Review by Win Wiacek
Following the epochal events of Avengers vs X-Men, there was something of a fresh start and clean slate for most mutants, especially the perennially punching-above-his-weight feral fury Wolverine. Hunting Season proffers a compellingly attractive and decidedly different side of the Canadian Crusader which – like companion series Savage Wolverine – explores the man beyond the blood-blind berserker of yesteryear courtesy of writer Paul Cornell.
Alan Davis pencils the four chapter title story, with the all-out action and sinister subversion starting right in the middle of the mayhem as our horrified hero desperately tries to talk down a spree-killer with an impossibly powerful supergun in the midst of a body-strewn hostage situation. Partially disintegrated, Wolverine can only attempt to reason with the man until his arms and legs grow back.
It’s an impossible situation, and even after Wolverine seems to have saved the day it reignites, the perpetrator this time a ten year old boy. The hunt of the title concerns Wolverine’s attempts to track him down as the killing continues, but without harming a child. If that wasn’t complicated enough, there’s also a problem with the cops. A trio of them intercept a gang of drug-dealers before suddenly acquiring a strange smell and completely detached attitude. In unison, they turn on and dispatch the guy who turned up late.
Cornell escalates the situation with the arrival of Nick Fury, and then, scarily, via Wolverine’s bizarre vision in which the cosmic observer known as The Watcher appears. It’s only to the mutant’s enhanced senses, but indicates that whatever is going on it’s a danger to the entire universe.
Oddly enough, the first stop in sorting the problem is a bar. Guernica on West Fourth is a superhero hostelry and a very unique think-tank meets there. As well as a comic writer, there’s an odds-maker on superhero battles, a professional powers cataloguer and the current CEO of repair conglomerate Damage Control. What the fast-healing hero needs is the services of talented and unflappable surgeon Victoria Frankenstein (she pronounces it “Fronken-schteen”), possibly the only sawbones capable of removing the smart-bullet embedded in the mutant’s shoulder.
Of course, the problem is solved, but not conclusively as the Watcher remains in sight.
It is identified as an alien incursion, and continues in ‘Drowning Logan’ over two chapters drawn by Mirco Pierfederici. Whereas previously Wolverine’s enhanced sense of smell could track it, it’s now evolved to deceive that. How that plays out is seen in Killable.
