Baltimore Comic Con 2013: Meeting Frank Cho

This was by far one of the most exciting moments of the Baltimore Comic Con for me. I actually got to meet the one and only Frank Cho! We all know him as the artistic genius who loves to draw women with disproportionate beauty. It pisses some feminists off, but it makes for some pretty awesome comics. Recently, he drew Savage Wolverine and X-men Battle of the Atom, a comic that I gave a perfect score. He was as awesome as his art. Thanks, Mr. Cho and keep drawing awesome comics!


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Love Disinterest: Savage Wolverine #6

The following is my review of Savage Wolverine #6, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

Here’s something that a number of media properties haven’t figured out yet. Are you ready? Here goes…it’s not always necessary for the lead male character to have a love interest. Shocking, I know. Take as much time as needed. It’s also shocking how writers have such a hard time of telling a compelling story that doesn’t involve some guy trying to hook up with some girl or vice versa. I’m all for romantic sub-plots. Heck, I even write them myself. But I also understand that it’s not always necessary to tell an awesome story. And that’s where I come in with Savage Wolverine.

This series takes Wolverine away from being an X-man, an Avenger, and a guy who occasionally does some solo heroics so that he can get in touch with his true nature. And for him, his true nature involves him being a snarling, violent, ill-tempered brute that you still want to love, hug, and have a beer with. That has always been part of his mystique. What’s more, there are already plenty of stories about Wolverine tempest-tossed on the waves of relationships. Going all the way back to Chris Claremont and Frank Miller’s Wolverine. And some of those stories are pretty good. But there’s nothing essential rescuing the damsel in distress when it comes to Wolverine. So it shouldn’t be the case that only these kinds of stories are told about the character.

The first arc of Savage Wolverine succeeded in telling a simple, gritty Wolverine story where he interacted with a beautiful woman wearing nothing but a bikini. Yet there were no romantic or sexual undertones. Wolverine and Shanna the She-Devil toiled in the Savage Land to find an alien artifact and while they failed miserably in the end, they did it without it turning into a bad porno. This arc ended up establishing one of the best Wolverine series I’ve seen in recent memory. It’s Wolverine without the emotional baggage that turned him into an Edward Cullen wannabe in the movies and that’s the Wolverine that we all know and love and love to hate.

But now that arc is over. Now Savage Wolverine #6 begins another arc that involves another hot female co-star. Elektra, she of Daredevil and more recently Thunderbolts fame, is the new alpha female of this arc. She’s also the one that sets it into motion by revealing that whoever was hired to guard Bullseye’s dead body needs to be fired. Like Shanna, her presence in this comic adds a nice blend of estrogen-powered awesome to a series based on someone who has more testosterone in his pinkie finger than most men ever will.

This issue also highlights just how different Wolverine is from his fellow Avengers. Like the first Savage Land arc, there’s a nice bit of internal narration that helps offer some unique perspective into Wolverine’s thought process. Without it, he would just be another snarling beast who got hacked off because someone other than Cyclops handed him his butt. He knows that he’s a killer. He knows that he’s not a hero on the same level as the Avengers. And that sort of thing often gets lost in the whole spectacle of having such a diverse cast in books like the Avengers or Wolverine & the X-Men. Sure, Hawkeye may have an attitude, but Wolverine has both an attitude and serious issues that no amount of therapy could treat.

This sort of perspective on Wolverine is compelling. What isn’t so compelling is how Spider-Man is shoehorned into the story. Reading this issue gives the impression that the events of Superior Spider-Man are being completely ignored. That may be music to the ears of those who utterly despise what Dan Slott has done to Peter Parker as of late, but in this comic it’s a distraction. So when Elektra shows up asking for Wolverine’s help, we get an entire page of Spider-Man making a total fool of himself. If this was meant to add a touch of humor to the book, it failed miserably.

The conflict that Elektra drags Wolverine into is deadly serious. The Kingpin may now be the leader of the Hand, but for whatever reason they question his strength. Now I have no idea why they would question the strength of a crime lord whose pants are probably stronger than any of his predecessors. I guess it must be a ninja thing. But the Hand’s snooty lawyer (every evil organization has to have one) says that he must face some kind of twisted ninja arbitration. It sounds like an extreme version of Judge Judy, but it’s apparently a big deal and the Kingpin has never taken challenges to his power lightly.

It sets the stage for some interesting challenges and some more interesting insight for Wolverine, but it falls short in the end when the nature of Elektra’s mission is revealed to him. Even though Wolverine is a killer and a brute who doesn’t think things through, even he has to understand why this mission is bound to be a painful failure.

The setup of this issue is compelling. The characterization for Wolverine and Elektra is spot on. But the details are what’s lacking. And an entire page was wasted on Spider-Man. Moreover, there’s still no romantic overtone between Wolverine and Elektra. While he refers to her as a “kindred spirit” that understands what it’s like to be a killer, he’s just fighting alongside her without without even the suggestion of romance getting in the way. It’s a refreshing take on Wolverine that shies away from clichés and as much as it does misogyny.

Final Score: 7 out of 10.

Thanks again PopMatters.com!

Scanned Thoughts: Savage Wolverine #6

When I get a new comic, my brain is overloaded and twisted thoughts start oozing out of every orifice. This week Savage Wolverine #6 generated plenty of oozing. These are the thoughts that leaked out, along with various other fluids that may or may not require a doctor.

