This story serves to launch a new Wolverine monthly, “Wolverine: Origins,” so it asks more questions than it answers. It appears under the “Decimation” banner.
And like most Wolverine origin stories, it’s very confusing.
Wolverine is in Japan right after M Day and he’s fighting gangsters and hiding from SHIELD and the New Avengers because he’s regained his memory and…for some reason that makes him attack the Prime Minister of Japan, and his head of security: Silver Samurai.
Daniel Way comics are rarely good, but I will acknowledge, as many have, that the fight with Silver Samurai is good.
Not as good as UXM#173, though. Jus’ sayin’.
But there’s a lot of stupid “hiding the ball.” For example, Logan and Silver Samurai talk during their fight, but we the readers aren’t able to see what they say. We see Wolverine having dreams, but we don’t get to see what he actually knows–even though he is the narrator. And so on. If Wolverine has his memories back, it just doesn’t make sense to keep things so cryptic for the reader in a comic where Wolverine speaks directly to us through voiceover.
The major upshot: It’s revealed that Wolverine had a wife and a son, both of whom were killed by Winter Soldier while he was brainwashed and working under Soviet direction. Wolverine met his wife while training in Japan with Ogun. Note that the son will turn out to be Daken.
Logan fights Bucky, too, in this arc. And that’s also a pretty good extended fight scene–notwithstanding that Winter Soldier is in blackface(!??)
At the end of the story, he gets a sword from Muramasa, the demon metalworker.
…And a new monthly series.
Note that the cover to issue #36 is a tribute…
