Wolverine by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller

From X-Man to Samurai

Back in the 1980s when I used to pick out comic books at the drug store after school, Marvel invented the limited series. This was an opportunity to take supporting characters from superhero groups and highlight them in their own magazines, usually for a four-issue run (though some were two, six, or twelve issues). Thus, everyone from the Vision and the Scarlet Witch to Machine Man to Hercules to Iceman headlined their own miniseries. It was about this time that the character of Wolverine was really rising in popularity. What Eddie Murphy was to Saturday Night Live, Wolverine was to the X-Men. There was no doubt he was the star of that magazine, and sometimes it seemed like the rest of the team were just his back-up band. If any of Marvel’s characters seemed worthy of his own magazine it was Wolverine. While a lot of Marvel’s limited series of this era were not exactly high quality productions, Wolverine had the benefit of two of Marvel’s hottest creators, writer Chris Claremont and artist Frank Miller. The Wolverine limited series (now known as Wolverine Volume 1) was published in 1982.

The story takes place in Japan. Wolverine is in love with Mariko Yashida, a Japanese woman. Her father does not approve of the romance, however, and he happens to be one of Japan’s richest and most powerful crime bosses. After beating Wolverine up himself, Dad hires ninjas from The Hand to hunt Wolverine down and kill him. Wolverine, on the other hand, is concerned about Mariko’s safety and strives to free her from the clutches of her evil father. Marvel’s hardcover full-color reprint of this limited series, published in 2006, also includes two issues of the Uncanny X-Men (#172 and 173) in which this story is continued. While Miller draws the four issues of the Wolverine miniseries, Paul Smith pencils the pages of the Uncanny issues. All issues are written by Claremont.

Personally, I always found Wolverine’s Japanese storyline to be somewhat unnecessary. In a brief introduction, Claremont says he and Miller envisioned Wolverine as “a failed Samurai,” but didn’t Marvel try the same thing with Daredevil, Hawkeye, and who knows what other Marvel heroes? Wolverine already had plenty of back story with his Canadian history, his prior work as an intelligence agent and mercenary, his bloody rivalry with Sabretooth, and his connection with Alpha Flight. All of that could have been explored further before going down this Samurai road. Thankfully, this limited series was apparently successful enough to spawn an ongoing Wolverine series (now known as Wolverine Volume 2), which was one of Marvel’s best titles of the 1990s. Through that solo series, Marvel creators like Larry Hama were able to fully explore the possibilities of Wolverine’s past.

Frank Miller is one of the greatest superhero/action comics artists of all time, but this is not his best work. Chronologically, this Wolverine miniseries is sandwiched in between his run on Daredevil and his Batman: The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel. Miller’s art here isn’t as good as either of those works. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have the benefit of Klaus Janson’s inking. One thing Miller does really well, however, is draw martial arts battles, and there are plenty of those in this Wolverine series. They just feel a bit like retreads of Daredevil’s battles with the Hand. In summation, this Wolverine limited series isn’t quite the masterpiece it’s often hailed as being, but it is a good solid piece of work from two of Marvel’s most talented creators and a whole lot better than a lot of the forgettable stuff Marvel cranked out in the ‘80s.
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