Whereas Shanna was the bonerific co-star of the first arc, Elektra fills that role in this arc. She’s not wearing a bikini or anything that allows readers to admire her boobs, but like Shanna she’s as tough as She-Hulk’s adamantium dildo. She can break into a highly secure facility being guarded by men with boring ass marital problems and access what should be the corpse of Bullseye. Instead, she gets an empty coffin. I know all too well the dangers of a woman who is denied her prize. Anything with a penis in a mile radius usually has to flee to an underground bunker. For Elektra, I imagine that radius is much wider.

As for the question of where the fuck Bullseyes body is and who besides daring necrophiliacs would want to desecrate it, we find out it has to do with the Kingpin. Now the leader of the Hand, he’s learning the hard way that dealing with an army of ninjas isn’t as awesome as it sounds. Like every evil organization, they have overpaid lawyers to ensure their evil is legally binding. The Hand’s lawyer looks about as intimidating as a baby squirrel, but he talks like he has the balls of Chuck Norris. He tells Fisk that the Hand has invoked some secret ritual of arbitration that will force him to prove his worth. I think that’s just legalese for “We’re going to fuck with you and legally get away with it.” The Kingpin reacts the way only most of us react when we deal with lawyers, by maiming two innocent ninjas. Personally, I would rather have a punching bag.

The Kingpin isn’t the only one with anger issues. Wolverine, at his core, is an angry, ill-mannered, brute with poor impulse control. But we love him anyways and Savage Wolverine is one of the few X-books that highlight these lovable and no-lovable-traits. During a mission with the Avengers, he gets more pissed off than usual and the Avengers have to hold him back. Yeah, it’s one of those things they probably deal with every Monday. Yeah, it’s still entertaining and refreshing. I’ll take this Wolverine over the pansy ass Edward Cullen wannabe we see in the movies any day of the week.

Wolverine’s method of dealing with anger involves beer and not removing a piece of his mask that got burned to his face. Somehow I doubt that’s healthy, but I’m not a therapist. If it works for him, why the fuck not?

What doesn’t work here is Spider-Man. He’s supposed to be an arrogant prick now, not some clumpsy dip-shit who can’t handle a sword and is stupid enough to barge into Wolverine’s room and use them. If it’s Peter Parker, he might as well be a brain damaged version. If he’s Doc Ock in Peter Parker’s body, he’s either bored or has a death wish. It’s not made clear and in a comic about Wolverine, it may be understandable to have inconsistent characterization. But this just comes off as stupid and fucking lazy. I’m not against being lazy, but not when it comes to the comics I pay good money for.

Before Wolverine can get his drink on or beat Spider-Man to a pulp, Elektra shows up. And since she has tits, Wolverine pays attention to her. And unlike the Avengers, she doesn’t give a shit that he’s a killer. Like him, she’s a killer too and the only time she asks for his help is when something or someone needs killing. Again, it’s that refreshing aspect of Wolverine’s persona that is lost whenever some writer tries to make him a pretty boy who thinks with his dick around married red-headed women. He doesn’t even flirt with Elektra. That alone makes this a powerful moment.

Yet once again, it’s ruined by Spider-Man. Here’s a guy who once banged a supermodel in Mary Jane on a regular basis, yet he’s still stammering around Elektra like nerdy fanboy trying to ask Scarlett Johannsen on a date. I get that he’s trying to be the funny guy here. He would have done better if he just stuck to fart jokes.

While there are no romantic undertones, Wolverine does some inner narration just like he did in the first arc. It is not only revealing, but engaging because he points out just how similar he and Elektra are. They’re both killers. They have both been manipulated as killers at some point in their past. They’ve also helped each other on numerous occasions. He even calls her a kindred spirit. But there’s no thought about her ass or how nice her tits would feel with his face buried in them. For a guy who keeps locks of hair from women he tried to bone, that says a lot. Some fans may be whining at the lack of pornographic undertones here. I say fuck those fans. Wolverine doesn’t always need to be trying to bone a woman. He can just be that lovable brute out on a mission that involves killing.

The target of his mission is the Kingpin. He’s one guy who Wolverine can be as mean as he wants to and never feel bad about it. And he’s just sitting in a fucking park in plain sight, ripe for killing. That alone should raise several dozen red flags. But Wolverine isn’t known for analyzing a situation. He leaves that shit to Cyclops or other guys who get all the hot women he can’t. But before he can go in for the kill, Lady Bullseye shows up. Thinking she can handle herself, he goes for the Kingpin. But it’s not that simple. When is it ever? Why can’t fat white guys just die easily?

We get an explanation as to why Kingpin was out in plain sight. It’s not a very good one, but we get it. Elektra didn’t bring Wolverine in to kill him. She brought him in to help him. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. Maybe I should start reading more comics while sober, but until that happens I’m confused. He tells them that until Bullseyes stolen body is destroyed, both him and Elektra work for him. If you’re asking me for an explanation, you might as well ask me for the cure for cancer. Because I don’t have it and I can’t for the life of me surmise a circumstance where Wolverine and Elektra would be okay working for the fucking Kingpin. Maybe I just don’t have enough imagination or need more LSD in my diet. Either way, I’m still confused.

If there is a logical or even semi-logical explanation, we don’t get it in this issue. Instead, we get more evil from the evil lawyer. Using the Hand’s patented and probably copyrighted method of exhuming corpses in ways that even necrophiliacs would find unsettling, the Hand brings in three oddly dressed individuals called the Arbiters. They look like cos-players on crystal meth, but if they’re supposed to be the ones that test the Kingpin’s strength I can understand why he wants someone like Wolverine or Elektra helping him. It’s still sad that this act of mystical bullshit makes more sense than the Kingpin recruiting Elektra and Wolverine.

These are my deranged thoughts about this comic and I’m not apologizing for them. Nuff said!

