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ELEKTRA AND WOLVERINE: THE REDEEMER #1
Highly Recommended (10/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Yoshitaka Amano
Editors: Axel Alonso & Jennifer Lee
Price: $5.95 US/$9.00 CAN |
A few years
ago, this is the kind of project we never would have seen out of Marvel, and
thank heavens for the changes they've gone through, because this is exactly the
kind of project they could use more of. The creative team on this sounds like a
fan's wet dream, teaming an accomplished crime novelist with an award-winning
Japanese painter for a story of bodyguards and assassins, but it's real and it's
just as good as you'd expect. Rucka adapts his prose somewhat to Amano's style,
giving the book a more lyrical quality than his Atticus Kodiak novels, but he
retains the feeling of reality in how assassins and bodyguards interact. Amano
loses some of the more fantastic elements of his art to paint the gritty real
world settings of Elektra and Wolverine, but retains the beautiful and edgy
style with his depictions of Elektra or some incredible painted scenes of the
action.
I wouldn't consider either of these characters a favorite, but I like both of them when they're done well. I'm anxious to see Rucka's arc on the Elektra series at
this point, because the finest moment of this book comes early on, with a
detailed tale of one of Elektra's assassinations. Just as he has done in his
novels, Rucka paints the picture of a professional who has through through the
details of a hunt. While he establishes power and skill in the fight scenes
between Elektra and Wolverine, the more important ability is their intelligence
and their ability to think tactically, which is shown off in their very focused
thought processes.
The setup for the story is not really what you'd call brand new, but it's a workable premise that immediately and believably sets the two lead characters at odds. Having Wolverine work for his former handlers is an intriguing idea similar to the one Mark Millar is exploring in Ultimate X-Men, and
putting this trained killer into a bodyguard role works surprisingly well. I
particularly enjoyed the fast bond between Wolverine and young Avery, fitting
given his history with young women such as Jubilee and Kitty Pryde. The plot
here is kept relatively simple, though, to make room for a vast amount of
characterization, notably Wolverine's feelings about his memories or Elektra's
conflicted feelings about her target.
At first, I was worried that
Amano's artwork might be a little too fantasy-oriented for a book like this,
which is really a hard-boiled crime book. However, Wolverine and Elektra both
have roots in Japanese culture, and so the stylized appearances Amano gives them
works surprisingly well. In addition, though I often found the artwork to not
quite match the pictures Rucka was putting into my head in every detail, there
can be no doubt that the art is breathtaking. The beautiful, inhuman appearance
of Elektra serves to heighten the sense that she is a deadly assassin who cannot
be reasoned with, and the rough and tumble look of Wolverine makes him look like
a sturdy foe for Elektra, as well as reinforcing a sort of "everyman" quality
that serves him well as a protagonist.
This is something truly
amazing, a triumph on just about every level. The production values are amazing,
the artwork beautiful and the prose completely engaging. I had high expectations
from this creative team, and they exceeded them at every turn.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board. |
