The very first panel picks up exactly where the last issue left off, with Karma’s hand bleeding from the glass she shattered. Chris Claremont then creates a very suspenseful moment of drama with Bloodsport asking her about her injury and things escalating from there. It is rare for a moment of drama in a comic book that is created almost exclusively by the dialogue.
We then see Wolverine going to somewhere near Madripoor known as “The Golden Triangle” where drugs are smuggled into Madripoor. The introduction of this location shows the greater area of Madripoor as an intricate piece of world-building.
Written by Chris ClaremontCover by John Buscema
Pencilled by John Buscema
Inked by Al Williamson
Colored by Glynis Oliver
Lettered by Tom OrzechowskiWolverine intercepts a drug shipment in the Golden Triangle. Lindsay and Jessica look after Tyger.
While Wolverine, or “Patch”, travels to this dense jungle terrain, his pilot, Archie Corrigan, is facing an inner conflict expressed through his monologue. He has been “marked” by Bloodsport and will die if he doesn’t do what Bloodsport wants. Despite still being loyal to Tyger, he is planning on betraying patch to save Coy’s shipment. This slow building of tension despite nothing happening is again a great example of a quiet script first style of grabbing the readers interest. The fact that is done for a second time makes the subsequent pages action all the more compelling for the contrast it brings.
The fight begins as a chase, with both Archie and “Patch” being chased by a military plane without any firepower of their own. The chase has remarkably white lines drawn across the page to mark the movement of the plane. While this technique is normally used to show the momentum of a punch; it works phenomenally well for this purpose too. The fight/chase comes to a phenomenal crescendo with Logan managing to jump out of the plane and slice the wing off the enemy plane. This, quite frankly, is an awesome action beat and focuses enough on a build-up and fall out to make it all the cooler.
Lindsay and Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman) show themselves to be a strong duo for B-stories in this issue more so than the last. Lindsay understandably feels helpless in comparison to her best friend and Wolverine. What is especially bold about this emotional beat is that it is so common for the audience to feel this way about the normal people in their super hero comic. This in many ways shows the confidence in Claremont’s character work thus far; as Linsay has already proven her worth in other issues but more importantly has shown herself to be a very interesting character despite her relative lack of power. Jessica too has had less time to showcase her personality but manages to put on her P.I hat and investigate the photograph of a hundred year old photo with a similarly aged ‘Patch.’
The latter half of the comic shows Wolverine in full stealth commando mode, sneaking up on the American soldiers and the local militias. This is very reminiscent of a Vietnam war movie with the Southeast Aisan locals and the use of guerilla warfare. The stealth sections have two important qualities which make them so good. The first is the panel layout, which puts focus on things that the soldiers are focusing on or puts Logan in the corner of the panel in order to make him appear stealthier. The second is a well balanced amount of text (dialogue and monologue) that makes you linger on the stealth beats longer than you would for the action beats but too long as to emphasise the words over the images. Overall this issue feels like the ongoing series is really hitting its stride.
