine purists left? Don’t they blink out of existence every time a new origin story is published? I don’t know how these things work. Sleeveless-undershirt-Jackman aside, I’ve never been that interested in Wolverine.
Here’s Eva Volin’s review for ICv2.
Nightschool Vol. 1 (Yen Press): One of the clear lottery winners in Tokyopop’s global manga program was undoubtedly Svetlana (Dramacon) Chmakova, who demonstrated buckets of raw talent in her debut work. This is her follow-up work, which has been serialized in Yen Plus and now sees the publication of its first paperback collection.