Savage Wolverine #4 - Too Savage To Be Awesome

Disclaimer: Yes, I know I didn't review Savage Wolverine #3. Yes, I know this disrupts the flow of reviews. But don't blame me. Blame God for not dedicating a day for reviewing comics. If you're going to bitch about this, please note that I'll respond by deleting your bitching in all forms. That is all.

We like to pretend that discovering ancient secrets is as awesome and exciting as Harrison Ford led us to believe in every Indiana Jones movie. We think it’s all exploring hidden temples, surviving ancient traps, and killing a few Nazis in the process. The reality is probably a billion times more boring. I imagine real archeology is like watching a couple of dead flies decompose in slow motion. You dig through piles upon piles of dirt, fine jack shit 99 percent of the time, and are lucky to recover artifacts that aren’t completely decomposed. It’s right up there with Snooki’s gynecologist in terms of jobs I don’t want.

Wolverine isn’t an archeologist, but he has a way of attracting shit that wants to kill him and sometimes that leads to discovering ancient secrets. It doesn’t lead to it very often, but for a guy as old as Wolverine the law of averages has to catch up at some point. And it caught up with him in a very painful way in the pages of Savage Wolverine. He’s been fighting along-side Shanna the She-Devil, trying to escape an unforgiving island of savage cavemen that may or may not be racist by uncovering ancient technology on an island. It has been eventful and entertaining so far, even with the somewhat random appearance of Amadeus Cho. And while there are no Nazis, I’m sure Indiana Jones would be right at home in a setting like this.

Part of the charm of Savage Wolverine has been a return to basics. Wolverine is no headmaster of a school or leader of a team here. He’s just the lovable savage brute we know and love, surviving in a dangerous wilderness full of dinosaurs, cavemen, and death. There’s no bullshit about his past, no ninjas, and no piss poor love triangles. Throw in Shanna’s rack and there’s very little reason not to enjoy this book on the surface, but it’s been dragging a bit lately with this whole ancient artifact bullshit. Frank Cho has been building towards some answers for the past few issues and is this the issue we finally get them? Well, I’m here to get drunk and review comics last I checked and since I’m currently low on booze, that leaves me with one option!

In Savage Wolverine #4 we get a nice glimpse into a ritual that for once doesn’t involve human sacrifice to appease goat-headed gods with a thing for the blood of virgins. Instead, it involves actually saving a life. In this case, that life belongs to Shanna the She-Devil. In the previous issue, her rack was not powerful enough to save her if you can believe that. She sustained an injury that…well, killed her. But if that at all worries you or your penis, take comfort in the knowledge that Marvel never kills hot female characters not named Jean Grey and keeps them dead for long. But do to that, Cho convinced the chief of the savages to save her in a ritual that involves Man-Thing. Or at least it looks like Man-Thing. Cho is as confused as the readers. And seeing as how Cho himself also randomly appeared in this story without an explanation, I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised when we don’t get one. Yet still, an explanation would be a damn good thing to have at some point.

For now, an explanation takes a back-seat to bringing Shanna back to life. Marvel knows that it just can’t let a beautiful woman with a great rack just go to waste. But in order to bring her back to life, she has to bath in some strange green liquid that comes gushing out of that thing that looks like Man-Thing. There’s a joke about the healing properties of semen in there somewhere, but given all the inappropriate comments I’ve made about Shanna’s breasts I think I’ll hold off.

The important part is the ritual works. It revives Shanna so that she’s as good as new and back to being exceedingly bonerific. However, the whole resurrection-by-glowing-water ordeal comes off as both bland and a blatant rip-off of the Lazarus Pit from Batman. Only this comes off as much more disconcerting because it involves shit that oozes from something that looks like Man-Thing. Hell, for all we know that green stuff is his semen and Shanna just got the most twisted bukakke in history. While it’s nice to see Marvel avoid killing another character, it comes off as both bland and unoriginal.

Things get even less creative as Cho keeps Shanna from lashing out at the savages who killed her. They also have a long and somewhat unnecessary conversation where Cho explains how she ended up alive again. He also reminds readers of why calculus class sucked ass in school because he spends some time just surmising the output of the ancient machine that’s supposed to be the central focus of this whole damn arc. We don’t learn much about it other than it powered the dampening field that knocked out the SHIELD aircrafts and has the power of three H-bombs. That’s about it. Cho didn’t have to reinforce another Asian stereotype to prove it, but he did anyways and it still doesn’t tell us jack shit about this alien gizmo. I bet Indiana Jones would have probably figured this shit out by now.

Unfortunately, Wolverine is no Indiana Jones. As such, he probably hasn’t figured out how powerful the ancient machine is or that Shanna is still alive again. All he knows is that he’s pissed off that someone killed another hot chick before he had a chance to bone her and having already been tormented by his failure to taste Jean Grey’s pussy, he’s not going to let this stand. So still armed with some explosives and an intent to blow up the machine, he makes his way to the temple. He meets some armed savages along the way who attempt to slow him down. But this is a Wolverine who is pissed off and cock-blocked. They might as well try to keep an army of stoners away from a pool filled with Twinkees and cookie dough.

The savages may know this on some level because after all their best warriors are dead, they keep trying to stop him by attacking him with giant killer gorillas. It’s exactly as awesome as it sounds. In a land that is basically a glorified Jurassic Park, why not throw a little King Kong into the mix? The savages somehow have tamed these giant apes and they don’t much care for cock-blocked Canadians so they rip into Wolverine. Because if a bunch of determined savages aren’t enough to stop a pissed off Wolverine who just saw a hot chick die, shouldn’t a bunch of oversized apes be able to succeed?

