I’ve never been much of an X-Men fan. I’ve read some of the classic storylines and see a couple of the movies, but I never was much of a fan. And, back in the 1980s, Wolverine always seemed like a perfect Marvel character. His lack of background and powers could be used to fit him into any storyline. But there was rarely any stories that explored his character. So, Chris Claremont and Frank Miller had a discussion when they shared a car ride back from the San Diego Comic Convention and came up with a new definitive (for the time) Wolverine storyline in the four issue mini-series aptly named Wolverine. Without changing the character or giving a backstory (or origin), they set a new direction for the character that made him a lot more interesting than a wild animal of a man. Let’s see what happened.

Wolverine’s love, Mariko Yashida, has stopped answering his calls and letters. So Wolverine, not know to take no for an answer, goes to Japan to find out what happened. Sneaking into her house, he finds out that her father, Shingen, came back and married her off to pay his debt. Wolverine confronts Shingen, who pretty much kicks his ass in every way it could be kicked. Wolverine wakes up drunk and with a new companion, a female mercenary named Yukio who has some Yakuza issues she needs help with.

Wolverine slowly realizes that his habit of rushing into battles without thinking is without honor in the Japanese feudal sense that he desperately wants to emulate.After helping Yukio destroy an Yakuza leader, he realizes that he was being played. Yukio was working for Shingen  who is also a Yakuza leader, to take down a rival. Wolverine decides to destroy Shingen’s organization and face him in combat, one-on-one with honor to basically fight for his soul and the hand to Mariko. Wolverine, of course, wins and gets the girl.

The story itself is pure Claremont, overly complicated plot with machinations that make sense alone, but don’t when you put everything together, and characters who use fighting to define character. The story is also pure Miller with ninja assassins, Japanese crime lords and ancient versions of honor defining people. The art is amazing. Miller had no peer in the 1980s when it came to pure action.

Four simple panels that show movement and character. You know who everyone is and what they are doing even without the words there. It’s Frank Miller near the top of his game. Overall it’s a wonderful story, well worth reading, even if you aren’t a Wolverine fan. In addition, it appears that the next Wolverine movie will borrow liberally from this story. So it will be fun to see how they adapt it to the big screen. Highly recommended.