Wolverine: Blood & Sorrow

Wolverine (2003) (Collected Editions) #7.5

by Stuart Moore, Rob Williams, David Lapham

The feral X-Man fights along in four standalone stories In The Package, Logan must escape from an army of savage killers Deep in the heart of war-torn Africa - with a baby strapped to his chest The infant daughter of an overthrown monarch is the only hope for a country's future, and the conquering warlord is determined to see her dead. Can Wolverine get her to the border alive? Or will his greatest failure doom an entire nation? In Better To Give, a heavily armed suicide cult - clad in elf outfits - has taken hostage a mid-Manhattan department store on Christmas Eve and is threatening to blow the place sky high. Among the shoppers: Logan, who's just itching to sink his (Santa) claws into someone after enduring the Yuletide rush. Should be easy for a damn-near invulnerable force of nature to save the day, right? Think again. All is not as it seems, as a spoiled billionaire's daughter is about to find out, and the true meaning of Christmas will be spelt out... in blood. In The House of Blood and Sorrow, Wolverine lies at the edge of death in a rural Nebraska cornfield after crashing to Earth in the wake of a clash with a giant robot at the edge of the atmosphere, lapsing in and out of a coma as his body desperately tries to heal. And that's when things really get bad. The men who sent the robot to destroy Wolverine have come to finish the job. The townsfolk who witnessed the crash have gathered up a mob to hunt down and destroy the alien that's landed. And Wolverine's fate just might rest in the hands of the strange little girl who first found him in that dark cornfield. A strange little girl with an affinity for taking care of odd creatures - and whose family holds a deep, dark secret hidden from the light of day. And in "The Healing," Logan lies gutted in a Northwest forest, surrounded by wolves and clinging onto hope and sanity as his body goes about the complicated work of repairing itself. It's not as easy as you might think.

Collecting: Wolverine 41, 49; Giant-Size Wolverine 1; X-Men Unlimited 12

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, X Men, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Science Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published July 11, 2007

About the author

STUART MOORE is a writer, a book editor, and an award-winning comics editor.

Among his current writing projects are THE ZODIAC LEGACY, created and cowritten by Stan Lee and published by Disney, featuring an all-new team of teenaged super heroes in a series of illustrated prose novels and graphic novels; DOMINION: LAST SACRIFICE, a comic book series for Amazon/Jet City; and THANOS: DEATH SENTENCE, an original Marvel prose novel. Recent work includes EGOs, an original comic book series from Image Comics, and GARTER'S BIG SCORE, an original ebook novella for Kindle. He also contributed two series, TEACH and OUT WITH A BANG, to the launch of the online comics app Stela. Other comics work includes WOLVERINE NOIR and NAMOR: THE FIRST MUTANT (Marvel); FIRESTORM (DC Comics); assorted Star Trek and Transformers projects; and the science-fiction graphic novels EARTHLIGHT, PARA, SHADRACH STONE, and MANDALA. Prose writing includes the novel version of Marvel’s CIVIL WAR, and Disney Worldwide's JOHN CARTER: THE MOVIE NOVELIZATION.

Reviews

[Sr3yas]

Do you want to read a collection of Wolverine stories which are mediocre in terms of story and art?



You've come to the right place.

This collection sucks. Four absolutely unremarkable short stories where Logan contemplates his pain, ethics, and inner berserker.



Me too. Skip.

[Valentin Derevlean]

3.5-4, în ciuda ratingurilor negative din comentarii.
Arta grozavă în primele povești, ultima sare calul și e slabă și ca story și ca desen. E un număr construit fără un fir narativ comun, singurele asemănări fiind perioada aproximativ aceeași din care sunt selectate poveștile și firea de luptător până la autodistrugere a lui Wolverine.

Stuart Moore și David Lapham fac o treabă bună când vine vorba de artă. Poveștile sunt diverse, fiecare în universul ei, așa că se pot citi lejer câte una pe seară. E mai degrabă un volum dedicat fanilor Wolverine, se poate trăi și fără el, cu siguranță.

