Has Chris Bachalo made it onto the blog yet? I don’t think he has. Very interesting progression. He started out with a recognizable and unique style, right off the bat, and slowly began pushing more and more abstract. There’s really not anyone like him. First his drawings got more and more weird, then his page layouts. He has eventually come to a point that I find his comics kind of hard to read, overwrought as the pages can be. But, anyway, look, Wolverine is here! That didn’t take long. Also Zeb Wells is here. We remember Zeb from a whole buncha issues of PPSM with mediocre-to-bad writing and almost entirely wretched art. At least here he’s got a capable partner. Bachalo is inked by Tim Townsend, who I think is his main guy, and colored by Studio F and himself.
Chris decided against panel borders pretty quickly.
I like this exchange between Logan and Peter. Oh hey, at least we don’t have to deal with surprisingly high rate of Spider-Man writers making Wolverine a massive jerk for no reason pre-OMD anymore, I guess that’s nice. I wonder how often the Avengers appear in this title now. It’s weird not to know! All this being new to me. The late 80s, 90s, half the 2000s, I’d read some or all of the Spider-Man material. It’s been a long time since I hit a block full of stuff I did not know. Years! And now it’s gonna happen all the time! not knowing is fun, even if the hit rate has been prrrrrrretty bad so far. Well, anyway, after reiterating his belief that he can handle his own solo career, Spidey mentions he’s got to travel 20 blocks in this blizzard. Strange says he can’t make it go away, but he might be able to magically tell when it will end. Instead, he discovers the blizzard is not natural, says a bunch of mysterious magic stuff, ending with “a protector fights to seal the lock, right here, tonight, at four o’clock,” and then passes out. Wong is weirdly not panicked by this, saying asking some questions exacts a heavy toll. But Logan and Spider-Man decide they’ll be at the place where the “sealing of the lock” is to happen at 4. Meantime, Spide-rMan heads to the Bugle, er, DB!, where 2 guys working on the roof are packing it in due to the weather. He changes clothes out of sight and then gives a lame excuse about “needing some air” as he gets in the elevator with them.
So, then, we find Spider-Man waiting for Wolverine later, freezing, making a joke about how he remembers how bad a blue hoodie looks over his outfit so he can’t wear a jacket, when he sees a guy who seems to fit Strange’s prophecy, which said someone would be fleeing baddies with red eyes. Sure enough, 2 white men are following him. Like, really white.
So now we’re back to the opening bit. Spider-Man’s trying to get his gear and set up his camera when Wolverine prevents him from being shot with an arrow by letting it get him in the forearm, instead. I dunno, man, just because you can shrug that kinda thing off doesn’t seem like it would mean you’d do it on purpose. It still hurts!
Wolverine’s ready to kill the guy who shot him, but Spidey won’t let him. Classic these two, am I right? With the threat ended, Spidey says they have to get these guys to the authorities, but Logan has no interest, leading to this legit funny page:
Bachalo really sells the slow pace of the journey and the cold, and the murder stuff is pretty funny. I mean, this issue is miles ahead of the previous 6, no question. Here’s where the problems start:
The Mayan angle. As I alluded to last post, I’ve actually read these 3 before, for reasons that are too insane to mention at this time, and it’s the Mayan angle that trips this whole thing up. This arc comes off as culturally insensitive at best and more like Tom DeFalco making up his own First Nations tribe at worst.
“Mayan extremists.” Things were going so well, too.