Wolverines, Vol. 1: Dancing with the Devil

Wolverines

by Charles Soule, Ray Fawkes, Nick Bradshaw (Contributor)

Logan may be dead — but what will happen to his mortal remains, encased in Adamantium? The battle for control of this valuable artifact has begun, death is on the books for a dozen heroes and villains, and Mystique is playing chess with them all! As Sinister strikes, Daken lies crippled, and death looms for Shogun’s Weapon X crew. Only Wolverine’s legacy — X-23, Sabretooth, Mystique and Lady Deathstrike — can save them all. But none of them can be trusted! Then: introducing Fantomelle, the world’s most unstoppable thief, engineered to perfection! But will she be destroyed by a nightmarish monster before the Wolverines can recruit her? And surprises lay in store when the Wolverines assault Mr. Sinister’s fortress! Sinister has plans for Logan’s body — but how are the Amazing X-Men involved?

Collecting: Wolverines 1-5

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, X Men, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book

112 pages, Paperback

First published May 5, 2015

About the author

Charles Soule is a #1 New York Times-bestselling novelist, comics author, screenwriter, musician, and lapsed attorney. He has written some of the most prominent stories of the last decade for Marvel, DC and Lucasfilm in addition to his own work, such as his comics Curse Words, Letter 44 and Undiscovered Country, and his original novels Light of the Jedi, The Endless Vessel, The Oracle Year and Anyone. He lives in New York.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Wolverines are: Mystique, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Daken and X-23. Together with Paradise (the team from The Weapon X Program book) their task is to find and retrieve Logan’s adamantium-encased body from Dr Cornelius’ abandoned facility. But, wuh-oh, naughty Mr Sinister steals it first! Now they gotta steal it back!

Considering the books leading up to this weekly series (The Weapon X Program, The Logan Legacy) were so terrible, it was a pleasant surprise to discover the first volume of Wolverines is an ok read. Charles Soule and Ray Fawkes write alternating issues so the quality ebbs and flows (seemingly everything Fawkes touches turns to garbage) while the art changes with each issue, as is usually the case with weekly titles - Nick Bradshaw is the big name attached though he only draws the first ish.

I would’ve preferred if Wolverines was just about the known Wolverine-related characters rather than include this new bunch, Paradise, created by Soule because they suuuck! They’re like the cast-offs from Soule’s Inhuman series! And Paradise - ick, what a crap team name!

Soule continues adding to the Marvel Universe with Fantomelle and her talking wolf companion, Pep - basically the female version of Fantomex. I didn’t mind her but she’s clearly very derivative.

She does feature in the best scene in the book where she’s hired to steal The Punisher’s t-shirt! Frank’s reaction to her psychic attack was really funny for being so on point for his character - I kinda wish Soule was writing The Punisher instead of Daredevil. It’s a nice call-back to Soule’s brief stint on Thunderbolts too.

I also liked Sinister’s clone assistants, Starky Gripes and co. They add a nice touch of levity to the oppressive nature of the gloomy teams’ mood. The downside is the reference to the notorious Spider-Man storyline, the Clone Saga.

There was a bit too much gratuitous Big Dumb Fighting, particularly as it starred mostly D-list characters, which took up too many pages. And while Bradshaw’s art was terrific, the other artists’ contributions were… just ok. They wildly differed in style and certainly added a lot more variety than usual to a Marvel collected edition.

Dancing with the Devil is a mixed bag. It’s sometimes interesting, sometimes not, but there’s definitely something more substantial and fun here than in any of the other Death of Wolverine-related volumes that we’ve seen so far. It’s no must-read but it’s worth a look if you’re a fan of Soule’s work.

[David Dalton · Rating 2 out of 5]

If one must read this crazy series, I guess it is better to read it all at once. I have been back tracking thru the whole Death of Wolverine storyline, from his actual "so called death", to Program X, and the Legacy of Logan to this 4 volume collection. The story just gets more confusing. If I was reading each issue one by one, I suppose I would have quit a long time ago. My kingdom for a decent artist on this series, and a plot. Sigh, good news only 3 more volumes to go thru.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flip, flip, skim. Meh.

