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Wolverine by Jason Aaron: The Complete Collection
Wolverine by Jason Aaron: The Complete Collection, Vol. 4
He's the best there is at what he does...and Wolverine's not so bad, either. Writer Jason Aaron's (PUNISHERMAX, Scalped) acclaimed and character-defining Wolverine run concludes in this final volume! Joined by some of comics' top artists, Aaron puts Wolverine through a physical and emotional wringer as the feral hero wreaks vengeance on the Red Right Hand, the group that sent him to Hell...but the final twist in their horrific plan might shatt er Wolverine's spirit completely!
COLLECTING: Wolverine 10-20, 300-304
COLLECTING: Wolverine 10-20, 300-304
408 pages, Paperback
First published December 9, 2014
20 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Jason Aaron
2,351 books1,680 followersJason Aaron grew up in a small town in Alabama. His cousin, Gustav Hasford, who wrote the semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, on which the feature film Full Metal Jacket was based, was a large influence on Aaron. Aaron decided he wanted to write comics as a child, and though his father was skeptical when Aaron informed him of this aspiration, his mother took Aaron to drug stores, where he would purchase books from spinner racks, some of which he still owns today.
Aaron's career in comics began in 2001 when he won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with an eight-page Wolverine back-up story script. The story, which was published in Wolverine #175 (June 2002), gave him the opportunity to pitch subsequent ideas to editors.
In 2006, Aaron made a blind submission to DC/Vertigo, who published his first major work, the Vietnam War story The Other Side which was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Miniseries, and which Aaron regards as the "second time" he broke into the industry.
Following this, Vertigo asked him to pitch other ideas, which led to the series Scalped, a creator-owned series set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and published by DC/Vertigo.
In 2007, Aaron wrote Ripclaw: Pilot Season for Top Cow Productions. Later that year, Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who was impressed by The Other Side and Scalped, hired Aaron to write issues of Wolverine, Black Panther and eventually, an extended run on Ghost Rider that began in April 2008. His continued work on Black Panther also included a tie-in to the company-wide crossover storyline along with a "Secret Invasion" with David Lapham in 2009.
In January 2008, he signed an exclusive contract with Marvel, though it would not affect his work on Scalped. Later that July, he wrote the Penguin issue of The Joker's Asylum.
After a 4-issue stint on Wolverine in 2007, Aaron returned to the character with the ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X, launched to coincide with the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Aaron commented, "With Wolverine: Weapon X we'll be trying to mix things up like that from arc to arc, so the first arc is a typical sort of black ops story but the second arc will jump right into the middle of a completely different genre," In 2010, the series was relaunched once again as simply Wolverine. He followed this with his current run on Thor: God of Thunder.
Aaron's career in comics began in 2001 when he won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with an eight-page Wolverine back-up story script. The story, which was published in Wolverine #175 (June 2002), gave him the opportunity to pitch subsequent ideas to editors.
In 2006, Aaron made a blind submission to DC/Vertigo, who published his first major work, the Vietnam War story The Other Side which was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Miniseries, and which Aaron regards as the "second time" he broke into the industry.
Following this, Vertigo asked him to pitch other ideas, which led to the series Scalped, a creator-owned series set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and published by DC/Vertigo.
In 2007, Aaron wrote Ripclaw: Pilot Season for Top Cow Productions. Later that year, Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who was impressed by The Other Side and Scalped, hired Aaron to write issues of Wolverine, Black Panther and eventually, an extended run on Ghost Rider that began in April 2008. His continued work on Black Panther also included a tie-in to the company-wide crossover storyline along with a "Secret Invasion" with David Lapham in 2009.
In January 2008, he signed an exclusive contract with Marvel, though it would not affect his work on Scalped. Later that July, he wrote the Penguin issue of The Joker's Asylum.
After a 4-issue stint on Wolverine in 2007, Aaron returned to the character with the ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X, launched to coincide with the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Aaron commented, "With Wolverine: Weapon X we'll be trying to mix things up like that from arc to arc, so the first arc is a typical sort of black ops story but the second arc will jump right into the middle of a completely different genre," In 2010, the series was relaunched once again as simply Wolverine. He followed this with his current run on Thor: God of Thunder.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 2, 2019
This final volume collecting Jason Aaron's Wolverine material (there is a main run, in some sense, but it is not unbroken and includes additional material like miniseries and such) stays true to the form established in volumes one, two and three in that it too is uneven (although, perhaps, levelling out a bit more).
The volume opens with Wolverine's Revenge (from Wolverine #10-14), which is drawn by Renato Guedes, whose art is all right, but no favourite of mine. The narrative as such wraps up core story set up in Wolverine Goes to Hell, and it is a good wrap-up, even though there are many things in it I feel a bit uncertain about. Four weak stars.
As a sort of epilogue to the opening act comes "Wolverine: No More" and "Wolverine: Forever" (from Wolverine #15 and #16 respectively). The art by Goran Sudzuka is okay, and the story about Wolverine dealing with the fall-out of the preceding art is too.
