Wolverine, Volume 8: Covenant

Wolverine (2010) (Collected Editions)

by Cullen Bunn, Paul Pelletier (Artist)

Martial arts, super science, and sorcery! How is Wolverine connected to the secret society known as the Covenant? As Wolverine battles the Murderous Lion in a no-holds barred Kung-Fu throwdown, Melita uncovers the Covenant's secrets. Who is the Dreaming Maiden - and why does the mysterious Covenant want her dead? Wolverine teams with monster-hunter Elsa Bloodstone, and discovers the Floating Castle...but with the Covenant hot on their trail, can Wolverine keep the Deaming Maiden alive? Meanwhile, Melita makes a discovery that will change Wolverine - and her - forever!

Collecting: Wolverine 314-317

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, X Men, Superheroes, Adventure

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Cullen grew up in rural North Carolina, but now lives in the St. Louis area with his wife Cindy and his son Jackson. His noir/horror comic (and first collaboration with Brian Hurtt), The Damned, was published in 2007 by Oni Press. The follow-up, The Damned: Prodigal Sons, was released in 2008. In addition to The Sixth Gun, his current projects include Crooked Hills, a middle reader horror prose series from Evileye Books; The Tooth, an original graphic novel from Oni Press; and various work for Marvel and DC. Somewhere along the way, Cullen founded Undaunted Press and edited the critically acclaimed small press horror magazine, Whispers from the Shattered Forum.

All writers must pay their dues, and Cullen has worked various odd jobs, including Alien Autopsy Specialist, Rodeo Clown, Professional Wrestler Manager, and Sasquatch Wrangler.

And, yes, he has fought for his life against mountain lions and he did perform on stage as the World's Youngest Hypnotist. Buy him a drink sometime, and he'll tell you all about it.

Visit his website at www.cullenbunn.com.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Cullen Bunn a lot, his Deadpool Killology has been great and I hear his Sixth Gun series is awesome (I have Vol 1 on my to-read pile), so I was looking forward to his take on Wolverine. Unfortunately, it's not very good despite the many interesting elements thrown in.

Wolverine was hired by a mysterious group of ambiguously aligned individuals called the Covenant in the 1930s to assassinate a powerful psychic - except he let her go. She turned into glass as her dreaming spells were too dangerous if she were alive - years later and those dreams have turned into nightmares that could mean the end of the world. The Covenant approach Wolverine to once again track her down and finish the job but others are on the trail like Elsa Bloodstone, daughter of one of the members of the Covenant - will Wolverine get to her in time?

The story feels like both Bunn and Wolverine on autopilot. Wolverine snickts his way through kung-fu masters, killer robots, all of which should be fun but read quite flatly, until the weirdly magical plot resolves itself. The story doesn't seem very well thought out and despite the repeated end of the world murmurings, doesn't really convince the reader of any urgency or danger.

The artwork is so-so, it's neither terrible enough to distract from the story nor great enough to really impress. It's the Marvel house style of competent and overly polished digital artwork that'll serve just about any character. The colours feel a bit muted lending a rather drab aura to the already lacklustre story.

There's also a one-shot issue of Captain America and Namor set in WW2 where the two encounter the Covenant and fight the Kraken, which isn't bad but, like everything else in this comic, feels run-of-the-mill and strangely uninvolving. The artwork is a lot better in this issue though.

Despite Wolverine being a hugely popular character, he doesn't have many great books written about him - Jason Aaron and Mark Millar are basically the two who've written the best books about him. I hoped Cullen Bunn was going to join that elite group of writers but based on Wolverine: Covenant, that's not the case. A forgettable, trite comic.

[Nicole Westen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know Wolverine isn't exactly portrayed as a lady's man... but damn, in the span of one human lifetime he has enough ex-girlfriends that they form their own mercenary team.

[Joe Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first Wolverine graphic novel I've read, and to be honest, it wasn't half bad. There was a bit of confusion on my part, but that would be because I've never read any of the previous storylines, so that makes sense. As I am usually a more avid reader of novels, I would have liked a bit more in terms of plot development, but the overall story I felt was an interesting one, if not, brief. I'd say it was a relatively steady first graphic novel read.