The short answer is no. The long answer is something that PETA supporters will probably be disgusted by because Wolverine does to the giant apes what he did to the savages. Hey, at least you can’t claim he treats humans and animals differently. He shows them the same sort of savage brutality. He’s all for equality in that respect.

But what makes this sort of brutality all the more enjoyable is just how detailed and drawn out it is. While this issue may not have provided many answers about the machine and blatantly ripped off Batman, it does continue a general theme of putting Wolverine in battles that just allow him to be his badass self. It’s the kind of bloody brawls he just doesn’t fight as often anymore because he’s too busy rubbing elbows with the Avengers or running a school named after a woman he never got to bone. That sort of action is one of the best selling points in Savage Wolverine and this issue maintained that at the expense of apes and savage cavemen.

Once Wolverine is done ripping through angry natives and gorillas, he’s pretty roughed up. We even get some nice internal monologue that helps detail what happens when you’re attacked by three angry gorillas (might be handy information if you’re planning a trip to the zoo with a drunk). But he moves forward, driven by the anger over Shanna dying before he could see her naked. He reaches the temple and the strange alien machine, which he intends to blow up. Shanna, having learned from Cho why that is a shitty idea, manages to reach him just in time to stab him in the stomach to prevent him from detonating the device. That’s right. Wolverine gets stabbed again and this time by a hot woman. I don’t know why, but something about that is extra satisfying.

It seems like all is well. Wolverine didn’t blow up the alien machine (which looks like a fancy box mind you) and Shanna lets him know she’s still alive. The stab wound I guess is just extra reinforcement. But it seems as though this should be the end of it. Then the Hulk appears. No really, that’s what happens. The Hulk just fucking appears. I had to wait to sober up a bit to make sure I wasn’t reading this issue after taking too many hits of LSD. But apparently, this is how the comic ends. The Hulk appears out of nowhere, just like Amadeus Cho did a couple issues ago. We don’t get an explanation. We don’t even get a clue. We just know the Hulk is here and shit is likely to be smashed in the next issue.

I’ll need more than a few bong hits to make sense of this comic. I’ll probably also need a few to try and ignore the blatant parallels between the Lazarus Pit in Batman and whole resurrection bit with Shanna and Man-Thing blood. Since I’m low on weed, I’ll still do my best to break it down and it comes back to there being too many fucking blanks to fill in. This issue had some entertaining (and violent) moments that PETA supporters will bitch about, but in terms of overall plot it is still akin to that stoner buddy of yours who lays passed out on your couch and refuses to watch anything other than reruns of Scooby Doo. It just won’t move forward and even when it does, it comes off as something we’ve already seen before in one too many Batman comics.

But beyond the Batman parallels, this issue just threw too much shit into the pot without letting it cook. And I’m not just talking about the Hulk’s appearance at the end either. Man-Thing (or something that looks just like it) showing up early on raises more than a few eyebrows and not much of an effort was made at giving an explanation. The same can be said for the machine, which Cho tries to break down with his science-babble. And if you flunked 11th grade physics, it’s probably not going to make this machine that’s at the center of the whole damn plot any less mysterious. We still have no fucking clue what this machine is. We know it’s what caused the SHIELD ship to crash, but beyond that why the fuck is it such a big deal if it doesn’t even melt the faces of Nazis?

Despite these flaws, this issue still retains some of the elements that helps make Savage Wolverine a solid book. It’s still Wolverine at his most basic, kicking ass in the jungle and getting roughed up in ways that would paralyze anyone else not named Chuck Norris. The battle against the natives and the giant apes was classic Wolverine-style brutality. It was well-crafted and the internal narration definitely added something extra special to the bloodshed. If you only read those portions of the comic, it’s still worthwhile. But in terms of the overall story, it’ll have you both scratching your head and rolling your eyes in ways no amount of bong hits will help.

Savage Wolverine may be one of the few X-books right now where Wolverine isn’t an insufferable douche-bag. It has a lot of appeal, but it has a lot of fucking holes in it as well. Aside from reading a Wolverine you don’t hate and Shanna’s rack, this issue didn’t add much to that appeal. Savage Wolverine #4 fell short in way too many ways to be awesome. I can only give it a 2.5 out of 5. I’m okay with leaving some things to the imagination. A peep show in Amsterdam or my parents wedding night come to mind as good examples. But that shit just doesn’t work for a comic. For this series to be awesome, some of those blanks need to start getting filled in. There’s just only so much power that Shanna’s breasts have. Nuff said!

Savage Wolverine #2 - Baited Awesome

Beautiful women can be a confusing mix of contrasts to both a man's brain and his penis. Some of them claim they want to be appreciated more for their personality and intellect than their tits and ass. Some claim there's too much pressure for them to look beautiful, whereas butt-ugly rock stars and Hugh Hefner can still get more pussy than a door-to-door gynecologist. Yet I've often been extremely confused when some of the women make these arguments while wearing push-up bras and thong underwear.

Now I know I'm going to have my balls busted by angry feminists who think this generation of men should pay for the bullshit generations past, but men and women are wired differently. I know. That's not politically correct and anyone who says that is brushed off as someone who listens to Sean Hannity too much. But as someone who fantasizes about Sean Hannity and men like him suffering endless bouts of explosive diarrhea, I can say without hesitation that I'm not against all the tenants of feminism. I just acknowledge the cold hard fact that men are wired differently than women. They cherish the visual appeals of big breasts, a tight ass, and lips that you could use as a pool toy.