[Miloš · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am little confused with the story, but aren'r we always?

[Thomas Edmund · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wolverines picks up where the Logan Legacy ended, seeing Wolverine's survivors manipulated into hunting down his remains. The is relatively brutal, but with a surprising burst of humour in the form of The Punisher making a brief appearance. While there is nothing completing amazing about the plot - the edition is a solid comic book tale well worth a read.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seemed like it had so much potential. Yet the art was horrible and all over the place and the story was incredibly disjointed.

[Zack! Empire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seems like an interesting idea for a series but it falls pretty flat. All the characters are pretty forgettable. It just a bunch of crazy killers with claws. I mean, it's cool that the X-Men had Wolverine to hack and slash the shit out of everything, but an entire team that does only that? Not that cool.
The storyline is somewhat intriguing, but it's handled poorly. I'm not all surprised that people would be crawling over each other to possess Wolverines body, but it's not very well handle. I don't know
I just could not get into the story at all.
There were two cool things: I really liked sewing Nick Bradshaw do the art for the first issue and the design for Fantomelle was interesting. If she had been introduced in another book I think I would keep reading it to learn more about her, but I don't think that's the case here.
The only reason I would keep reading this series is because of the cliffhanger ending, which I thought was cool. But I'll beat it's wrapped uped in no time so I'm not sure it will happen.

[Marianna Sharktooth · Rating 3 out of 5]

What kind of broken world is that, where there is no Wolverine, and the remaining mutants have to fight around his naked "body" to find the "cure"? I am not a big fan of them all-yes, I've seen them around, but to the untrained eye they were new faces.
Looking forward to reading the second vol..

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

So our team goes back to The Paradise facility to look for Logan’s body in the adamantium casing. They run into another “crew” looking for things as well and get into a fight. During said fight, another character teleports in, fucks up Daken and takes Wolverines body. Now our team has enlisted the help of another new character, also from the Paradise experiments, to help them break in to the fortress of the person who took Logan’s body.

The story is pretty decent. One thing about Charles Soule is that he’s always coming up with new characters and I dig that. However, it’s the artwork changing throughout these issue that’s messing with me. Some of the art is bad. Hopefully those artists are not on the next volume. Oh and gotta love the final page of this book! The next one should be good. We’ll see.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too many new characters and what do they do? Add a bunch more. Who are all these people? Too much work to care about. This one is not for me.

[Sonic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of the art was not to my taste, but some of it was great.
Most of all the writing helped me get past my tastes and biases about the art, and I enjoyed the story.

[JB · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in single issues. The writing and art in almost every issue is by different people. I liked the art in the first two the most. Beautiful and vibrant colors and a bit cartoony. The art in the second issue was more realistic. The art in the third and fourh one was a lot rougher around the edges.

I loved how Daken, who is Wolverine's son for those who don't know, got protective about his father's remains. This is especially surprising because of his difficult and hatedul relation with his father. But here in issue 1 he shows he does care. He says that the remains have to be treated with respect, if not you deal with him. And then when Sabretooth tries to say something he gets angry and threatens him with his claws. It's a great moment, that and when Daken finds Wolverine's remains and touches his head.

There's a lot of action, some gory bits when Daken gets attacked by Mr. Sinister.

Issue 2 introduces a new character on the very last page. A very interesting character called Fantomelle and her fox Culpepper, who she has a psychic link with. We see that Shogun has his heart in the right place, this while Ogun (the possessing spirit of one time mentor of Wolverine) advices him against it.

Issue 3 begins very suspenseful with Elke en Pep stealing a shirt from Frank Castle aka the Punisher himself. And it en with a beautiful splash page of X-23 (the female clone of Wolverine) rescueing Fantomelle from Siphon the one who stole Daken's healing factor.