[Adam Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dull follow-up to the Rot storyline where a group of Wolverine's exes have to form a mercenary team to go save him when a group of villains from Wolverine's past, that you've never heard of, resurface with some vague threat about some spiritual mumbo jumbo that's never fully explained, never really seems to be much of a threat, and is taken down by accident, robbing the story of having any sort of sense of importance.

There are a lot of worse Wolverine stories but there are many more better stories. Skip this one.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, Cullen Bunn is capable of so much better. Every writer seems to have a Wolverine story in them where they introduce a group from Logan's long history that somehow are still alive. They are almost always bad. Here, that's true as well. The Covenant is lame and won't be seen again (hopefully). The art is the only thing that keeps this from a worse rating.

[Frans Kempe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wolverine finds himself fighting against the Covenant to save the dreaming maiden.

[William Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Westerns and samurai cinema. Two sides of the same coin. You watch 'Seven Samurai' and are floored by the story and the camera work, and then you watch 'The Magnificent Seven' and feel the exact same way about it. Even though M7 is a remake of 7S, it doesn't matter. What matters is the execution. And the reason I love samurais and gunslingers is because of the stories. These stories are always about revenge, or defending the weak, or revenge. Full of anti-heroes with spotty pasts, the focus of the movies is on their redemption. Or for their honor, they must avenge a death. And what it all comes down to is that their instruments must drink the blood of their enemies. Guns or swords, they must be fed. This is my favorite type of story. 'Unforgiven', 'Zatoichi', M7, 7S, and so on, there is no better, more primal story line in my opinion. It speaks to me on every level. You know how many nights my sick ass has lain awake thinking about what I would do if someone killed my brother? The path of my vengeance?

So that's really all we need from Wolverine. He should always be the epitome of both the gunslinger and the samurai. They used to get this one right. Used to have it right on the head. Somewhere along the line writers began to make it more about his muddled past and how many different conspiracies raged against him. That's when I stopped caring very much. But Jason Aaron takes over or Mark Millar takes over and they pull me back in because these are great storytellers. Same thing happened with Cullen Bunn. I was a fan of his 'Sixth Gun' writing, and so when he was named the new Wolverine writer, I thought "praise Jesus, we're going to have a whole heap of western revenge and redemption stories, hallelujah."

I was wrong about that. Not much of Bunn's western style transferred over into 'Wolverine'. I didn't care much because I thought "Rot" was a badass story and a great arc. Wolverine up against mad scientists is always fun. Well, almost always. Charlie Huston's arcs didn't really do much for me. Anyway, this is probably the weakest I've seen Bunn's writing. Although I don't need every story to have huge implications or be enormous in scope, this one seemed particularly weak. I had very little motivation to finish it. Even though there are kung-fu masters and evil scientists and Elsa Bloodstone and killer robots, it just falls flat.

Pelletier's style of art is classic 90's fair and enjoyable. I'd say the coloring is where the art fails. Everything looks washed out. Pelletier's art would benefit from strong, straight colors instead of dull and matte washes. The real gems here are the covers. Altogether too gorgeous for Wolverine covers, these paintings could be featured in Hi-Fructose magazine. They are just gorgeous.

Writing: C
Art: B

[Alex Sarll]

A secret society of pulp adventurers. Elsa Bloodstone. A flying castle. A Kirbytech ancient evil. Loads of promising ingredients, and I normally enjoy Bunn's comics, so how come this felt so wholly devoid of heft or point?

[James Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really cool Wolverine story, taking him away from the X-Men and into exotic locales and a solid story of his own.

[Nazary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a cute little story but between the shady, mostly unexplained Covenant to the vague quasi-threat, to Wolverine's VERY unlikely allies it was all kind of hard to follow.

[Coral Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting idea but not as well executed as it could have been. Such a shame. Lovely artwork though.

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Artist Paul Pelletier is a dependable, fun comics artist collaborator.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

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