"Agent Of SHIELD" Part 2 of 6
Writer: Mark Millar
Artists: John Romita Jr (p), Klaus Janson (i)
Publisher: Marvel Comics (Marvel Knights)
This title continues to surprise me. After offering a Wolverine storyline that was actually readable, and not merely a morass of tough guy cliches, Millar and Romita and Janson now give us what could plausibly be described as a horror movie take on Wolverine. Really, this is slasher movie stuff, and somehow it works, even when Romita throws in an Authority-esque splash page or two, and even though the story is about Hydra attacking the SHIELD helicarrier. I mean, that's big colourful Marvel Universe stuff, right?
Young Avengers uses the Marvel Universe as building blocks, while this Wolverine arc has used it as a playground, and neither have been stuck in a quagmire of continuity. This is shared universes done right; Millar has fun playing with the many toys that the Marvel Universe gives him, even if he doesn't always get the details exactly right. Even though the supervillains here are Z-list losers being brainwashed by Hydra, we still feel sympathy for them as Wolverine does his Michael Myers thing, and that's a good indication that Millar's not just hacking this out, no matter how much it might sometimes look like it. And while I bitch and moan about Romita being dropped from Amazing Spider-Man, he was never being given the chance to truly shine there, no matter how good his work was. He was great on that title, but here he's being given the chance to draw everyone and everything in the Marvel Universe, and it's great. He was born to draw the masses of villains, the Kirbytech, the splash pages of mass destruction, all of it. Marvel, put this creative team on the Avengers forthwith, and then chuck them into an outer space epic.
Again, I feel a bit dirty and ashamed that I enjoyed a Wolverine comic so much, but I just can't help it. It’s stuff like this that makes me glad that I discovered comics. It’s not art, but by Jove it’s fun.
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