It's this visual appeal that makes characters like Shanna the She-Devil in the pages of Savage Wolverine so appealing. Wolverine's name may be in the title, but you can guarantee that the male readers of this book will scrutinize the images of Frank Cho's artwork on Shanna far more than they will with Wolverine. They'll do it for the same reason they'll buy a subscription to Sports Illustrated only to get the swimsuit issue. While the brain does most of the thinking, the penis has power of attorney. It's for that reason that the premise of a Wolverine story that involves him teaming up with Shanna has so much appeal and makes plenty of sense. Wolverine is a battle hardened survivor with a feral side while Shanna is a battle hardened survivor with a feral side and tits. Feminists may not like it, but you can't fuck with that sort of logical coherence unless you're a creationist.

Savage Wolverine #1 took Wolverine away from his duties at the Jean Grey Institute and the Avengers and brought him back to his roots. He found himself in the unforgiving landscape of the Savage Land where a couple of SHIELD agents enlisted help from Shanna to locate alien artifacts on a forbidden island. Well, this artifact clearly didn't want to be found because it led them to crash land in the middle of the fucking jungle where a tribe of blood-thirsty (and possibly racist) savages want to carve off their skin and sacrifice it to their bull god. The SHIELD agents didn't stand a chance, but Shanna and Wolverine's paths eventually crossed and now they're in it together. They hadn't had a chance to bone yet, but you definitely get the sense it's on their to-do list.

But before any boning can be contemplated, a new complication enters the conflict and that complication’s name is Amadeus Cho. If it sounds rather random to anyone who hasn’t been reading Hulk comics, it is. I guess the brutal slaughter of the SHIELD agents in the previous issue left a void that threatened Marvel’s usual slaughter quota. But Cho is a very odd and very different choice compared to the SHIELD agents and that’s a good thing. For one, it means we don’t have to read the same damn story of a bunch of unfortunate agents shitting themselves as they try to survive in a brutal jungle with racist archetypes chasing them in hopes of using their blood as anal lube. We don’t get much of an explanation on why he ended up in the Savage Land, but then again we didn’t get much explanation on why Wolverine ended up there as well so at least the plot gaps are consistent. And if you do happen to be racist or an avid listener of Rush Limbaugh, you should enjoy watching a bunch of jungle savages try in vain to beat Cho with sticks.

We then finally pick up where the last issue left off, which was basically Wolverine plummeting to the jungle floor after being mauled by a pterodactyl. I know it’s usually wrong to feel a certain level of glee in someone’s misfortune, even if they are fictional, but since Wolverine can heal I don’t think it will make Jesus cry. And like the previous issue, Frank Cho uses some internal monologues with Wolverine to help give a better description of the pain he’s in. For a man with serious anger issues and an inability to tame his penis around married women, his thoughts are pretty coherent. Wolverine may be in a fuckton of comics, but we rarely see this kind of narration so it helps give this series something unique. But as articulate as his thoughts may be, it eventually drifts back to hot women with nice tits. He remembers Shanna is in trouble and for her sake and that of his penis, he ignores the pain and runs off to help her.

This is usually where you expect to get all badass and be that character that so many fans complain is overexposed. You assume he’ll swoop in, save the day, shed plenty of blood, and soak the panties of any woman within a half-mile radius. In a comic with Wolverine’s name in the title, it’s hard not to expect that shit. But that actually doesn’t happen this time. Instead, Frank Cho adopts this radical idea that a guy who just fell from the sky with poor impulse control and no sense of strategy actually might not fare too well against an army of hungry pterodactyls. While he manages to catch up with Shanna, who is still in one piece while battling these hungry creatures that make creationists cry, he does a shitty job of fighting them off. He only manages to get himself hurt even more. It takes Shanna picking up a gun left by a SHIELD agent and shooting them before Wolverine’s ego and balls are permanently wounded.

This may sound like a rather unspectacular display of action, but it actually provides a different approach to Wolverine that doesn’t often get told in a world where so many of the writers at Marvel have a man-crush on Wolverine that would make any gay man jealous. Frank Cho actually shows Wolverine as being clumsy, incompetent, and overmatched. And this isn’t fucking Apocalypse he’s facing. These are just hungry dinosaurs. They’re just a level above the masked guards that James Bond uses as target practice. Yet it makes perfect sense that a man who vehemently hates guys like Cyclops who actually strategize and has serious anger management issues would struggle. It’s only here that we actually see it. I’ve berated Marvel many times, drunk and sober, about shit not making sense. This is one instance where they actually make sense in a way that is pleasantly surprising.

Back with Amadeus Cho, he’s clearly gotten bored with roughing up the angry natives. At least that proves he’s not a member of the KKK because they would probably never get tired of that shit. As he’s assessing his situation, he finds out about the dampening field surrounding the island that was mentioned in the previous issue by the SHIELD agents. It has negatively affected his ability to communicate with the outside or tap the full extent of his powers. His AI, Calvin (basically a more nerdy version of Jarvis from Iron Man), informs him of the artifact that’s causing all the disruptions. His best bet is to find it, get rid of it, and get his ass back home in time watch She-Hulk take a shower. He also notices that some of the natives have marks from dead SHIELD agents so he can expect to be as welcome as a bad case of herpes.

For Wolverine and Shanna, they don’t get to enjoy that kind of boredom. After they recover from their battle against the angry Pterodactyls, they begin to discuss their plan to infiltrate the temple and disrupt that artifact. And by discuss I mean coordinate with the same efficiencies as two drunk monkeys trying to hump a coconut. Wolverine can’t get Shanna to shut up and Shanna can’t resist pointing out how short he is, comparing him to Hugh Jackman in a very nice reference to the movies. She even finds a way to throw in a little poop joke about drinking jungle water. And whenever a hot chick makes a poop joke, it’s a very special thing.