Issue 4 starts where issue 3 ended, with X-23 rescue of Fantomelle. In this issue we learn Mr. Sinister's plans with Wolverine's remains. And it ends with Mistique acting rather mysteriously and Mr. Sinister sending one of his minnions to the future.

The art in issue 5 is rougher too. They never went back to the cartoony clean cut style of the very first issue. There's some crazy stuff going on in this issue. Our 11 protagonists are invited into Mr. Sinister's fortress and are confronted with some crazy stuff. A lot of and I mean a lot of clones of Ben Reilly aka the Scarlett Spider. And here comes the craziest creature I ever saw in a comic yet, a "Fing Fang Foom" creature with "Thor" as his tongue. You read it right, in Sinister's fortress there is among other things a creature with the body of Fing Fang Foom and Thor's body as it's tongue.

Shogun does some slicing and dicing on the Thor/tongue. And right when Sinister wants to start restoring Wolverine to life, there's a big explosion. And what do we see? Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler, there to save Wolverine's remains. Man I can't wait to see what happens next in issue 6.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars
SINISTER!!! Where have you been? Been so long since I've seen Mr. Sinister, a staple of Cyclops/Jean Grey/X-men 90's villains. Love him!

Anyways, this book deals with the aftermath of the Death of Wolverine event. Mutants with similar powers as Wolvie (X-23, Daken, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike and Mystique) team up with the new Weapon X people Wolverine died to save in a mission to cure themselves using the remains of Logan. Just when they are about to take the statue, Sinister swoops off with it and the heroes head to his base to get it back.
The story is cool, but this comic has 2 problems for me. 1) The art. Some is very good, but some is horrible. They change artists every issue so maintaining visuals is rough. 2) There is too much importance placed on these new characters. I probably missed the stories where they factor in more, but there really isn't anything overly impressive about them either. We'll see what the next Volume holds.

Recommend

[Will Robinson Jr. · Rating 1 out of 5]

A little too ambitious. So Wolverine is dead and we have group of his closest allies and enemies trying to retrieve his bones. There are a lot of things that could have work for this series but they just do not. It maybe because there are to many changes in artist and too many characters to write in the story. I really thought the artwork was poor on this comic series so far. The first issues were drawn okay but the latter issues were terrible. Unsure if this series gets better the second volume but this is a series I could do without. Charles Soule best work was on Swamp thing and the Death of Wolverine.

[Shawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do Famtomelle and Pep have their own book? Because I'd rather just read that.

Logan's "family" and a bunch of forgettable extras being pulled along in the wake of Wolverine's death... Death of Wolverine was good, and this *could* have been more of the same.

[Mr. Cody · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading that book was an awful life experience. What horrendous story telling, art, plot, and dialogue. Everything was awful about this book. Charles Soule is a hack.

[Krzysztof Grabowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Po Panie Soule spodziewałem się naprawdę dużo, więc kiedy skończyłem lekturę usiadłem, tępo patrząc się w ścianę i zachodząc w głowę co tu się od... co zaszło.

Wolverine zginął, kiedy ogromny zapas adamentium został wylany na jego ciało. Heros zastygł na wieki (taaaa, w komiksie to parę stron pewnie), ale nie będzie mu dane zaznać spokoju nawet po śmierci. Na terenie ośrodka, gdzie doszło do ostatniego starcia pojawiają się dwie grupy mające podobne cele. Jedni to cała ferajna znana z życia Rosomaka, gdzie odgrywali oni pozytywne, jak i negatywne role (vide Sabretooth, Mistique, Laura czy Dakan), a drudzy mają pozyskać próbki dla samego Sinistra. Atmosfera się zagęszcza tylko pytanie: po kiego?

