Ultimate Wolverine #1 Review: One of Marvel’s Greatest Heroes Presented at Their Absolute Worst

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Marvel Comics’ new Ultimates line has been the publisher’s biggest success of the past year, featuring many of their most popular heroes in a radically re-imagined history. The Maker’s dominance of this Earth is predicated on the elimination of all superheroes, resulting in absolute control by hand-selected powers across multiple regions, forming The Maker’s Council. Ultimate Wolverine #1 introduces a fifth series to the current line up and Marvel’s most popular superhero outside of Spider-Man. Unlike Ultimate Spider-Man, however, this version of Wolverine embraces the brutal dystopian vision crafted by The Maker as Logan is transformed into the worst version of himself: a mindless killing machine serving humanity’s secret masters.

Ultimate Wolverine #1 was written by Chris Condon with art by Alessandro Cappuccio, colors by Bryan Valenza, letters by Cory Petit, and a cover by Alessandro Cappuccio and Frank Martin. The series’ debut relates the origin of Wolverine in Marvel’s updated ultimate universe as a mutant kidnapped and controlled by the Eurasian Republic to serve as their assassin, the Winter Soldier. Wolverine’s origin is depicted across two timelines: his capture and psychic domination, followed by his current status as a mind-wiped killer serving The Maker’s Council. It also serves to expand the status quo of mutants on this dystopian alternate Earth, including multiple notable cameos from fan favorites.

Wolverine Returns to His Roots as a Controlled Killing Machine

The Addition of Winter Soldier Plot Threads Produces a Chilling Tale of Domination

The most notable twist to Wolverine’s story in Ultimate Wolverine #1 is that he is also the Ultimate Winter Soldier, which isn’t much of an alteration from his mainstream Weapon X origin. After being discovered as a nearly un-killable mutant, Colossus and his colleagues ruling the Eurasian Republic graft metal to his skeleton and wipe his mind to bring him under control. The result is a recognizable Wolverine, including claws and a recognizable spin on Frank Miller’s brown-suit costume, without seemingly any conscience or thought.

Depicting the stages of his dehumanization results in a chilling series of flashbacks during which Colossus, Magik, and Omega Red discuss his existence as an object, rather than a person at every turn. Despite some genuine atrocities portrayed in both The Ultimates and Ultimate Universe: One Year In, this may be the most stark recognition of The Maker’s Council as irredeemable villains so far. Yet it’s also a familiar story, as shadowy government actors seek to weaponize Wolverine for their own benefit, like so many other stories from the past 50 years.

It also leaves Wolverine to appear as a mindless killing machine on the page. There are only four panels left to depict Logan prior to his capture by the Eurasian Republic, during which he is only capable of wheezing. Whatever humanity was present in Logan prior to this process is absent from the issue. Instead, readers are left with only the icy glare and steady breathing of the weapon left in his place. There are some clear hints that Logan’s memories may return, as they have in so many other stories, but the only signals about the man behind this process come across in sparse dialogue from former allies and a single information page.

Rich Artwork and Propulsive Sequences Portray Terrible Scenes of Death and Destruction

The absence of a recognizable Logan and various atrocities portrayed in Ultimate Wolverine #1 is balanced, to some extent, by a stylish take on this nightmarish reimagining. Artist Alessandro Cappuccio portrays Wolverine’s violent encounters with a liquid quality, emphasizing motion and bloodshed over explicit gore. Wolverine’s movement across multiple action sequences is quick, slick, and sharp. Cappuccio pulls upon familiar poses and killing blows from across Wolverine’s canon to put them in a more frightening light as they’re applied to terrible ends. These elements of homage can become overbearing at times as the issue leans heavily into reminding readers about this assassin’s original counterpart, like when he smears a bloody X across glass.

Bryan Valenza’s colors perform a great service to Cappuccio’s panels, emphasizing blood and shadows in distinct shades of darkness. Whereas Wolverine is consistently cloaked in black or near-black, the surrounding characters and backgrounds provide great contrast to enhance that effect. The copious amounts of bloodshed are portrayed to effectively communicate the ugly outcomes without splattering the issue in bright red hues. Rather, it’s often the sound effects that translate the ugliest moments with a “SHLUK” or “SHLSHHH” informing readers where a silhouette of spatter originates.

The only hiccups in this portrayal arrive early in the issue as readers get their bearings for this retelling of Wolverine’s origin. Time jumps between the past and present are only implied in overlaps of dialogue and images between pages. It’s clear how the story is transitioning between these two timelines by the issue’s midway point, but some early sequences may be easily confused as contemporaneous without any clear signposts for the timeline.

While Ultimate Wolverine #1 is bound to thrill fans of Wolverine’s darkest iterations, it struggles to meet the bar established by the new Ultimate line so far. The origin presented in these pages is hardly different from the Weapon X origins portrayed so many times before. They are enhanced, however, by a capable artistic team and some breathless sequences of brutal violence. While the series serves to reaffirm the despicable villainy of The Maker’s Council, it lacks any clear hook for its titular hero or how he may differentiate himself when awakening from this new version of a familiar nightmare.

“}]] Ultimate Wolverine #1 unleashes Logan at his absolute worst—an unstoppable killing machine controlled by terrible people—in a brutal and bloody debut.  Read More