Goodbye Chinatown (from Wolverine #17–19), drawn by Ron Garney (yay!), is the high point of the volume for me. Aaron returns to the plot lines he set up in Wolverine: Manifest Destiny (see volume one) and with Garney on art, this equals pure enjoyment for me. It is a wild romp with a huge cast of characters. Four stars.
"And Then There Was War" (from Wolverine #20) serves pretty much as a prologue to Back in Japan. Drawn by Guedes, it sets up the situation which requires Logan to once more return to Japan, and it does a decent enough job of that. Three stars.
Aaron's last big arc, Back in Japan (from Wolverine #300-303), may not be his biggest in terms of consecutive issues (perhaps not even in sense of scope either, all things considered), but it is an epic achievement in terms of the amount of characters and plot threads it involves. That said, I am not entirely convinced by this scope on all accounts. The story is divided into twenty chapters, featuring no less than five different artists: Adam Kubert (chapters 1, 4 and 7) Garney (chapters 2 and 5), Steve Sanders (3, 6 ,9-10, 14-15 and 18-19), Billy Tan (8, 11-13, 15-17 and 20) and Paco Diaz (19). Despite this multitude, the art stays pretty cohesive, although I find Sanders' parts to be the weak spots, art-wise. The overall result is enjoyable though. Three stars.
The final story is "One More Round" (from Wolverine #304), which ties up a lot of loose ends and features no less than nine different artists (Steve Dillon (whom I adore, but am not convinced by as a Wolverine artist), Garney, Paul Pelletier and Dave Meikis, Mike Perkins, Jefte Palo, Daniel Acuna, Sanders, and Guedes). On the whole, the result feels like it is lacking in cohesion and while I enjoy bits and pieces of it, it pretty much sums up how I feel about the issue on the whole – bits and pieces! Two and a half stars.
The volume closes with alternative covers, design sheets, thumbnails, and pencils by various artists, and a full thumbnail-sized cover gallery of Wolverine (which is kind of cool, but also a bit lack lustre as it is hard to actually watch the covers, given their size on the page).
All in all, the volume earns its three stars, and I am not sorry to have read Aaron's Wolverine material in these four collections. But it is neither the best Wolverine material I have read, nor the best Jason Aaron material.
The volume opens with Wolverine's Revenge (from Wolverine #10-14), which is drawn by Renato Guedes, whose art is all right, but no favourite of mine. The narrative as such wraps up core story set up in Wolverine Goes to Hell, and it is a good wrap-up, even though there are many things in it I feel a bit uncertain about. Four weak stars.
As a sort of epilogue to the opening act comes "Wolverine: No More" and "Wolverine: Forever" (from Wolverine #15 and #16 respectively). The art by Goran Sudzuka is okay, and the story about Wolverine dealing with the fall-out of the preceding art is too.
Goodbye Chinatown (from Wolverine #17–19), drawn by Ron Garney (yay!), is the high point of the volume for me. Aaron returns to the plot lines he set up in Wolverine: Manifest Destiny (see volume one) and with Garney on art, this equals pure enjoyment for me. It is a wild romp with a huge cast of characters. Four stars.
"And Then There Was War" (from Wolverine #20) serves pretty much as a prologue to Back in Japan. Drawn by Guedes, it sets up the situation which requires Logan to once more return to Japan, and it does a decent enough job of that. Three stars.
Aaron's last big arc, Back in Japan (from Wolverine #300-303), may not be his biggest in terms of consecutive issues (perhaps not even in sense of scope either, all things considered), but it is an epic achievement in terms of the amount of characters and plot threads it involves. That said, I am not entirely convinced by this scope on all accounts. The story is divided into twenty chapters, featuring no less than five different artists: Adam Kubert (chapters 1, 4 and 7) Garney (chapters 2 and 5), Steve Sanders (3, 6 ,9-10, 14-15 and 18-19), Billy Tan (8, 11-13, 15-17 and 20) and Paco Diaz (19). Despite this multitude, the art stays pretty cohesive, although I find Sanders' parts to be the weak spots, art-wise. The overall result is enjoyable though. Three stars.
The final story is "One More Round" (from Wolverine #304), which ties up a lot of loose ends and features no less than nine different artists (Steve Dillon (whom I adore, but am not convinced by as a Wolverine artist), Garney, Paul Pelletier and Dave Meikis, Mike Perkins, Jefte Palo, Daniel Acuna, Sanders, and Guedes). On the whole, the result feels like it is lacking in cohesion and while I enjoy bits and pieces of it, it pretty much sums up how I feel about the issue on the whole – bits and pieces! Two and a half stars.
The volume closes with alternative covers, design sheets, thumbnails, and pencils by various artists, and a full thumbnail-sized cover gallery of Wolverine (which is kind of cool, but also a bit lack lustre as it is hard to actually watch the covers, given their size on the page).
All in all, the volume earns its three stars, and I am not sorry to have read Aaron's Wolverine material in these four collections. But it is neither the best Wolverine material I have read, nor the best Jason Aaron material.
August 1, 2015
I gotta say, as a huge Jason Aaron fan, I've found the latter half of his extended, supposedly legendary run on Wolverine to be pretty underwhelming. Marvel collected the first half or so in an omnibus, which is usually an indication of quality of some sort. I was confused when they only collected the latter half in these "complete collection" paperbacks. But now it sort of makes sense: these stories just really aren't that good.
