Hey, everyone, jrpbsp here…This week we have another Wolverine One Shot up for review, ‘Wolverine: Mr. X’. Hope you enjoy it.

Wolverine: Mister X #1 (Preview)
Writer: Frank Tieri
Art: Paco Diaz with Guillermo Ortega

SPOILERS BELOW…

RECAP: The issue opens with Mr. X remembering his childhood when he experienced a dying woman’s thoughts and it jump started his psychic powers. He then reflects on his history of training and his fights with Wolverine, including losing the second time they fought. Being beaten has made him obsessed with Logan and in the present it is revealed that he has been dressing people up like Wolverine and killing them. He has also been training to match Logan’s berserker rage by fighting actual wolverines. Once he has killed a hoard of them he declares himself ready.

Logan is in a bank waiting in line. It is predictably robbed but he takes out the gun men in seconds with no one being hurt. The teller thinks that Wolverine is trying to steal the money until he produces his Avengers card. A delivery man interrupts the exchange and nearly loses his head. He hands Logan a package and runs off. Inside, Wolverine finds a note from Mr. X and the severed head of a kindergarten teacher wearing a Wolverine mask. X says he will kill the kids unless Logan makes a personal appearance.

Wolverine races to the rescue and finds the kids, in Wolverine masks, dosed in gasoline and X holding a lit match. He threatens to kill them unless Logan gives him what he wants, which is a rematch. They set up a meeting in the hall of warriors at the Museum of Natural History at midnight. Wolverine arrives and is greeted by an arrow from the dark which he prompting deflects. Having passed the test of worth, X attacks him.

The fight is brief though, as Wolverine refuses to unleash his berserk side. Instead he decides not to fight at all. X hits him and then grabs a sword and begins cutting off bits of Logan but he refuses to fight back. Eventually Mr. X falls to his knees defeated. After Wolverine leaves, X receives a call from Osborn asking him to join the Thunderbolts.

MY TAKE: The Wolverine one shots are generally a mixed bag and this is no exception. I am not really a fan of Mr. X so his history did not interest me, but there were some pretty good scenes of his battles and even his monologue had its moments. On the other hand, most of Wolverine’s scenes were pretty cliche and not very interesting. Even though this was ostensibly a Wolverine story, he seemed to be more of a secondary character for the whole issue.

There is very little that is new here, most of these plot points have been done a hundred times. The traumatic death that triggers mental powers, the hard training to take down a powerful foe. Wolverine has foiled bank robberies so many times I wonder why they even let him through the doors. He is obviously bad luck to the entire banking industry. Maybe that is how the delivery men was able find him in a bank since there is no other explanation to receiving a package in a public place.

The ending was original though, and I definitely like seeing Logan using his brains rather then just his claws. The scene was pretty intense too and enough to make any guy wince when he read it. However, I am a bit confused at how that was actually beating X. There is no reason why he can not go back to taking and killing little kids to make Logan fight and there is every reason to believe he would. While Logan might be willing to suffer torture to win, I do not see him letting innocents die because he will not fight.

In the end, this issue had some pretty good fight scenes and interesting ideas but was hurt by an unoriginal plot. It was certainly not bad for a one shot but I found it hard to get into due to my lack of interest in the antagonist. Still it was fast paced and it read well. I was hoping the story would increase my interest in X, but there was nothing that really grabbed my attention. Perhaps a future story will make the character better developed but for now I would have preferred a story with a more established villain.

Thanks for reading my review for Wolverine Files. I will be keeping to this format for the most part but please keep the comments coming and I will see everyone again next time.