Ah, Wolverine. I liked this character so much when I was younger. He gave Cyclops a lot of grief, which is always a plus. He was OK with being violent, which was very appealing to me at certain agres. For someone who was also into Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers and thought swords and weapons like that were cool, the character who came with his own set of swords, in his fists, was very cool.
I think the earliest issue of his book I owned was #29, because the cover looks familiar. I can't remember a thing about the story, other than I think there's a conversation around a campfire. Beyond that, I grabbed scattered issues here and there over the years. The one above, where we learn Logan had bone claws beneath the adamantium all along. Issue #50, with the cover that had the 3 jagged tears (actual tears, not ones that were drawn on there) so you could see part of what was supposed to be a personnel file underneath. Part of a story where Joe Fixit Hulk comes to Madripoor. The Acts of Vengeance tie-ins by the Archie Goodwin, John Byrne, Klaus Janson team.
I did buy Wolverine monthly for a long time, starting probably in late 2000. Roughly when Frank Tieri started writing it. That wasn't why, I didn't know Tieri's work, just coincidence. Sean Chen drew a lot of those issues, and some of them were OK stories. There's big throwdown with Sabretooth when Logan's healing factor is on the fritz that also answers his questions about what memories Weapon X took from him (the answer: none). A team-up with Alpha Flight that wasn't too bad. There was a knock-off Bloodsport arc that I enjoyed at the time, but looking back, pointlessly killed some minor villain types to no real purpose. Which would have been a waste if, you know, anyone at Marvel paid attention to who was dead or not.
Suffice it to say, none of it has retained a place in my collection.
I bought it all the way until that volume ended, and then continued on into the new volume that started almost immediately after. Through Greg Rucka's run with Darick Robertson, on into Millar and Romita Jr.'s stretch, and finally bailed out during Daniel Way's story that introduced the notion Logan had a son (who turned out to be Daken) he'd forgotten about, whose mother was killed by Winter Soldier. Way's run felt pointless. Millar's was his usually BIG ACTION, Michael Bayesque spectacle. Enjoyable on its own, but no weight to it. I know, would I expect different from Millar? Not now, but I didn't know any better then.
Rucka's run, at least the first 12 issues, hung on the longest. Ultimately I didn't care about the FBI agent he introduced as a temporary love interest (who seemed pretty much like every female character Rucka writes), or yet another story about Logan questioning his humanity because he just finished killing a shitload of people in another berserker fury. Especially since Logan doesn't stop killing shitloads of people, which kind of undercuts his concerns. Either make peace with it or stop doing it.
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