Essential Wolverine, Vol. 4

Essential Wolverine #4

by Larry Hama, Dwayne Turner (Illustrator), Jim Fern (Illustrator)

The deadliest X-Man's on the edge of death when his unbreakable adamantium advantage is eliminated! Even with his claws stripped to the bone, Wolverine's up to some of the choicest challenges from his past and future - but how far will he go to make his latest fight with Sabretooth the Final one? Plus: cyborgs, Sentinels, the Savage Land and then some! Guest-starring Gambit, Ghost Rider and more!

Collects Wolverine #70-90.

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

528 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 1993

About the author

Larry Hama is an American writer, artist, actor and musician who has worked in the fields of entertainment and publishing since the 1960s.

During the 1970s, he was seen in minor roles on the TV shows M*A*S*H and Saturday Night Live, and appeared on Broadway in two roles in the original 1976 production of Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures.

He is best known to American comic book readers as a writer and editor for Marvel Comics, where he wrote the licensed comic book series G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero, based on the Hasbro action figures. He has also written for the series Wolverine, Nth Man: the Ultimate Ninja, and Elektra. He created the character Bucky O'Hare, which was developed into a comic book, a toy line and television cartoon.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wolverine Issue # 75, sensationally sees a completely f*!@ed up Wolverine returning after Magneto's devastating (and comic book reader mind blowing) attack! This is a massive turning point in Wolverine lore as he struggles to find his way in the world, which includes leaving his friends and maybe even his team. the X-Men! Larry Hana competes head-2-head with Steve Lobdell to be the ultimate 1990's X-book scribe. 7 out of 12.

I read the comic books Wolverine #70-#90 collected in this volume

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

These omnibus collection of comics in b/w presentation are often a reminder for the reader of episodes he once upon a time did read. For me this collection is a feast of recognition, the downsides of these collections are the crossovers in which the Wolverine series participates and you are left with the feeling you might have missed something.
|For example when Magneto sucks the ademantium from Wolverine's bones this also has its effect on the Wolverine series. This is the theme from this collection Wolvie's search to re-establish his identity without his metal. It is somewhat sad and violent as one would expect of a series about this Canadian rough house.
The art in this series is in essence quite spectactular as the likes of Wolverine with its animalistic nature and awesome villains do invite some really great art.

A really fun and spectacular read of one of the most difficult periods in Logans life.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories in this volume weren't too bad, but some of the art was atrocious. This is era when speed lines and shoulder pads ruled Marvel and some of that bleeds through even into a title like Wolverine. On the stories I'd give it a three, but the art drops it to two stars.

[Beelzefuzz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not technically read this book. This book is infamous for being poor, sometimes indecipherable black and white photocopies of old issues.
The first half is collected in Wolverine Epic Collection Inner Fury, and that is in color and on nice paper. I read that before. The second half I read in floppies, so I am mostly going to comment on the story in the second half, after Wolverine 75 and the bone claws incident.

First there is some good catharsis with Lady Deathstrike and her reconciling her mission in life with Wolverine's new adamantiumless lot.

Then the story with Cyber is pretty fun and fever dream trippy. It is a Batman story more than Wolverine though. Wolveirne visits his Nightwing on the Teen Titans while JokerBane pursues him and injects him with fear toxin. It makes me wish Larry Hama wrote a Batman story (a short one though) because it would be great fun. This is also the first mention that I can find of the "X-23 sample" which I am assuming turns into the character somehow later.

After that is the movie Aliens in a Canadian research base in the snow, and the Alien has been replaced by a Wendigo type creature. [So it is Carpenter's The Thing?] Yeah, kinda but only if someone only saw the trailer for that and wanted to keep the power loader from Aliens.

Then there is an issue from Phalanx Covenant. I skimmed it and assumed I would read the full story later. None of it made much sense out of context (Wolverine's piece is part 8 of the 9 part Phalanx event).

My least favorite baby talk character returns, and I dragged my eyes through some issues and only skimmed the one where they explained their time travel adventure. It mostly seemed like an excuse to bring the power loader suit back and pretend to be clever about time travel to wrap up a mystery from awhile ago, but it was just hand waving babble to disguise that the original skeleton idea was just written as a cool image and no plan.

Overall this is mediocre, and I would never read most of it again, but the Cyber as Batman villain story was very much worth it. (Just find issues 79-81 somewhere)

[Adriano Barone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kubert's art is solid, and at the time there was this need to be spectacular, because you know, Image Comics was there and Marvel had to keep up. Kubert managed to keep readable his pages, though, and sometimes his composition of the page was unbelievable: fixed backgounds with motion in foreground, or enhanced extreme close ups juxtaposed with deconstructing shots of a single human body... and so on. Great job, overall.
Larry Hama was always able to put some little touches in his Wolverine run that elevated it from mere "badassing". When Lady Deathstrike realizes Wolverine has not anymore adamantium in his body and distractingly caresses him, suddenly without an aim in her life (totally devoted for revenge) or when Logan goes to Silver Fox 's grave and Hama writes a short but moving monologue about mourning and the ability to save the good memories to move on from a sad and terrible past.
"Oh, those were days of sunshine."
Thanks, Mr. Hama.

[Melissa Kidd · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all I was expecting a bit more to the Magneto ripping the adamantium out of Wolverine than the brief flashback we got here. There was also an arc that was never completed. There was one page of prose explaining that the X-Men and Wolverine save the day. I’m not positive if that was what was given originally in the comics or if we’re missing material here. There were a lot of instances where I found myself thinking I should have read the essential X-Men first before getting into this series. There is a lot of referencing back to X-Men stories. And as is becoming common there seems to be a lot of skips and jumps from story to story. Perhaps that’s a trait of comics and I’m just not aware of it, but sometimes it throws me for a loop trying to figure out how things connect. I’m still very interested in Wolverine and will continue. The last couple of chapters had great artwork. I’m looking forward to some of the same later on.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

2020
I really liked this volume. I thought Logan's character development after Fatal Attractions was really well done. I found the ways he chose to handle his trauma without taking it out on other people to be very relatable.

2018
WOW. This entire book was well crafted storyline after fantastic storyline. It was so good.

[Tim B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zoe brings Wolverine to Muir Island for help after Cyber has drugged him. Cyber follows. Excalibur assists in the fight. Kitty is able to snap Wolverine out of it. Not a bad read, but nothing to write home about.