Całość nie ma wagi, a walki są bezcelowe. W dodatku dochodzi cała masa postaci, o których nie miałem żadnego pojęcia i wiecie co? Nie obchodziło mnie to w ogóle, poza postacią Fantomelle i jej liska. Reszta była zbędna. Fabuła brnie w dziwnym kierunku i prowadzi czytelnika do próby włamania do tajnego kompleksu Essexa, który znajduje się gdzieś w Finlandii. Ktoś zdradzi, chcąc się ułożyć lepiej, a inni będą toczyli "epickie" boje. Za wiele tego było na tak małej przestrzeni i na domiar złego - nie miało to ikry.

A można było to rozegrać zupełnie inaczej. Nie rozumiem też, gdzie byli X-meni. Przecież to im w głównej mierze powinno zależeć na Loganie i to w tym miejscu można by oczekiwać najwięcej wzruszeń i łez. Nie ma tu nic, poza tekstem jak to statua z żywego niegdyś Logana wygląda pięknie... Szkoda, bo potencjał był. To samo tyczy się warstwy wizualnej.

Pana Bradshowa kojarzę z innej serii pt. Wolverine and the X-men, gdzie jako tako się to sprawdzało. Tyle, że tam popis miejscami dał Pan Aaron. Tutaj scenariuszowo całość leży, a rysunki nie ratują sytuacji. Zwłaszcza, że miejscami mamy takie swoiste "wtręty" innych autorów i kreska potrafi się zmienić diametralnie. Na gorzej. Wolverines rozczarowuje już na samym początku. Co będzie dalej?

[Villain E · Rating 2 out of 5]

I used to think Charles Soule was a pretty good writer. The Death of Wolverine and subsequent books have lessened that opinion.

This continues off of The Weapon X Program and The Logan Legacy. Five uninteresting noobs have managed to subdue five of the most dangerous killers from Wolverine's past. They go after the adamantium-covered remains of Wolverine but so does Mister Sinister.

This was published weekly, so it alternates writers between Soule and Ray Fawkes, and a bunch of different artists. The characters are way off, and the art is inconsistent. This is pretty bad.

[Alex E · Rating 2 out of 5]

Life post Logan continues as the group we were introduced to in "Logan Legacy" continues their quest for the remains of Wolverine.

The past volumes introduced us to a new group of Weapon X "experiments" as well, so we have two teams trying to achieve the same goal. But the problem is that Logan's remains are now in the hands of none other than, Mr. Sinister. Retrieving them is not easy, and Daken really takes the majority of the damage in this one... don't want to spoil too much but he definitely seems like a changed man after his encounter with Sinister.

This story kind of seemed like it had a chance of being decent, but ended up feeling fractured and unfocused. It's not till after I read the volume that I learned that the writing duties were broken up between two different writers - which explains the disconnect in the story. I was hoping the art would make up for it, but there is no single artist either and none really shone above the rest unfortunately.

This has an interesting premise, but the execution leaves something to be desired. Ill read volume 2 to see if it starts getting better from here.

[Graham · Rating 1 out of 5]

With two writers and a different artist on every issue, how could this not be bad? Another problem is that there are way too many characters. Issue 3 is probably the best on the book because it focuses on one character, but it’s a brand new character who isn’t even one of the Wolverines! Issue 4 is probably the worst of the run with art that is so muddy and confused it’s difficult to follow the story.

[Caspian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn’t finish it. The art was alright, but there were just too many characters introduced all at once, and I found the dialogue really clunky.

[Eden · Rating 3 out of 5]

please,,,stick with one artist,,,preferable borges

[heav (hamilton’s version) · Rating 2 out of 5]

laura, i’m doing this for you.

[Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. This story does not need to happen and added nothing for me in the wake of Logan's death. Skip and read something better.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dialogue is clumsy and has no flow. Some of the characters in these first five issues are the worst iterations to date

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was literally so bad I want to give it a negative five but I can’t

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this one, and from the majority of reviews it looks like many readers feel the same way.