These two clearly aren’t on the same page and the possibility of Wolverine getting into Shanna’s panties are dwindling at a surprising rate. It actually makes for some nice drama on top of the action to show that their partnership isn’t following the usual plot you would expect, given Wolverine’s luck with women. It’s another example of Wolverine not being depicted as the alpha dog he usually is. It also gets progressively worse when it starts raining (it’s a fucking jungle, mind you) and they end up falling down a cliff. And Wolverine, looking more like Homer Simpson than an X-man, tumbles down in a way that is as humiliating as it is hilarious.

When they land, both Shanna and Wolverine’s pride is almost as wounded as Mante T’eo’s credibility. But they don’t have time to sulk because they just happened to land in the den of some angry raptors and like an off-duty cop whose home you just stumbled into while drunk, they’re not too pleased. And this time, Shanna doesn’t have any big ass guns (not counting her tits) to fight off these aggressive creationist nightmares. It’s a fairly typical situation in the Savage Land. It seems like you can’t take a piss in a bush without it being home to some flesh-eating monster. But what makes it entertaining is how Frank Cho sets it up. It’s like the Three Stooges, except there are two and one of them has a great rack. It’s as entertaining as it sounds.

As Wolverine and Shanna are making the same mistake, Amadeus Cho is trying desperately to stop the angry natives from making more. He’s been remarkably patient with them, not using his power to slaughter them and use their bones to make dildoes. Yet they remain painfully slow at realizing that hitting him with fucking sticks isn’t working. It’s like trying to reason with Ann Coulter. It’s a losing battle. But eventually, Cho does manage to get his translator working. This allows him to communicate with the chief of the natives. It’s a little sluggish at times and the whole Elvish language used to depict the natives talking really doesn’t make for an interesting conversation. But when he does finally crack their language code, he makes clear that he comes in peace and is powerful as fuck. Their natural reaction is to worship him as a god.
Now I’m trying not to make too many comments on race here because I’m already on thin ice with Al Sharpton, but this is something that has the potential to piss a few people off. You’ve got a population of people who fit the stereotypical depiction of a savage and an enlightened westerner armed with superpowers shows up and they worship him as a god. Maybe some people won’t take as much offense to that as they will a speech about women’s rights by Todd Akin, but it is somewhat clichéd and a bit of a dick move. However, it could have been much more offensive so I’m not going to make a bigger deal of this than I need to.

The prospect of Amadeus Cho being worshipped by the natives as a god ends up being more exciting than Shanna and Wolverine escaping the raptor den. The action isn’t quite as entertaining as the earlier battle against the pterodactyls. They’re still comically uncoordinated, but they escape and continue making their way to the artifact. They continue to bicker as well. You get the sense that boning is now no longer as high up on their to-do list as initially thought. But it still makes for a rather bland ending to the issue. They just fight off more dinosaurs, struggle to get along, and basically continue down the same path they were when they began. But they don’t know that Cho beat them to the punch. So there are still plenty of reasons to look forward to the next issue and there are plenty of memorable moments in this one. The ending just isn’t one of them.

I often hear fans bitch and moan about how Wolverine is so overexposed. Those same people also frequently bitch and moan about how he’s made out to be too perfect in the sense that he’s a badass, he’s overly competent, and he gets to bone way too many hot chicks. To some extent they have a point. Wolverine does get almost as much love as Emma Frost’s tits at Marvel. But that extent is only as long as Tim Tebow’s passing stats last year. Because this comic, in what may be a subtle middle finger to the Wolverine-haters, tells a Wolverine story that doesn’t make him out to be Marvel’s alpha male. It’s a story where Wolverine is incompetent, clumsy, and downright stupid at times. Hell, the way he’s carrying himself, Shanna’s panties are getting dryer by the second. And you know what? It actually feels like this is how Wolverine is supposed to be depicted. This is how you would expect someone to carry himself who heals from anything, has poor impulse control, and couldn’t strategize even if Jean Grey’s pussy depended on it.

Savage Wolverine is quickly turning into a Wolverine comic for fans who don’t like Wolverine. It’s similar to how the movie Bad Santa was a movie for people who really hate Christmas. While that movie had touching messages like “Shit Happens When You Party Naked,” this comic has a clear message in that a beautiful woman will use your ass as bait for hungry dinosaurs if you’re going to be a dick. Both are good messages, but Wolverine’s new role as bait offers something different compared to previous Wolverine titles. When I first heard about this book, I made many of the same assumptions my fellow Marvel addicts made in that will likely be just another Wolverine title that tries to find new ways of making him seem awesome. Well, that’s not what Frank Cho is doing here. He’s showing a different side of Wolverine in that while he can survive in a jungle, he would have long since become T-Rex shit were it not for his healing. He gets pwned more in this issue than he has in any comic where Cyclops hasn’t shot him and given his recent actions, that’s saying something.

While I enjoyed Frank Cho’s approach to characterizing Wolverine, there were parts of this comic that dragged. The side-story with Amadeus Cho was a nice touch, but it seemed needlessly spaced out by having him fuck with the natives until he could translate their language. Aside from just flexing his powers, he didn’t really do much. In addition, there wasn’t a whole lot of progress made in Wolverine and Shanna’s mission to find that ancient artifact. They basically just tripped over their own asses for most of the issue. It was entertaining and all, but it really didn’t move shit forward. And the ending was pretty weak and pretty abrupt. So while the theme of the book and the action was enjoyable, it was poorly organized and didn’t come together very well in the end.

