Death of Wolverine Review - Dead on Arrival

[StewShearerOld]

Death of Wolverine Review - Dead on Arrival

The Death of Wolverine takes one of Marvel's most iconic characters and subjects him to an anemic demise that underwhelms at almost every turn.


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[Something Amyss]

Don't worry. I'm sure they'll get it right next time. Like Wolverine, Marvel can always rectify its mistakes down the road.

Also, I'm sort of surprised there were any introspective moments.

 

[P-89 Scorpion]

Well temporary till they get the film rights back from Fox. And there are rumors on another mass mutant killing with those left alive becoming Inhumans so it could be the end of mutants at Marvel for a few years while Fox retains the rights.

 

[Trishbot]

Wolverine was killed in 2008. That was less than six years ago.

Death in comics is about as permanent as death in Dragon Ball Z.

 

[KazeAizen]

Wolverine was killed in 2008. That was less than six years ago.

Death in comics is about as permanent as death in Dragon Ball Z.

I think this is just a bit different. This death and any other mutants will be as permanent as long as Fox retains the rights to the characters, which sadly seems to be the case for some time. Even if the X-men movies are better than the new Spider-man ones apparently the relationship between Marvel and Sony is good while Marvel hates Fox's guts.

 

[josh4president]

Eight months, tops.

Calling it know he'll be back to SNIKTing in no time.

 

[Trishbot]

Wolverine was killed in 2008. That was less than six years ago.

Death in comics is about as permanent as death in Dragon Ball Z.

I think this is just a bit different. This death and any other mutants will be as permanent as long as Fox retains the rights to the characters, which sadly seems to be the case for some time. Even if the X-men movies are better than the new Spider-man ones apparently the relationship between Marvel and Sony is good while Marvel hates Fox's guts.

I don't think so. Wolverine is too big (they said he'll be dead "at least until 2016"). I mean, they resurrected Nightcrawler just a few months or weeks ago, for instance.

Fox has no creative control over their comics, and X-men related comics are roughly 30% of Marvel comic's profits.

 

[KazeAizen]

Wolverine was killed in 2008. That was less than six years ago.

Death in comics is about as permanent as death in Dragon Ball Z.

I think this is just a bit different. This death and any other mutants will be as permanent as long as Fox retains the rights to the characters, which sadly seems to be the case for some time. Even if the X-men movies are better than the new Spider-man ones apparently the relationship between Marvel and Sony is good while Marvel hates Fox's guts.

I don't think so. Wolverine is too big (they said he'll be dead "at least until 2016"). I mean, they resurrected Nightcrawler just a few months or weeks ago, for instance.

Fox has no creative control over their comics, and X-men related comics are roughly 30% of Marvel comic's profits.

Think about this though. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a thing now. Its bigger and in my humble opinion better than any comic franchise out there right now. I mean the highest grossing movie of the year stars C and D list characters from a book that hasn't had regular publication since I think the 1970s. Now Rocket Raccoon has his own book and I'm willing to bet people will start reading it because they were introduced to the character via that movie. Basically what I'm saying is that they could supplant the X-men and make up those profits from other characters that Marvel Studios still owns the rights to.

The X-men are big but they aren't as big as they used to be and quite frankly if they don't go somewhere new with their next movie their movie franchise is about as relevant as Spawn is to comics these days.

Edit: And because having caveats is a necessary thing now on the web I did like Days of Future Past a lot, but Moviebob was at least right about one thing. They've basically been telling the exact same story for 7 or so movies now with The Wolverine being the closest thing we got to something different.

 

[Baresark]

I had a feeling this was going to be the case. The writing in Marvel has really declined the last couple of years.

 

[TheMemoman]

Agreed. Completely underwhelming. Everything felt tacked-on and rushed. The fight with Sabertooth: "Kill him Sabertooth! Stop. Now go away please Sabertooth." And he goes away.

The ending had a pointless fight with some dude no one cares about, and then an adamantium memorial. Cool art all around, but everything else was gratuitous, disconnected and easily dismissed.

Shouldn't you have felt like reading something historic? I certainly didn't.

 

[Trishbot]

The X-men are big but they aren't as big as they used to be and quite frankly if they don't go somewhere new with their next movie their movie franchise is about as relevant as Spawn is to comics these days.

