Sometimes comics are just an excuse for an artist to play. Case in point, Savage Wolverine’s first story arc written and drawn by Frank Cho. Issue #5 marks the end of his his run on the series but also the first story arc. Is it good?
Savage Wolverine #5 (Marvel Comics)
If you missed our review of Savage Wolverine #1, read it here.
Frank Cho draws a mean woman and is exceptional at drawing the human form. On top of that he seems to be experimenting with composition and storytelling with panels in this series. That doesn’t mean however, that there’s a story worth reading here. While there have been some interesting aspects there have been even more oddities and strung out storytelling and this issue is no different.
Is he implying those are fake boobs?
First the problems: There isn’t much story in this issue besides a fight scene between Hulk and a gorilla and an ending that appears to be setting things up for another story down the road. I’m not sure why Amadeus needed to be in this series. He wasn’t even in the first few, and his appearance seems more a cursory “I have nothing to say so let’s use a new character to pad things out.”
Also Shanna the She Devil doesn’t get much play this issue. Cho seems to think a bunch of Hulk is a good thing, even though he popped in out of nowhere last issue. On top of that, everyone keeps calling the big bad gorilla a monkey. Gorillas are not monkeys, dammit. Show some respect.
Also, Hulk’s durability against Wolverine’s claws seems to change from writer to writer. Cho seems to think it would go a little something like this. (Semi-spoiler warning.)
The biggest failure of comic books is when all you’ve got by the end is a fight scene and that’s all this comic is aside from the ending. Cho should have cut this series down to three issues max, because all the padding done with Hulk and this gorilla only makes the final pages of this issue seem odd and out of place.
Not really no… unless we’re watching The Naked Gun, of course.
3.0
- It looks nice
- Interesting villain introduced
- The villain at the end gets a cursory introduction
- Not interesting, funny or enjoyable. Filler comics at work here
It’s easy to blame Cho for the issues this series has seeing as he’s the writer and artist, but maybe it’s a case of an editor not doing any editing? When he pitched this somebody should have said, “how about we do this in 3?” But I’m sure the editors thought Cho’s art would carry things nicely. Unfortunately they don’t.
Is It Good?
Nope. A flash of the 90’s hit me when I read this. Art isn’t the only thing people!
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