[Krzysztof Grabowski]

Mam spory zgryz z oceną tej antologii, złożonej z czterech tak różnych opowiadań, bowiem na dobrą sprawę całkowicie podobało mi się tylko jedno z nich...

Ranny Wolverine składa swoje wnętrzności, leżąc na śniegu gdzieś w górach. Szkopuł w tym, że obok zebrała się wataha wilków, która czyta tylko aż ofiara wyzionie ducha. Nie tym razem, ale jest miejsce na wewnętrzne przemyślenia oraz dywagacje nad czynnikiem gojącym. Kreska nie zachwyca, a opowiadanie jest... zbędne. Nic nie wnosi ponadto co dotychczas dało się zobaczyć.

Potem mamy zmianę klimatu. Środek Afryki. Czarna Pantera podrzuca samolotem Logana, gdzieś nad wrogie terytorium w celu uzyskania "pakunku", jaki okazuje się być słodkim bobasem. Momentami opowieść była dobra, aczkolwiek skoki na grupkę bandytów z kałachami, którzy otwierają do Ciebie ogień, a na klatce masz rzeczone bobo... Toż to sito by z tego maleństwa zostało. Takie pół plusa, powiedźmy.

Na główne danie trzeba było poczekać. Jest taki dom, obok którego rozbija się robot, do którego niefortunnie doczepiony był Rosomak. Dziewczynka zamieszkująca te miejsce postanawia udzielić pomocy X-manowi. Niestety lokalni "patrioci" biorą zajście za akcję UFO i zaczyna się nagonka. W tle mamy kolejne roboty, które polują na Logana oraz tajemnicę samego domu, która zaskoczyła mnie na tyle pozytywnie, że podniesie nieco ocenę całości. No i ta przytłaczająca czerń oraz kontury postaci czasem rodem z kreskówki. Zwłaszcza moment, gdy szeryf z wieśniakiem znajdują szczątki robota. Dobre.

Tom kończy historia umiejscowiona w markecie podczas okresu świątecznego. Mamy osobistość chronioną przez ochroniarzy i masywny atak terrorystyczny dokonany... przez elfy i Mikołaja(-ów). Oczywiście przestępcy wybrali sobie stosowny ubiór. Nie było tutaj nic ciekawego, a miejscami było to nawet przegadane, a całość kończy się tak jak zakładałem.

Jako ciekawostka, można zobaczyć, ale czy zakupić? Raczej wypożyczyć z biblioteki, bo poziom całości jest średni(by nie rzec: mierna), za wyjątkiem opowiadania jakie promuje okładka. Wolverine (2003) jest bardzo dziwną serią. Co autor to inna koncepcja, która nie ma ciągłości fabularnej. Z jednej strony dzięki temu mamy takie perełki jak Old Man Logan, z drugiej takie coś jak to...

[Roshan]

Wolverine: Blood & Sorrow (2007)
Writers: Stuart Moore, David Lapham, Rob Williams
Artists: C.P. Smith, David Aja, Laurence Campbell
Series: Wolverine Vol. 3 (2003) #41, #49
Genre: Superhero, Thriller, Drama, Adventure

Synopsis:
Four standalone Wolverine stories ranging from him healing in the middle of nowhere and fighting Hydra to dealing with Black Christmess and accepting a mission from Black Panther.
The Healing
Wolverine monologues his way through an explanation of his healing process while being circled by a pack of hungry wolves.
There isn’t much of a story here beyond giving readers an inside look at the psyche of a man who undergoes extreme pain every time his body heals itself. It’s a simple concept, but it does a good job of showing the physical and psychological toll of Wolverine’s abilities.
The Package
As civil war breaks out in a corrupt African nation, Wolverine must transport a baby out of the chaos and into safe hands.
A nicely told story, with Wolverine being forced to hold himself back while protecting the baby. The artwork is good, with a few panels standing out in particular.
House of Blood & Sorrow
Wolverine lands in a strange town in North Dakota. Mistaken for an alien, the villagers approach and attempt to attack him.
This story has noticeably more gore than the others. The tale is entertaining and builds towards a strong climax. The artwork is a little more abstract than the rest of the collection.
Better to Give
A kidnapping group known as Black Christmess threatens to blow up Lacy’s on Christmas Eve, just as Wolverine happens to be doing some Christmas shopping.
This one falls more on the filler side of things. There’s nothing particularly new or noteworthy, though it remains an enjoyable enough Wolverine story.