I think the new Weapon X group is interesting, especially Shogun (who seems to be a clone of Wolverine with the spirit of Ogun residing in his body.) We find out the group has a failsafe implanted in them that's going to kill them soon, sort of like an "expiration date." The group learns a set of "trigger words" implanted by the Weapon X program and then kidnap Sabretooth, Mystique, X-23, Lady Deathstrike and Daken in an attempt to use their healing factors in order to overcome the "expiration date." They attempt to find Wolverine's body but it's stolen by Mr. Sinister before they can obtain it. So they travel to Sinister's lab in an attempt to get the body back. Then it gets really weird with all of the strange clones they have to battle.

I think this story has potential, but it's haphazard and isn't gelling right at this point. The art isn't bad but is inconsistent, which is always an issue with weekly series as one artist just can't handle the workload so you end up with a lack of continuity in the art.

Overall not bad, just not that good either. The series seems to be a crossroads at the end of the volume, so it could either get really good, or really bad from here.

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as bad as expected.
This volume collects five issues written by two writers with art by five different artists, which is usually a good sign of a bad book. This is more...forgettable.
Following the "death" of Wolverine - who is back by now, so any emotional impact this book might have had in its day is long gone - this title's so-called "Wolverines" are X-23, Daken, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, and Mystique, who (apparently in yet another "Death of Wolverine" tie-in title) were collected by the five new characters Wolverine "died" to free from yet another iteration of the tiresome Weapon X franchise, because they hope their captives' healing factors can somehow save them from the death-switch Weapon X built into them.
They return to the facility where Logan "died", although that was supposed to have burned down (too man writers, too little editorial oversight...?), when the Wrecking Crew attacks and Mr. Sinister absconds with Wolverine's remains, whereupon the story changes into a planned heist on Sinister's lair.
This part introduces the character of Fantomelle, a somewhat silly female version of Fantomex of unclear background. But she and her telepathic fox Culpepper are what pushes this book into three-star territory.
The heist goes wrong, of course and the story will be continued in another volume.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is one reason I read this collection, and it has nothing to do with Wolverine.

SPOILERS:

Ben Reilly appears in this book. The clone of Peter Parker. The original Scarlet Spider. But not just one Ben Reilly. Tons of them. For some reason, Mr. Sinister cloned the clone of Spider-Man, and he now has an army of Ben Reillys. But why? We don't find out in volume. Also, we don't know if any of these guys is the original Ben Reilly or just a clone of him. What if one is the real one? There was an interesting line where one of the many Ben Reillys said, "I'm Spider-Man. I think." This indicates that the version of Ben Reilly that Sinister cloned was from the "Sensational Spider-Man" era (a point when Ben Reilly transitioned away from the Scarlet Spider moniker, and took on the mantle of Spider-Man. Or, it indicates that Sinister abducted the Sensational Spider-Man and replaced him with a clone. Then, that clone eventually sacrificed himself in order to save Peter Parker. This is best case scenario. I want the original Ben Reilly to be alive and well, and this is the first time in almost 20 years that any writer has even hinted that this might be possible. Thank you, Charles Soule.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, where does Wolverines go wrong? I think its first mistake was to use the Paradise Crew that was set up in Death of Wolverine: Weapon X. Frankly, they weren't interesting then, and if anything they've gotten less interesting now, because the large cast of this book has caused considerable problems with characterization. Then, we have the unbelievable idea that many of Wolverine's worst enemies are being controlled by the Paradise crew. C'mon, Mystique and Sabertooth would have had them dead in issue #-1. And then we come to the art, oh god, the art. It's horrible. It's not just that it changes every issue. It's that the producers choose artists with really distinct styles despite it changing every issue. Oh, and about half of them are horrible.

The most interesting things about the comic: Mr. Sinister (very scary), Laura (interesting), and Daken (pitiful). Then there's some plot about people I don't care about not dying and going on a ridiculous snipe-hunt for Wolverine's ridiculous corpse, forever reminding us how mediocre his actual death was.

I was bored by the last issue.