One annual. Two stories. The second one marks Joe Kelly’s first work on Wolverine and (maybe) his first Marvel work. But first things first…
Jeph Loeb plots for Ralph Macchio’s script and Ed McGuinness on pencils. McGuinness is perfect for this because he excels at drawing “big” and the story features the gigantic Red Ronin.
Bastion convinces the Japanese government to use the Red Ronin robot to quell mutants, including Sunfire. At the same time, The Hand wants to get their (ahem) hands on Ronin.
You can imagine how much fun this is to read! I know Ed McGuiness is very stylized and has his detractors, but I thought this was great.
Second story brings in Joe Kelly and Tommy Edwards. While Logan is in Japan, he tends to Amiko–the little girl he agreed to raise (but then gave to Yukio). It’s a pretty typical “Wolverine and a little girl” story. Which sounds dirty but it’s not. Logan always has had an affinity towards mentoring young girls, like Kitty Pryde and Jubilee, for example.