X-Men Origins: Wolverine One-Shot

I've written a bit recently about 'weight of expectation' - that sometimes a good book or film can disappoint because of great expectations, and by the same token if I've got little or no expectation I'm often pleasantly surprised - take my recent experience of Criminal for instance.

I've been really enjoying this X-Men Origins occasional titles over the last 9 months or so - the Jean Grey title was my book of 2008 and the Colossus issue was in my Top 10 - so when I heard that Wolverine and Gambit* were next up for the 'Origins' treatment I couldn't wait to get hold of them. Having received and read it I was a little disappointed ... although through no fault of the book itself.

I think the X-Men Origins: Wolverine one-shot suffers as a result of the 'weight of expectation' factor: I've been enjoying all things Wolverine just lately as a result of the Hugh Jackman film and, having finished the book I was left with a feeling of 'is that it?'. It's not that it's a bad read - far from it, I enjoyed the story (to a point) and the Mark Texeira's artwork was good - it's just I felt that it was a tale that perhaps didn't need to be told - told again: at this time anyway. Afterall, is there anything about Wolverine's origin that we don't know?

The collector in me is glad I picked the book up and would recommend it on that basis. Otherwise, with a cover price of $3.99 it's possibly a bit of a luxury I could have lived without - for the moment at least. I hope that at some point Marvel will publish these 'Origins' titles in a collected edition and perhaps that'll be the ideal place to read Wolverine's origin.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, published by Marvel 2009
Written by Christopher Yost, cover and interior art by Mark Texeira

[* I'm far less familiar with the character of Gambit so I'm expecting to read an origin story that's new to me. Consequently, it means I will have a greater expectations of the book ...]