Edit: And because having caveats is a necessary thing now on the web I did like Days of Future Past a lot, but Moviebob was at least right about one thing. They've basically been telling the exact same story for 7 or so movies now with The Wolverine being the closest thing we got to something different.

I partially agree. I'm not a huge fan of their X-men films... but, well, Days of Future Past is still the biggest superhero money maker in the superhero movie business this year thus far, so it's still plenty big and has a lot of sway. They'd need a few more X-men: Origins-level disasters to damage the brand permanently.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

I'm just glad he's dead. He's always been the most boring X-man character there was. "I'm so bad because I can take lethal injuries all the time and not die, but i'm actually fairly bad at combat because without regen i'd be dead 100+ times."

But you know, that's like my opinion, dude. Still, i'm with the others on saying it's only temp. Once you hit big as a character, you get to stagnate into a infinite cycle of doing the same thing forever! *Atleast in Comics

 

[KazeAizen]

The X-men are big but they aren't as big as they used to be and quite frankly if they don't go somewhere new with their next movie their movie franchise is about as relevant as Spawn is to comics these days.

Edit: And because having caveats is a necessary thing now on the web I did like Days of Future Past a lot, but Moviebob was at least right about one thing. They've basically been telling the exact same story for 7 or so movies now with The Wolverine being the closest thing we got to something different.

I partially agree. I'm not a huge fan of their X-men films... but, well, Days of Future Past is still the biggest superhero money maker in the superhero movie business this year thus far, so it's still plenty big and has a lot of sway. They'd need a few more X-men: Origins-level disasters to damage the brand permanently.

I don't think a "damaged brand" would happen but rather just boredom with X-men story telling. They haven't encountered aliens, dinosaurs, inter dimensional super beings, or basically any of the truly weird stuff that is often associated with the X-men. I understand that the original films were made in a different time but if they don't do something fun, interesting, or novel at all post Apocalypse I do think audiences will just get bored with it.

I mean Captain America completely shifted his story and tone in two movies. The X-men movies quite frankly really haven't with the one lone exception of The Wolverine. The way I see it a damaged brand would be what is going to get Spider-man fully back in Marvel's hands while sheer boredom is what is going to bring the X-men back. I mean think about it. With the one "break out" character they've got they haven't even tried to put his mask on. Even as a passing joke. They can't focus on Wolverine forever and frankly I don't think they know what they would do without him which is a shame because the X-men have so many characters its ridiculous. Give me a movie with Psylocke and a comics accurate costume and I'd buy ten tickets for the obvious reasons and because it would just be something different.

 

[StewShearerOld]

Someone else mentioned it but the thing that really kills the immersion for this kind of boring and long-winded storyline(remember this may be a 4 issue but this wolverine is dying thing has be counting down for like months.) is that he literally just died recently and it was sooo much better and better written. He went to hell and met his dad and everything. It was more balanced between comedy and drama the former being wolverines strong suit. It's rare that they make him serious and its even mildly entertaining. My favorite wolverine storyline was when some vengeful club of people whos lives he ruined gathered all his children and made him fight them to the death unaware of their connection to him until the end. That took him to a far darker and more introspective place than this garbage.

Whats worse is they did a bunch of these stupid and terribly written one-shots of people reflecting on his death the worst of which was Night crawler who again just friggin came back to life!

Yeah, the Nightcrawler issue was pretty laughable. He spends half of it recounting the various ways X-Men have come back to life while he mourns for his "dead" friend.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The Wolverine that died, it was a clone. We will get a new X-Man who just happens to have a fast healing power, but always wears a mask. And the real Wolverine was kept in stasis while the Healing Factorless clone was turned loose.

 

[C. Cain]

I partially agree. I'm not a huge fan of their X-men films... but, well, Days of Future Past is still the biggest superhero money maker in the superhero movie business this year thus far, so it's still plenty big and has a lot of sway. They'd need a few more X-men: Origins-level disasters to damage the brand permanently.

Just give it another week or two. Guardians is only in its second week in China and it's released in Italy today while DoFP ran its course. I think that's going to be enough to close the $15 million box office gap.

Either way, you're right. X-Men is far from damaged. DoFP was something of a franchise revival if said box office is any indication.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Who does Marvel think that it's fooling with "the death of whomever" arc?