Wolverine (Vol. 2) #8
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Staff members
  • Writer: Greg Rucka
  • Penciler: Leandro Fernandez
  • Inker: Leandro Fernandez
  • Letterer: Rus Wooton
  • Colorist: Studio F
  • Editor: Axel Alonso, Warren Simons
  • Editor in Chief: Joe Quesada

    Who's in this issue?
  • Special Agent Aguinaga
  • Lake
  • Cassie Lathrop
  • Len (border patrol agent)
  • Mendes (Ritter's associate)
  • Garcia Nestor
  • Ian Ritter
  • Wolverine


    Recommended?

    Something came to mind after reading through this issue and the previous issue: who exactly is Nestor? Nestor claimed, in the previous issue, that Logan had saved his little boy, but when did Logan do this? Kinda makes you wonder about the linearity of some of the issues.

    Anyway, enough with this small detail stuff ...

    I don't recall any instance where Logan would beat up someone first, then ask questions later. Sure, beating someone up has always been Logan's style, but since when did he just beat someone up just for the hell of it, and then start asking questions later? (Back to the last issue rant that I had ... so is Logan turning out to be just another Punisher-like character?) Ok, so Ritter *is* a bad guy, but he sure doesn't know what hit him when Logan starts wailing away at him without any provocation. Logan should know better than to start beating someone up before he gets his answers. After all, we know what Logan is capable of, and if he ends up killing Ritter, he would've never gotten the information he was seeking. Of course, it "just so happens" that Mendes, one of Ritter's associates, was caught afterwards, so Logan was able to squeeze the necessary information out of him. But hell, this sure isn't Logan's style to begin with, which makes me wonder whether the writer's vision for Wolverine is to turn Logan into another Punisher-like character. Yawn yawn, ho hum. Already have that. What I'd like to see is Wolverine just be Wolverine, and not this avenger-stuff that he's been playing ever since this new Wolverine series was relaunched.

    So back to Cassie: lucky for her, she was able to locate Logan again. This time, Logan gets her name, and once again, he tells her to stay away from him. Of course, we all know Cassie better than that, and it's certain that she'll continue tracking Logan whether she likes it or not. Why? I think she's just infactuated with her curiosity about Logan: what makes him tick, and why he does what he does. I'll give her credit though: she's relentless.

    Also, remember how in the last issue, there was about three pages where the only dialogue being spoken was in spanish, and that nowhere in that issue did they translate those words into English for the reader to understand? Well, in this issue the words *were* translated by using the brackets between phrases spoken to indicate that the words being spoken were non-English, but translated for the reader to understand. So why do it in this issue and not the previous issue? Seems to be a lack of consistancy in this respect by using brackets here in this issue versus using all-spanish in last issue.

    Overall, slightly better than last issue. Still very linear (next issue will show Logan clashing with Rojas, which is almost a given), not a lot of twist and turns, which makes this story boring. Also, I still don't like the direction that is being taken with Logan the character: making him a protector of the innocent. Logan's a loner rebel who will fight for the innocent, but not as directly as he is being made out to be currently.


    Rating (from 1 dot (not recommended) to 5 dot (highly recommended)

  • WOLVERINE (VOL. 2) #8:
    "Coyote Crossing: Part 2"

    IN THIS ISSUE:

    Special Agent Aguinaga is seen interrogating Lake. Lake, again, is proclaiming his innocence in the whole matter: how he was just tagging along with Merrick, another coyote, to keep Merrick company and act as his eyes as they transported the illegal immigrants across the border. Aguinaga warns Lake that Lake was facing nineteen counts of murder (the illegal immigrants who perished in the back of the tractor-trailer), not including the death of Lake's partner and the gas station attendant. Once again, Lake proclaims that he wasn't guilty of the murder of his partner and the attendant. As Agent Cassie Lathrop looked on from behind the one-way glass window, Lake keeps telling Agent Aguinaga that it was the "guy with the knives, the one who locked me into the trailer" who had killed his partner. Agent Aguinaga reminds Lake that they are in the state of Texas, that it could be considered a capital crime for the murder of twenty people, punishable by death. Lake finally tells Agent Aguinaga the name Ian Ritter, saying that it was Ritter who had some contacts on the other side of the river.

