All-New Wolverine #2 - Marvel Comics

ALL-NEW WOLVERINE No. 2, January 2016

Having arguably started the titular character’s “shift from X-23 to Wolverine to her place in the larger Marvel Universe” with this series’ “oversized opening” edition, writer Tom Taylor continues to create a storyline within Issue Two of “All-New Wolverine” which is both “very personally about Laura”, and also begins to address many of this book’s unanswered questions. Indeed within the space of this magazine’s first dozen panels it becomes evident that the young man” Logan’s clone “saved… from an assassination attempt” in Paris was the son of Robert Chandler, the director of Alchemax Chemicals”, and that the masked sniper… [who] could not feel pain” and had Kinney’s face was actually one of four errant experimental duplicates responsible for destroying “an Alchemax genetics laboratory” along with “every single one of our scientists” who worked there.

Armed with the knowledge that these ‘terrorists’ were created using her DNA, the mutant heroine unsurprisingly vows to find her ‘siblings’ and “stop them from killing innocents.” A rather stern-faced given statement which possibly promises this publication’s 55,634 followers an enthralling global ‘hunt’ for Wolverine’s duplicates, coupled with the added spice of interference from the research company’s untrustworthy Head of Security; “Tell Captain Mooney I don’t like being followed. Now -- run away.”

Frustratingly however, the New York Times bestselling author’s subsequent narrative proves something of a bitter disappointment and provides a rushed, almost lazy solution to Laura’s emotionally-charged predicament. For no sooner has Kinney fended off the unwanted attentions of two black-suited Alchemax goons in an alleyway, than she is approached by the adolescent Gabby in her mentor’s old apartment and thus able to track down the rest of her targets “deep underground” through “the sewers of New York.”

Just as infuriating as this plot’s wasted potential is David Lopez’s artwork. Wolverine looks every bit the all-action super-hero when she is slashing through Mooney’s gun-toting security soldiers and preventing Bellona from cold-bloodedly murdering the facsimile’s unconscious jailer. But whenever the comic’s tempo slows down to a more sedentary pace, and the Spaniard’s figures have little to do but stand and talk to one another, then the illustrations regrettably appear to be far less convincing and well-drawn.

Writer: Tom Taylor, Art: David Lopez & David Navarrot and Color Art: Nathan Fairbairn