August 2007
Wolverine 56
Jason Aaron and Wolverine have an interesting history. He’s had three impressive runs with the character: 16 issues of Wolverine: Weapon X, 25 issues of Wolverine, and 42 issues of Wolverine and the X-Men, as well as the popular Get Mystique four issue run. #Trivia: Jason Aaron’s first published comic was a short story in Wolverine 175 way back in 2002 – he won a contest. Five years later, he wrote this one shot – his first full Wolverine issue – and it is a strange little story.
We open on Wendell. He is arriving at work. He greets his co-workers with little enthusiasm. He sits down at his work station and begins another boring day at work.
Of course, the man in the pit is Wolverine. Wonderfully, we never find out how Wolverine got in the pit. Or who put him there. Or why. All that matters in this story is that there is a man in the pit, and another man is being paid to shoot that man – ostensibly to keep him in the pit.
It’s a weird battle of wills. We spend most of the issue inside Wendell’s head. Wolverine speaks only enough to learn what he needs to learn about Wendell, and use it against him. Wolverine isn’t even really seen that much until the end of the issue, when Wendell stops shooting the man in the pit.
Wolverine confronts Wendell, ensuring that if a comic is called “The Man in the Pit,” there will always be a pit with a man in it.
Wolverine comes clean, showing a surprising amount of empathy, and offering Wendell an unexpected measure of mercy.
Or does he?
Other Comics I Read from August 2007
- Action Comics 855
- All-Star Superman 9
- American Virgin 18
- Astonishing X-Men 22
- Avengers Classic 3
- Avengers: Initiative 5
- Batman Annual 26
- Batman/Lobo 1
- Black Adam 1
- Booster Gold 1
- Brave and the Bold 6
- Captain America 29
- Casanova 8
- Criminal 9
- Crossing Midnight 10
- Daredevil 100
- Daredevil: Battlin’ Jack Murdock 3
- DMZ 22
- Ex Machina Special 1
- Exterminators 20
- Faker 2
- Flash 231
- Good as Lily
- Green Arrow: Year One 3, 4
- Green Lantern 22
- Green Lantern Corps 15
- Halo: Uprising 1
- Hellblazer 235
- Immortal Iron Fist 8
- Incredible Hulk 109
- Invincible 45
- JLA 12
- JLA: Classified 41
- JSA 8
- Loveless 19
- New Avengers 33
- Order 2
- Powers 25
- Programme 2
- Punisher 50
- Punisher War Journal 10
- Ripclaw 1
- Scalped 8
- She-Hulk 20
- Stormwatch PHD 10
- Super-Villain Team-Up: Modak’s Eleven 2
- Thor 2
- Thunderbolts 116
- True Story Swear to God 8
- Ultimate Power 7
- Ultimate Spider-Man 112
- Uncanny X-Men 489
- Walking Dead 40, 41
- World War Hulk 3
- World War Hulk: X-Men 3
- X-Factor 22
2 Comments
This is one of the first comics I ever read, and one of the handful that made me a fan for life. I’ve read the series around this issue piecemeal since then, so wouldn’t have realised that Thor as Deus-ex-machina was being over-used.
I have since learned that Thor was off on a long exile from Earth, traveling through the cosmos in his own comics during these issues, so the creators had to push to have him in the Avengers at all (I guess they really wanted him there. Also the whole point of the Nefaria saga was to have them face an opponent who seemingly outclassed them all, and part of that would be letting the viewers see that even Thor couldn’t beat him.) So him appearing suddenly out of nowhere is a function of him having to zip across the galaxy for half an issue and then back again in time for his next appearance in his own comic.
The last page above is still one of the best superhero entrances in all of comics, though.
Thanks for sharing Feargal!