If you liked Savage Wolverine #1, then Savage Wolverine #2 will give you even more reasons to enjoy it. Despite the rather chaotic pace of the story, Frank Cho’s artwork is as beautiful as ever and the sight of Wolverine getting mauled by dinosaurs has yet to get old. The strong dialog also adds plenty of value to this issue and the movie references are a nice bonus and give women more reasons to want to bone Hugh Jackman. Savage Wolverine is quickly turning into a different type of Wolverine comic and for all the right reasons. I give Savage Wolverine #2 a 3.5 out of 5. At the rate this comic is going, Wolverine actually might not get laid in the end. That would be a monumental milestone in the history of Marvel and a clear victory for anyone whose girlfriend cheated on him with a tattoo laced biker wanted in four states. But most importantly, it also sends a clear message to the Wolverine haters that they can stop bitching and moaning now. And like shows sponsored by Glenn Beck, this world needs less bitching and moaning. Nuff said!

Savage Wolverine #1 - Jungle Loving Awesome

What is it about the untamed wild that gives some people huge boners? I know people who will wake up at four in the morning, put on loin cloths, grab a hunting knife, and run into the woods giggling like ten-year-old girl that just stole her older sister's tampon. They say it's liberating, being able to escape from civilization and enjoy a simpler existence. Then they have to take a shit and they run back to the nearest working toilet as fast as humanly possible. So while they'll rave on and on about the wonders of nature, when it comes to giving up the ability to shit in a toilet and not have to wipe their ass with dry leaves that's a deal-breaker.

I'll go on record as saying the hippies, the environmentalists, and Ted Kazinsky are full of shit. Civilization is awesome. I like sitting in an air-conditioned room eating food I didn't have to kill with a bow and arrow and shitting in a toilet. I would much rather saw my legs off and dive head-first into a pool of dog piss than go camping in the wilderness. And anybody who wants to bitch about how civilization has dehumanized us needs to either start shitting on trees or shut the fuck up.

That said, some people actually thrive in the wild. These are the kind of people who could be dropped bare ass naked in the middle of the African Serengeti and three weeks later, he's made every lion his personal bitch. You don't come across too many people like that these days, but in comics these guys aren't just more common. They embody that wild style of wild nature that gets us in touch with our own inner shit-throwing primate.

Of all the characters who would thrive in a jungle and treat it as a weekend in Vegas, Wolverine is the ultimate wild man. He doesn't just survive in the wild. He makes it his personal mission to make every single predator's balls shrivel off and make every potential prey shit themselves in terror. But lately, he hasn't been able to get in touch with his wild side. He's been too busy blowing the Avengers, screwing over the X-men in Avengers vs. X-men, and trying to fight the urge fuck a teenage Jean Grey. But as part of the Marvel NOW! relaunch, Marvel is attempting to get Wolverine back to his roots before he was the unofficial man-whore of comics. As part of a new series by Frank Cho, the Savage Wolverine promises to ditch the whole "I want to fuck the redhead" or "I want to gut Cyclops" plot and puts him back in his element. For a guy who already looks like he took a bath in Rogain every day since he was two years old, it's the perfect change of pace.

The tone is set in Savage Wolverine #1 with an all-too familiar scenario. Some dipshit, civilization-loving assholes think they can fly their fancy, high-tech gadgets into the Savage Land and not have something go horribly wrong. That’s like smoking two packs of cigarettes a day while working in a Chinese coal mine and expecting not to get lung cancer. In this case it’s a couple of SHIELD agents investigating an island with an insanely creepy mountain-sized sculpture. They’re tracking some mysterious energy that they’re hoping to investigate. They’ve also got Shanna the She-Devil with them, who is acting as a guide while also saving them the need to bring porn on the mission. But seriously, when has approaching an islands with a creepy face carved into a mountain ever led to anything other than disaster? For that reason, it’s hard to feel bad for the SHIELD agents when their aircraft starts going down. Maybe they just expect too much from dangerous islands that don’t have giant signs that tell them to stay the fuck away.

Enter our old friend Wolverine. Unlike the dipshit SHIELD agents who thought they could bang karma and get away with it, he wasn’t stupid enough to fly a high tech jet into the Savage Land and expect it not to crash. Instead, he just wakes up in the middle of the Savage Land without any memory of how he got there. He was either tricked or he went on one hell of a bender, or maybe a little of both.

But this apparently happens eight months after the SHIELD agents disappeared. There’s really no lead-in as to how he ended up here and maybe that’s for the better because it means Wolverine can get right to channeling his inner animal. That becomes somewhat necessary because he’s immediately attacked by Jurassic Park style raptors when he wakes up. In the Savage Land, that’s about as common as getting beat up in a mosh pit at a Metallica concert.

In addition to killer raptors, it’s also a guarantee that a visit to the Savage Land will also land you in the crosshairs of some hostile Neanderthal types with a lot of pent up aggression and no internet access to harass total strangers on message boards. But Wolverine decides to get proactive for once and hunts down a group that happens to be carrying one of the wounded SHIELD agents, most likely for human sacrifice or for a Hannibal Lecture style feast. Wolverine opts to not ask politely and proceeds with cutting them up like strips of bacon at a Five Guys. It’s brutal. It’s bloody. It’s violent. It’s just what you would expect from a book with the word “savage” in the title, no more no less. There’s some nice narration in here as well that helps make it a little less bland, but it really doesn’t add much to the scene.

