Wolverine Infinity Watch #3 // Review
It’s Logan and Loki versus the Fraternity of Raptors in Wolverine Infinity Watch #3, by writer Gerry Duggan, artist Andy MacDonald, colorist Jordie Belleaire, and letterer Cory Petit. So far, this book has been a treat, combining a great odd couple pairing of Wolverine and Loki with some cool cosmic action that pays dividends. This issue is no exception to that, giving readers exactly what they came here for.
As Phoenix Logan and Old King Thor look on from the end of time, Logan and Loki prepare for the next phase of their adventure- Logan buys beer and Loki takes them to the Sanctum Sanctorum, picking up the spirit of his hound, Bats. Together, the three of them track Hector to the Fraternity of Raptors’ ship. Logan fights his way through them while Loki tries to trick their leader, Talonar. He fails and runs off, leaving Logan to deal with them on his own. Loki, however, always has a plan…
This issue plays more with Logan and Loki and how they play off each other and it’s a real treat. Odd couple pairings don’t always work, but this one is working way better than anyone could have imagined. It’s hard to quantify why; really, this pairing shouldn’t work nearly as well as it does. It probably has to do with the fact that both of them can fit both roles. They have both had to play straight man to other characters over the years and both have been the agent of chaos. That said, if it was any other writer besides Gerry Duggan, there’s a good chance this pairing wouldn’t work nearly as well as it is right now, either. He knows when to play each character straight and when to let each one go a little crazy.
That said, there’s a certain predictability to what happens in this issue. Logan throws himself into the fray against the Raptors and Loki goes and does his trickster thing, “abandoning” the fight. It’s playing exactly to type and while there’s nothing wrong with that per se, the predictability of the whole affair brings everything down a bit. some interesting little twists to each of their plans, as Logan, tries to fight smarter and Loki’s endgame plan looks to be rather creative, but in the end, it’s Logan as warrior and Loki as trickster.
Andy MacDonald’s pencils are pretty good throughout, but there are some places with the Fraternity of Raptors where the symmetry of their masks looks very much off. He draws a very cool four panel Wolverine berserker rage attack that makes up for it and his character acting throughout the book is top notch. Without that, a lot of the humor at the beginning of the book wouldn’t land very well. Sometimes, on long shots, his pencils lose some detail, but beyond that, there’s a lot to like in the art in this book.
Wolverine Infinity Watch #3 is an action-packed and overall fun book. It gets a little predictable later on with Logan and Loki pretty much taking exactly the roles you’d imagine they would during the fight, but Duggan fills it with enough solid characterization and expert character interplay that the book’s few flaws don’t sink it very much. MacDonald’s art is off in a few places, but overall does an admirable job of bringing the script to life. This book is definitely a treat whenever it comes out.
