Ultimate X-Men #36

Background

Spidey and Wolverine have met twice before in the Ultimate universe and after some initial problems, get on pretty fine. Wolverine is on the run and Spidey is helping out.

Story Details

The issue opens with Wolverine getting hit in the guts and carried off across rooftops by a rocket as Spidey jumps out of the way. As Wolverine is propelled along and smashed through a wall, he manages to get his claws into the rocket, extract it from his gut and flip himself over the top of it. The rocket explodes and Wolverine is thrown out of the building.

Meanwhile, Spidey is back on the rooftop and a bit freaked by seeing Wolverine depart the way he did. SOme helicopters appear and start gunning for Spidey. Spidey tries to find Wolverine in the burning building, but is driven back by the intense fire. He swings off calling out Logan.

From an alley below Wolverine watches him go. Wolverine ponders the chick that set him up in the diner, but is interrupted by some punks who he scares off by popping his claws. Then Daredevil makes an appearance and tries to discern whats going on. He leaves as the diaper trucks carrying Wolverine's would-be assasins arrive on the scene. There's a brawl, but the commado dudes Wolverine attacks are wearing some sort of adamantium deflective body armour. Meaning Wolverine gets hit a few times and takes no one down. The head chick tells her men to stop, taunts Wolverine a little and then shoots him point blank in the head. She pauses to see Wolverine start to recuperate and mention the bullets are adamantium, then shoots him a few more times in the head while going on a tirade.

Her tirade is stopped as she gets smacked upside the head by Daredevils billy club. DD asks her to "Get out of my kitchen" then we get the "...to be continued."

General Comments

This was another great issue. There's plenty to like. The art is great, the dialogue and the plot are excellent. This is a top qulaity book. The pace has defintely picked up and its edge of your seat stuff.

Once again I like the characterisation probably the most. The way Spidey gets all freaked out and starts screaming like a girl and then jumps head first into an inferno without thinking are all great. This really reflects that he is a teenager new to his powers and the super-hero thing. On the other hand Wolverine calmy handles being impaled by a rocket and has the whole tough guy schtick going on so well. Then there's Daredevil, I think its mainly due to David Finch, but he comes across really well here. His initial enigmatic scene, where he appears and then disappears into the shadows work really well. The characters do fall down a little when it comes to the villains though. I was hoping by now we'd have a clearer idea of what's motivating them, especially the chick. As it is, it is very unclear as to why they are chasing Wolverine. I think it would help in getting the reader more involved in the scene at the end when the main chick goes ballistic at Wolverine.

The only thing I'm worried about is that this issue signals the end of Spider-Man's involvement. It'd be a shame if he didn't come back into it. I'm also waiting for the X-Men to appear. At the moment this is really an Ultimate Wolverine story.

Overall Rating

This is great stuff.