After Wolverine completes his casual slaughter, he finds out from the dying SHIELD agent the location of their crashed ship. He gives the agent a proper burial so he doesn’t have to go through the indignity of being shit out by a T-Rex and then makes his way to the crashed ship where he finds a few various notes and a clear sign that these SHIELD agents were too incompetent to guards against an army of cavemen. But while he’s trying to figure out why SHIELD would want to visit a place where stepping in dinosaur shit is a real concern, he’s confronted by the one person who wasn’t stupid enough to get roughed up by cavemen and that person has an awesome rack.

It’s Shanna the She-Devil and she has to first stab Wolverine with a spear before she recognizes him. I’m guessing that’s not the worst thing a woman has ever done to him so it’s probably an easy thing to forget, especially when she’s wearing a loin-cloth bikini. I try not to take too much pleasure in Wolverine getting horribly wounded, but given what a massive douche he’s been since Avengers vs. X-men this scene still put a smile on my face.

Once the awkwardness of having stabbed Wolverine wears off, Shanna explains why a couple of SHIELD agents were stupid enough to visit the Savage Land. It’s actually exceedingly predictable, almost to the point where King Kong could probably sue. They suspected there was some ancient technology on the island and when they got to close, they encountered a disruption field that caused their ship to crash. After trying to be Bear Gylles for a while, they attempted to sail away only to get attacked by sea monsters. So it’s basically your standard vacation package to the Savage Land. Both SHIELD agents ended up captured, but they still suspected that there was some ancient technology in the mountain that they could use. They were planning to reach that technology with a very low-tech solution that involved blowing shit up.

It’s a story we’ve seen countless times before and parodied even more. A group of civilized people have their civilized gizmos fail them and they end up in a very uncivilized part of the world. Sometimes they end up being sacrificed or eaten. Sometimes they train monkeys to be butlers. Sometimes they make it into a porno. It’s a very basic and very clichéd plot. While it fits nicely with a Wolverine story, nobody with a handful of brain cells will find it too groundbreaking.

The premise may be basic, but it still involves blowing shit up so that means it has both the promise of explosions and more pictures of Shanna’s rack. So there’s still plenty of reason to follow this story. Wolverine and Shanna quickly work out a plan that involves finishing what the SHIELD agents started, minus the part where they got killed by cavemen. They intend to blow up the base of the mountain and use the ancient technology to call for help. However, this is still the Savage Land. That means there are a long list of creatures looking to maim them. That includes a hoard of Pterodactyls. Before they can even entertain thoughts of blowing shit up, they have to fight them off in another visually stunning yet predictable scene of jungle slaughter.

Part of that predictability involves Shanna demonstrating the toughness of a hardened jungle woman with PMS. She beats Wolverine to the punch in terms of recklessly attacking the Pterodactyl hoard. It forces Wolverine to shove her out of the downed aircraft, while probably copping a feel in the process (no straight man would blame him). Shanna doesn’t like this because it leaves them out in the open and vulnerable. And once again, a woman is shown to be right while the man is shown to be stupid because one of the Pterodactyl’s grabs Wolverine and flies him up high in the air before dropping him. Perhaps it’s another lesson for Wolverine in how to better deal with women, aside from boning them and hitting on the ones that are married. But again, it’s rather predictable. The comic ends with the prospect of him hitting the ground head first in a way that would turn most people into a blood stain on a T-Rex’s foot. But he’s Wolverine. You know he’s going to survive. So don’t expect to be biting your nails off wondering how this shit is going to play out.

I didn’t originally intend to do a review of Savage Wolverine when I first heard about it. Then after a few drinks and a few bong hits, it finally dawned on me. I said to myself, “You know what? This is just what Marvel comics needs! A book where Wolverine isn’t being a total dick cheese to Cyclops or playing the part of an Avengers groupie! Now where the fuck can I get more of this pot? It’s awesome!” After reading the first issue, I can say with or without a bong hit that this comic succeeded in delivering a welcome change-of-pace for Wolverine. But is it compelling enough to make a whole series out of? That’s something that’s difficult to answer even with a bong hit.

I enjoyed the issue. But Frank Cho really didn’t bring anything new to the table. The premise of the story has been overdone more than Joan Rivers’s face. Someone tries to explore the Savage Land, they crash land, and they get roughed up by a group of jungle savages that still shit in pots. That shit hasn’t just been done in Marvel comics before. This is shit that’s been done in every King Kong knock-off for decades. So if you’ve seen even some of those, including all the porn parodies, you won’t be surprised at all by what you see in this comic.

It was still awesome in that we get to see Wolverine going back to basics, surviving on his animal instincts and crossing paths with a hot jungle chick. The team-up between Wolverine and Shanna is definitely the most compelling aspect of this comic. It’s a team-up that makes perfect sense. She’s a tough, hard-nosed woman who is more at home in the jungle than Charlie Sheen at a Columbian whore house. Wolverine is an equally tough, ill-tempered brute who gets along better with angry animals trying to kill him than his own fellow X-men at times. Fuck, this is the perfect theme for either a porno or a new reality show on Bravo.

This first issue may have been basic and predictable, but it successfully established the conflict and set up the partnership between Wolverine and Shanna. Now it’s not yet clear if that partnership will include the exchange of a few bodily fluids down the line, but it is clear that there’s a story to be told here. Savage Wolverine #1 may not have a novel concept, but Frank Cho still makes it entertaining enough to be enjoyable. I give Savage Wolverine #1 a 3 out of 5. This comic didn’t change my opinion on camping or the whole back-to-the-wild bullshit that hippies love to whine about. Maybe I would find it more tenable if a beautiful woman like Shanna tagged along, but I know it would still go downhill the moment we ran out of toilet paper. So I’ll be leaving the survivalist shit to Wolverine and the idiots preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Nuff said!