Thu Nov 10, 2016
Marvel Comics Presents (or MCP) is a series that interested me for the longest time: it was an anthology comic that tended to have four stories (each 8 pages) of varying length, by which I mean that one story might have 8-10 parts, another might have 4-6, another might only be a single 8-page story, and so on. So a reader was likely to get some really fascinating story turnover in any given collection of issues. When I was young, MCP introduced me to some characters that I don’t think I ever would have checked out otherwise, most notably (for me) Shang-Chi, but also minor characters like Stingray or the Collective Man.
The primary story of many MCP issues featured Wolverine–unsurprising, given his ability to sell pretty much any comic where he appeared on the cover. MCP 072, however, is important because it begins the tale of an incredibly significant part of Wolverine’s backstory, written & drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith: the Weapon X experiments that bonded adamantium to his skeleton.
The cover for issue 072, like all of the MCP covers, is wraparound, with the primary (Wolverine) story featured on the front and the characters of the other three stories–Daredevil, Shanna the She-Devil, and Red Wolf–on the back. On the front half, Wolverine stands, the right half of his body covered by his classic brown-and-yellow suit, and his left half naked with a number of protruding spikes in preparation for his adamantium injections. Behind him is a large skull (likely his own), with similar spikes. Flames beneath a blank blue canvas comprise the background, layered (from top down) yellow, orange, and red. At the top of the page, below the comic’s title/logo, are the words: “Before Wolverine there was Weapon X.” On the back half of the cover, Shanna is posed crouching (with a caption box that declares “Her jungle reeks of evil, and SHANNA must confront it.“), while Red Wolf leaps behind her, up and to her left (captioned “RED WOLF faces the death of his partner Lobo!“). Behind her, down and to the right, Daredevil similarly jumps forward, swinging his billy club (caption: “DAREDEVIL is helpless when things come to a head in New York”). What appears to be the back side of the large skull from the front cover looms behind the figures.
Marvel Comics Presents issue 072
The “Weapon X” story in this issue must have been ridiculously confusing to everyone when it initially came out, since it consists of three threads: (1) Wolverine down on his luck in the Yukon, drinking and getting in fights; (2) flashes of the Weapon X experiments themselves, provided without explanation/context; (3) panels of a scientist performing some sort of experiment that may or may not be (but almost certainly is) related to the Weapon X project.
I didn’t actually pick up this issue until last year, but I already knew the general beats to this story. I have to say, in its serialized form, I’m a bit disappointed since there’s no real room for anything to breathe here (although I get that BWS is trying to let things unfold in a somewhat-similar manner to Logan’s ability to comprehend what happened to him). The art style and the narration is solid–it does its job of leaving me wanting more. I’m just torn in both wanting more and not feeling like I really had “enough” in this portion to really enjoy.
The Shanna comic provided is part 5 of its story. I’m stoked going in because there’s Paul Gulacy art–which I know is not everyone’s cup of tea but he is great at “realistic” comic stories (such as his run on Master of Kung Fu) so I’m expecting strong work here. Shanna and some others are tracking diamond smugglers and poachers through/near Tanzania. This part of the story does a really successful job at showing the violence and tragedy that accompanies such acts, and the cliffhanger–where Shanna discovers someone (a local?) buried up to his neck amid massive anthills–is creepy and suspenseful. Unlike with the Wolverine story, I have a clear sense of where this is going (without bringing in retrospective knowledge of the overall plot).
In contrast, I don’t really know how to explain the Daredevil component (it’s part 4 and the final part, apparently, of a story). There’s apparently been a heat weave, and tensions are running high as people get frustrated. A woman named Ms. Pinkwater, whose defining feature is a Carmen Sandiego hat, is doing … something? I can’t really figure it out. Anyway, apparently a bunch of people hold hands and sing or something, and it causes rain to fall and all tensions in the city to relax. Daredevil doesn’t really do anything other than read a handwritten note that asks him not to do anything. What the hell?
The Red Wolf story–which I think is a standalone story–is equally weak. Red Wolf begins in a lodge, ruminating on the loss of his wolf partner Lobo, while a truck full of drunks look for something to hunt. They eventually discover a mother wolf feeding her cubs and proceed to kill almost all of them (save one), when Red Wolf finally acts. Even then, he’s nearly taken out until one of the hunters decides they’ve gone too far and has a standoff with his buddy. Red Wolf, meanwhile, takes the surviving cub (presumably to raise himself).
All in all, this issue is a decent representative for MCP in general: there’s some interesting experimentation happening and some solid, compelling story work … but there are also stinkers that don’t feel really worthwhile or well-realized. Does the former cancel out the latter? Yes and no–certainly enough, for me, to not absolutely hate the series, but not so much that I forget nostalgia is a big part of my enjoyment of this series.