Writer: Benjamin Percy / Pencillers: Ken Lashley (Present Day), Greg Land with Jay Leisten (Young Wolverine), Andrea Di Vito (Team X), Hayden Sherman (Weapon X), Kei Zama (Muramasa Era), Gavin Guidry (Westchester Era) / Colour Artists: Juan Fernandez (Modern Day & Team X), Frank D'Armata (Young Wolverine), Alex Guimaraes (Weapon X & Murasama Era), Matthew Wilson (Westchester Era) / Letterer: VC's Cory Petit / Editors: Lindsey Cohick, Sarah Brunstad / Collects: Predator Vs. Wolverine #1-#4 / TP Marvel Comics & 20th Century Studios
24th October 2024 (Released 10th April 2024)
Review by Paul Dunne
The Pitch: Worlds collide in the first-ever crossover between the Marvel Universe and the Predator mythos! Brace yourself for the bloodthirsty saga you've been waiting for! Wolverine has lived one of the longest and most storied lives in Marvel Comics history. He's fought hundreds, perhaps thousands of foes - but none compare to this. Witness the untold greatest battle of Logan's life - against one of the galaxy's most ruthless and relentless warriors, the alien hunter known as a Predator!
The Predator and Wolverine share much in common beyond the obvious observation that they're both vicious killers. Both are loners at heart (despite the fact that Logan yearns for some form of companionship and often shambles towards it), they're both often reduced down to a base set of instincts and they're both characters whose stories place them in different times and historical settings, expanding the scope of who they are and why they do what they do. For Logan, this is the singular experience of his life. One man's viewpoint. For the Yautja, as a race that hunts through generations, Logan would be just one prey among many. But here, as is often the case in Predator comics, Percy centres on one Predator, tracking this particular prey over decades.
Percy gets to fanboy all over this and gives us a licence to do the same. He picks Wolverine up at key points in his life, between the pages of his greatest stories, most notably Origin and Weapon X, playing the hits like a great covers band. This is not to label him and his collaborators as the wedding singers of the popular comics world. As anyone whose had to fit new material into an existing series will tell you, it's hard to please fans of that material. But Percy knows the limits, and the pitfalls and dances around and through them very well. He allows that these encounters are a two-way street and the sting of the blade lasts for both characters. It becomes, like all the best 'versus' plots, personal. The Predator stalks Wolverine at different ages, with Logan's memory wiped in between, making it an encounter between enemies and ghosts. Logan makes a correlation between The Predator and modern big-game hunters using high-tech accoutrements to hunt and kill their prey, removed from the minutie and thrill of the hunt because their toys have made them cocky. Well, no one's got fancier toys than The Predator!
There's some great pacing in the book. Cliffhangers both figurative and literal keep you turning. Percy adds some nice touches, for example, Logan weighed down in the water by his own Adamantium skeleton, which contributes to the overall mythology of the character without doing any retcon damage. The battles between the Predator and Wolverine are woven seamlessly into the existing lore, all the more interesting if, like me, you're not familiar with all the periods of Logan's life. The hunt for the Predator becomes the hunt for Logan's memories as the tale winds on. Percy, as befits Someone who has written more than his fair share of Wolverine, creates a convincing monologue for Logan, betraying his grudging respect for his enemy.
Each artist and colourist brings a distinct flavour to their period. Alongside names you'd expect (Lashley, Land), you get some genuine surprises: Kei Zama, Gavin Guidry). Hayden Sherman is fast becoming a favourite of mine and does the Weapon X era proud, as does Zama with the Muramasa era. Land, who is often in the firing line from other creators you can look up for yourself, does a lovely, clean job with Leisten on the Young Wolverine era set in America’s West, a time when killers flourished. Lashley’s modern era is right up there with Jim Lee’s X-Men, with its muscular violence and taut anatomy. Zama’s Muramasa era is full of tight, detailed black lines, giving way to open forests and daylight. Sherman’s Weapon X squirms with organic machinery and dark sciences. Di Vito’s Team X is an open battlefield, moving into tighter spaces, in a way the inverse of Zama’s. Guidry brings us to the era when Logan was plugged into the X-Men and accentuates his guilt in bringing the battle to Westchester. Throughout, Fernandez, D'Armata, Guimaraes, and Wilson create a solid, consistent colour palette with flourishes where needed, such as the pastel burnish of the Muramasa period. Cory Petit keeps the voices consistent across the four issues, no mean feat when only one character has a voice and you have to take that voice through six distinctive time periods. But it’s books like this that prove that colourists and letterers are the unsung heroes of the comic book industry! Overall, this is more of an interesting addition to the Wolverine mythos than to the Predators, but a fun, entertaining book nonetheless.
Predator Vs. Wolverine is available now from your local comic book shop.