Overall, these four standalone tales mainly focus on Wolverine’s insane healing ability and the pain and suffering it inflicts on both his body and mind. There are also some excellent panels capturing Wolverine’s powers, brutality, and rage.

RJG Rating: 3.25/5
Goodreads: 3.37/5

[C]

Continuing the great X-read of 2017 that has now stretched into 2018...

Okay. So I am way behind on reviewing these x-books that I have been reading. So I am going to just kind of ramble about all of them and copy/paste my thoughts. Which will make for a bit of a mess and I am sorry. Quick ramblings:

Cable and Deadpool continues to be surprisingly good though a little more scattered in these couple of volumes.
X-Men the Blood of Apocalypse was rushed in my opinion...
Phoenix Warsong was pretty decent. Melodramatic but not a bad story. (and when is a Phoenix story not melodramatic?)
New X-Men is a good series with some great characters that grow volume by volume.
Uncanny First Foursaken was not my cup of tea really.
Black Panther: The Bride was probably much better to BP readers. As part of an X-Men run, it can probably be skipped.
Wolverine Origins born in blood was not particularly memorable.
Astonishing X-Men will possibly get its own review as it is a reread and interesting as such...
Civil War was one of the first times in my life that I could say that the movie was better than the book. For the most part, it was really boring to me. The X-Men universe tie-ins were only slightly more interesting to me.
X-factor continues to be a delight.
Exiles continues to be great.

I need to get back to writing reviews of these as I finish them. Reading them in quick succession like this, I begin to forget what happened in individual books (which I suppose equally speaks to the books themselves and my memory...)

[Adam Stone]

This is a decent anthology of Wolverine stories that don't have any importance to the wider X-verse but each serve as a solid example of a typical Wolverine story. Apart from the opening story, which is a summation of what goes through Wolverine's mind after he's gravely injured, each story has Wolverine trying to protect a young girl from some sort of evil. He carries a baby through a war-torn African nation, he shields a young girl from a terrified mob and her own mutated mother, and he tracks down the kidnapped daughter of a millionaire during Christmas at a NY department store.

Each story has a different tone and creative team but they all feel like archetypal Wolverine story set against a slightly different backdrop: political story, haunted house/scifi story, and popcorn action flick.

While you absolutely don't need to read this book for continuity reasons, it's a fun assortment of tales if you're a Wolverine fan looking for a book to read on a rainy day.

[Alex]

This was great. The pacing, art, and plot were all pitch perfect.

[Jamil]

3.5

[Max]

house of blood and sorrow was my favorite story in here! really cool

[zyribubut]

the stories are so horrible, and it devastates me because the art for "the package" and "house of blood and sorrow" was great.

[Mark Medland]

Decent collection of stand alones

[J.]

An excellent collection:

The Healing - great art, but not much to the story. Some insight into Wolverine's psychology, but nothing really new.

House of Blood and Sorrow - great, creepy story with really fitting, moody art. Excellent.

The Package - another one where the story and art are both great, and fit together well. Wolverine running through a war zone with a baby strapped to his chest: LOL.

Better to Give - good-but-not-great all the way around. Entertaining enough, and it does have an excellent gag in it, from page 1 to page 2.

[Fugo Feedback]

Después tengo que corroborar si leí todos y cada uno de los números que componen este tomo. El de la portada seguro que sí, y hay altas probabilidades de que muchos de los otros también. Cuando lo corrobore veré.

[Jostalady]

It was alright, I liked Evolution better. The art was better in Evolution and the story arc more connected.

[Sam]

Very good. Particularly liked "The Package". My favorite Super of all time for sure.

[Chris Nelms]

Liked the varied illustrations, the stories could have been better.

[Gavin]

Pretty lame grab bag of stuff.