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 ...]

More from Free Comic Book Day

I previously mentioned how much I'd enjoyed Blackest Night #0 from DC Comics, part of the Free Comic Book Day promotion and over the weekend I read another couple of titles that were given away as part of FCBD.

Firstly, from Marvel we have Wolverine: Origin of an X-Man. Having always enjoyed the character of Wolverine, and having recently seen the X-Men Origins film at the cinema, I was looking forward to reading this title and to be honest I was a bit underwhelmed by the writing and the artwork.

The story is set before the X-Men, and leads into Wolverine's battle with the Hulk and Wendigo. The man known as "Weapon X" is a lone agent for the Canadian government's top-secret program known as Department H. The authorities find that they can't trust a loose cannon who can't even remember his past, but when a commando unit is lost in a small town that is completely overrun by an unstoppable cybernetic plague, Logan finally has a chance to prove himself... but only if he survives "Operation: Wolverine".

I felt the story was unchallenging and left me with a feeling of 'ok, is that it?' when I'd finished reading and the artwork was simple and 'cartoony' in style. Neither of these comments are meant as criticisms - however they may read - the 'Great for all Ages' comment on the cover leads me to suspect that this title is aimed at the 'young adult' audience: a group I left about 30 years ago!

Wolverine: Origin of an X-Man, written by Fred van Lente with art by Gurihiru. Published by Marvel, May 2009

Next up, is a G.I Joe/Transformers flip book from IDW Publishing that features no less that 3 short stories - two featuring G.I Joe and one Transformers.

The first G.I. Joe short story is called 'One Word' and across 6 pages we see Duke lead the team to thwart a group of smugglers, only to have the mission literally blow up in their face. The story ends with a 'continued in G.I. Joe #1' footnote.

The second story - In and Out - is told over over 5 pages and features a 'discussion' between Hawk and Duke who gets an ultimatum to join the G.I. Joe team... or else. Again, the story ends with a 'continued in G.I. Joe: Origins' footnote.

These 2 stories were first published in G.I. Joe #0 in October 2008 - Newsarama have the 'One Word' story available to view here.

The Transformers story - Survival Skills told over 11 pages - sees academy cadet Optimus take on Megatron in a combat simulator and leads into the Transformer Animated: The Arrival trade. An uncomplicated read that I suspect was aimed at a younger audience.

All in all a really good read - I particularly enjoyed the two G.I. Joe stories that I thought were well told and nicely illustrated: I'll be picking up G.I. Joe from now on as a result of reading these stories.

'One Word' by Chuck Dixon, Robert Atkins and Andrew Crossley
'In and Out' by Larry Hama and Tom Feister
'Survival Skills' by Marty Isenberg, Dario Brizuela, Leandro Corral and Liam Shalloo

Published by IDW, May 2009

Click here for more details of all the titles included in Free Comic Book Day 2009 - including free preview page downloads.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I'm really enjoying all things X-Men at the moment - as I've said previously one of the best titles I've read in recent months was the Jean Grey Origins title and I've just picked up a copy of Brian K. Vaughan's now out-of-print Mystique 'Drop Dead Gorgeous' trade.

Continuing the 'Origins' theme is the forthcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine film due for release in May and from the look of this trailer it will be worth waiting for.