    Afterwards, as Agent Aguinaga was telling one of his fellow agents, Len, to ensure that Lake didn't get bail and to get a warrant for Ritter's arrest, he was approached by Cassie, who wanted to talk with Aguinaga about the other man whom Lake kept talking about. She belived it was the same man that was in the sketch that she had (the sketch of Logan she had been flashing around last issue. As Agent Aguinaga looks over the sketch, he asks Cassie what connection the man in the sketch had with his investigation. Cassie tells him that this was what she was there to find out more about.

    Meanwhile, in a truck repair yard, Logan pulls in on his motorcycle. He asks the mechanic on duty, Mendes, where he could find Ritter, who directs him over to the main office. Inside, Logan sees Ritter behind the desk watching a comedy show on television. Logan grabs Ritter, and without warning, starts to beat up Ritter. Ritter begs Logan to stop his assault. Logan comments how he thought about being subtle to get answers from Ritter, but then figured that he would have to beat up Ritter for the answers anyway, so he would just go that route and save himself some time. Logan unsheathes one set of his claws, and, while poised to kill Ritter at any given moment, demands to know more names that he was working with. Before Ritter could answer, a gunshot could be heard, and Ritter falls limply to the floor, with a bullet embedded in his face. Logan turns around, and he too takes a gunshot into his face. Mendes is seen with a smoking gun in his face, and he quickly leaves the room. He douses the entire facility with cans of gasoline, and sets the entire place on fire. As he leaves, from the fiery inferno, Logan leaps out and lands on top of Mendes, threatening to kill him unless he talked. Before he could get more information, the border patrol units, with Agent Aguinaga and Cassie, pull up to the burning complex. Agent Aguinaga commands everyone to not enter until the firemen showed up to put the fire out. Cassie, however, doesn't listen to him and runs with her gun drawn into the burning building to look for Logan.

    Before long, however, Cassie becomes overwhelmed by the smoke and heat. As she leaned onto the ground, coughing, Logan appears behind her, and offers a hand to lead her out of the burning complex. In the rear, Logan tells Cassie everything he found out from Mendes, about how Mendes worked for a man across the river named Rojas. He reaches into Cassie's shirtpocket and grabs her badge. Logan finally finds out what her name is, and returns the badge to her. She calls out to Logan by his name as he was leaving. He tells her to stop following him, and that he was not who she thinks he was.

    Later that night, back at Nestor's place, Logan tells Nestor what he had learned and asks Nestor what he knew about Rojas. Nestor tells Logan that all he knew were rumors, about what the coyotes were after (smuggling people across the border was big business, especially those who had families across the border because they could extort the families for a lot of money). Nestor tells Logan that from what he hears about Rojas, Rojas goes after those who would do anything but didn't have the money nor families across the border to finance their trip. Nestor thinks that Rojas uses these people for drug trafficking since Rojas is rumored to be big with heroin. Rojas would use these people to smuggle in drugs into the U.S. in exchange for passage into the U.S. Logan gets up, and tells Nestor that what "burns [him]" was that Rojas was making people worth less than the drugs they were smuggling into the U.S. He tells Nestor he was going to go for a swim.

    Late into the wee hours of the morning, Logan makes his way to the Rio Grande river, and he proceeds to swim across the Rio Grande into Mexico in his pursuit of Rojas. Cassie, on night patrol with Agent Aguinaga, sees Logan swim across the river, but doesn't alert Agent Aguinaga about it. He tells Cassie that the information they got from Mendes would be relayed to the proper Mexican authority so that they could capture Rojas. As they get back into their patrol car, Cassie says quietly that she will see Logan when he gets back to find out what Logan had been up to.



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