The irony of Millar's first Wolverine story is that Wolverine is the least interesting thing in it. Instead, Millar has shown throughout "Enemy of the State" that he has imaginative, good ideas for the Fantastic Four, Elektra, Daredevil and now, some of the other X-Men. There's still a little bit of Millar's shock value storytelling here, with the much hyped "death of an X-Man" taking place in these pages, and while I don't want to spoil it, it's probably the most pointless and boring part of the book. Fortunately, the rest of the story, as Wolverine infiltrates the X-Mansion and takes on the X-Men, features some great action storytelling courtesy of Romita Jr. and Janson and several really great moments and ideas that are much more interesting than the ad-friendly concept of which second or third tier X-Man will die in this issue before coming back in a few years in another title.
I won't spoil who dies in this issue, but I will say that when you basically have to have another character introduce that character by name a few pages beforehand, it's probably not a big deal that you're going to kill them off. The character won't be much missed, I'd guess, although he/she did fill a particular niche that is unfortunate to see gone by the wayside. It's also a bit of a punk death, and I take issue with that kind of thing. No matter how lame a hero the character is, I think it's only fair to give them a little bit of heroism, self-sacrifice or at least a moment of being a badass before you off them.
Fortunately, who dies really isn't the point, it's just the culmination of the danger that Wolverine presents throughout the issue. The best stuff in the issue comes when Wolverine is intimidating Rachel Grey into doing his dirty work for him. The way that Rachel turns the tables is incredibly clever, a great heroic moment, and very much in tune with the kind of thing Millar has been doing with his guest stars, making them cool and smart and powerful foes for Wolverine. There are any number of smaller ideas like this as well, including the way that Rachel gets around his telepathic filters or the use of Storm's powers to help track Wolverine in the woods.
If the best written stuff is the tense hostage situation with Rachel and Wolverine, the most stirring visuals come when the whole thing goes pear-shaped and Wolverine tries to escape. That shot of the Blackbird in action is truly spectacular, and Romita Jr. and Janson do an excellent job of giving Wolverine a sense of quick, brutal action when he's in motion. Every time he kills with the claws, we see it in just one panel, a sudden burst of violence that leaves someone dead or seriously injured, and it helps to indicate Wolverine's speed and power. Romita Jr.'s stuff isn't as strong on the character-based, emotional moments, but when it comes to the action, it's great.
Truthfully, "Enemy of the State" never really rises above guilty pleasure for me. The action is good, there are some neat ideas, but I can't help shaking the feeling that I'm being manipulated into seeing how "kewl" Wolverine is. Certainly there are some problems with the storytelling on a contextual level, including the pointless death of a pointless character for shock value purposes and the continuity problems with Strucker (whose appearances in New Thunderbolts seem to completely contradict his appearances here, an example more of editorial failure than any failure on Millar's part), but the actual craft at work is pretty solid. It makes for very readable comics, and for the many Wolverine fans out there, this is probably the purest version of the character we've seen in quite a while. 7/10
