The Wolverine (2013)

A mentally-wounded Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) takes to the hermit life in a rugged, backwoods mountain town after the events in X-Men: The Last Stand. When he is approached by associates of an old friend from Japan to come to Tokyo, he reluctantly agrees to fulfill a dying man’s wish. Once there, he finds himself embroiled in a fight between ninja and Yakuza on which the fate of a young woman, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), rests.

I have to admit that I had a lot of apprehension going in to see this film. X-Men 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine had both really, REALLY let me down. In a big way. So, I didn’t really have much in the way of expectations.

With that said, the movie turned out to be actually good, and I was pleasantly surprised, especially since a lot of it was true to the Miller/Claremont miniseries from the 1980’s.

We get to see the badass Wolverine/Logan that we want to see, slicing up Yakuza and ninjas in all his adamantium glory. BUT – even though we get to see him slice up SOME ninjas, I really wanted to see more of a fight instead of having to see Logan turned into a parody of a porcupine. C’mon, man, where was your rage?

There were many nods to the comics, as I said before, , which was a nice touch and something that Fox has been lacking lately. This time, they did a lot of things correctly and they also made it accessible enough for casual viewers who just want to see a good action flick or want to see shirtless Hugh Jackman flex his muscles.

The characters were all really nice, and the movie being set in Japan gave the aesthetics a distinct quality that was very appealing to the eye.

All in all, this movie is decent. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely not X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Go see it if you liked the earlier X-Men films and wondered what happened to the once-mighty franchise. This installment definitely makes some amends.

JOE Rating: ★★★★

All-New X-Men #1 (January 2013)

Publisher: Marvel Comics
Creative Team: Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, Marte Gracia

Cyclops, one of the most prominent members of the X-Men and one of its original members, is now a fugitive wanted by almost every costumed hero and government entity in existence after the Phoenix Force corrupted him and he killed his former mentor, Professor Charles Xavier. Dying from another mutant transformation, and out of ideas, Hank McCoy (aka Beast) goes back in time to bring back the younger version of Cyclops to hopefully talk some sense into the present-day version. Maybe together they can save mutantkind.

I hadn’t really heard much about this series as I’d been out of the comic loop for a few months, but I noticed the older costumes on the cover. I am hoping to cosplay as the 60’s version of Cyclops, so I figured I’d pick up the first three issues to not only use for reference, but also to see what it was all about.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Issue #1 opens with Beast writhing on the ground, dying from a new manifestation of his mutation. He prays that he is allowed to do something good for mutantkind before he dies, and then we move on to Cyclops and his new teammates, Magneto and Emma Frost, liberating and recruiting new mutants who are popping up everywhere.

This first issue started out just a LITTLE slower than I would have liked, but the action picks up toward the end enough to have kept me hooked until the next issue. Bendis knows what he’s doing, I think we all know that. There were a couple of typos I noticed here and there (way to go, editor), but otherwise it was a good read.

The art by Stuart Immonen (Pencils), Wade Von Grawbadger (Inks) and Marte Gracia (Colorist) was amazing. Sometimes I noticed that, for whatever reason, it looked like Immonen phoned it in on the faces in some of the smaller panels but he really does action very well. The inks give his work some solid depth and the coloring, of course, makes it pop.

I think this series is going to do pretty well.

JOE Rating: ★★★★

Here’s a sample page from All-New X-Men #1!