Wolverine #5
Wolverine battles the vampiric hordes in Wolverine #5, by writer Benjamin Percy, artist Viktor Bogdanovic, colorist Matthew Wilson, and letterer Cory Petit. This one gives readers everything they would expect from a comic with Wolverine fighting vampires and is very good but isn’t as special as some of the other issues.
Dracula and his lieutenants bring a frozen Wolverine into a cabin and tap him for some blood, filling what they call bloodclocks, so they can move during the daylight. Two of the vampires drive a truck through the Canadian/U.S. border, one full of bodies. They add a border guard and go on their way. Back at the cabin, three young vampires find Wolverine and take him away, cracking his ice. They take him on snowmobiles, and his ice cracks, even more, allowing him to escape. In Minneapolis, the two vampires open the vehicle to reveal a bunch of newly made vampires and release them to attack the populace. Wolverine goes after the young vampires, but finds out they aren’t bad- they were turned when Dracula and his ilk attacked a dying mining town and were just looking for something that was better than the moose they were drinking. They tell Wolverine the next town Dracula’s minions are going to attack. The vampires arrive at the town, but so do Wolverine and the young ones. After a bloody battle, Wolverine stops them from attacking the town, with only one of the young vampires surviving.
Benjamin Percy has been nailing it the last four issues of this book, perfectly presenting who Wolverine is in a way that few other writers have in a long time. However, this issue takes a break from that sort of thing, just presenting a straight-up good Wolverine story. The vampire plot is pretty interesting, but it also feels like it takes some pointers from 30 Days Of Night: vampires living in the North of Canada, attacking mountain towns but adds a little extra wrinkle in that they aren’t just trying to kill everyone, they’re trying to build an army.
It’s a very interesting little subplot, and it works very well. There’s a lot of stuff to like about this issue, and while the part with Wolverine getting information from the three young vampires who aren’t exactly thrilled with their lives is needed, it’s a bit of a bait and switch. Percy can’t let readers think they are “good” vampires off the bat, which is okay. Still, Wolverine not killing them pretty much immediately is kind of out of character- breaking out of an icy tomb surrounded by vampires, one would think his first inclination would be to kill them. Another problem with this story isn’t Percy’s fault- X Of Swords starts next issue, meaning this subplot is going to get abandoned for a while, which is a bit of a shame.
Viktor Bogdanovic’s art is very good. The coloring really makes the whole thing, though. Matthew Wilson gives everything a nice blue tinge to it. Blue can represent a lot of things- cold of the north, the pallor of undead skin, and the color of blood before it’s oxygenated. This is the perfect color palette for a vampire story set in the icy north of Canada and gives Bogdanovic’s art the little bit extra it needs.
Wolverine #5 is a great little comic. There are a few deficiencies to it, but one of them helps the story move along, and the other isn’t Percy’s fault. It’s still very entertaining, though, and while it isn’t as artfully written as some previous issues, it’s still quite good. Bogdanovic and Wilson do a great job with the art. Wolverine #5 is a lot of fun.
Grade: B