They have moments of badassery, for sure. But reading this feels kind of like talking to a family member with Alzheimer's, whose true personality only shines through every now and then. There are flashes of Aaron's personality occasionally, and that keeps things hopeful, but in general there's just nothing there.
In this volume, we get the final pay-off of the "Wolverine Goes to Hell" storyline (by the way, if you're ever out of ideas for a comic book character, send them to Hell!), which is built up and built up and built up for what is ultimately a pretty lackluster ending. This one's all bark and no bite, and any real effect the ending should've had on Wolverine is quickly swept under the rug in favor of sending him to Chinatown to fight some dragons (really).
The final storyline in this book also just kind of boggled my mind. This is basically Aaron's finale as the writer of Wolverine's solo adventures. He's been doing it for years. And yet, his final sendoff just pits Wolverine against a bunch of Hand ninjas in a Japanese crime war he really has absolutely no stake in and nothing to gain from fighting. The story totally relies on characters who have thus far never appeared in a Jason Aaron Wolverine book, and it ends without the story even wrapping up. It feels like a complete waste of Aaron's talents.
I always wonder what happens when a writer takes such a steep nosedive on a series. Did he just get overworked? Did Marvel force him to keep writing it under contract long after he'd run out of fresh ideas? Did he actually just think these stories were as good as his others, in a momentary lapse of taste? Who knows. All I know is, supposedly Wolverine & the X-Men (his next series) is very good, so I'm looking forward to a potential change of pace in that book.
And for the record, I still love Jason Aaron. I just don't love this.
They have moments of badassery, for sure. But reading this feels kind of like talking to a family member with Alzheimer's, whose true personality only shines through every now and then. There are flashes of Aaron's personality occasionally, and that keeps things hopeful, but in general there's just nothing there.
In this volume, we get the final pay-off of the "Wolverine Goes to Hell" storyline (by the way, if you're ever out of ideas for a comic book character, send them to Hell!), which is built up and built up and built up for what is ultimately a pretty lackluster ending. This one's all bark and no bite, and any real effect the ending should've had on Wolverine is quickly swept under the rug in favor of sending him to Chinatown to fight some dragons (really).
The final storyline in this book also just kind of boggled my mind. This is basically Aaron's finale as the writer of Wolverine's solo adventures. He's been doing it for years. And yet, his final sendoff just pits Wolverine against a bunch of Hand ninjas in a Japanese crime war he really has absolutely no stake in and nothing to gain from fighting. The story totally relies on characters who have thus far never appeared in a Jason Aaron Wolverine book, and it ends without the story even wrapping up. It feels like a complete waste of Aaron's talents.
I always wonder what happens when a writer takes such a steep nosedive on a series. Did he just get overworked? Did Marvel force him to keep writing it under contract long after he'd run out of fresh ideas? Did he actually just think these stories were as good as his others, in a momentary lapse of taste? Who knows. All I know is, supposedly Wolverine & the X-Men (his next series) is very good, so I'm looking forward to a potential change of pace in that book.
And for the record, I still love Jason Aaron. I just don't love this.
August 17, 2017
3,5 Still most of it was entertaining
March 24, 2018
Good Collection of Wolverine Storylines against ninjas in Japan. The second half of the collection really picked it up and was enjoyable.
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September 4, 2024It pains me to say this, but the last collection is the weakest of Aaron’s Wolverine run. The main storylines here just aren’t very good. “Wolverine’s Revenge” is a predictable finale to the Hell saga, the Chinatown arc is okay I guess, and the “Back to Japan” story is a mess. The back-to-back stand-alone issues drawn by Goran Sudzuka are the best parts of the book, once again showing Aaron’s skill at crafting memorable character-driven pieces.
Aaron did some cool things with Wolverine during his run. He’s a great character writer, for Wolverine and his supporting cast. His storylines were inconsistent though; aside from a few early ones, none really stood out from the pack.
So, a good run with moments of greatness here and there, but also a fair amount of underwhelming stuff.
Aaron did some cool things with Wolverine during his run. He’s a great character writer, for Wolverine and his supporting cast. His storylines were inconsistent though; aside from a few early ones, none really stood out from the pack.
So, a good run with moments of greatness here and there, but also a fair amount of underwhelming stuff.
July 31, 2022
This was not good, just...lifeless. I think I skimmed 80% of this. It starts off bad when I don't have any investment in who Logan is ripping to shreds in the opening arc, and even with the twist I said, "wow that's awful.....I still don't give a fuck". Followed by Logan punishing himself a compelling story it did not make. Follow this with over the top follow-ups to the Chinatown arc and a trip to Japan where he gets mixed up ina war between ninjas and Yakuza, it's all so.....boring and lacking any marvel zeal. These could be usual crime stories and they'd be about the same interest. A real drag to end the run on considering how well it started. Hopefully Wolvie and X-Men is better, ugh.
October 22, 2025
Decent finale to a run; a lot of ups and downs. Vol 3 being the worst...overall a good run.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews