The unlikeliest comics crossover of 2023 is ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:halfway through its four-issue run, anš§d it's turį£ning out to be a good deal of blood-soaked fun.
Its premise - that ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:Wolverine and a young Predator cross paths in Alaska in 1900 and strike up a blood feud that lasts for more than a century - is simple and appealing and plays to the strengths of both these characters. It also allows artists Ken Lashley, Andrea Di Vito and Hayden Sherman to draw some pretty gnarly action scenes, while writer Benjamin Percy's script jumps backwards and forwards to different parts of Logan's long life. Incidentally, you can read more about Percy's intentions for the series in our interview with the writer here.
Now, with this week's #2, the comic is calling directly back to John McTiernan's ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:original 1987 action classic. Spoilers ahead.
The first issue ended with Wolverine seemingly besting the Predator thanks to tź¦he intervention of a hungry bearš·. He left the alien for dead and went on with his life, little realising that the Predator had actually killed the bear and escaped.
Cue a flashforward to South America many years later. Now Wolverine is a member of Team X working with fellow mutants ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:Sabretooth and Maverick, plus newbies Jackson and Kruel, to take out a guerrilla forš„ce plotting a coup. Whāat they find instead is a whole squad of Predators.
That in itself is a situation very reminiscent of McTiernan's movie, which saw Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch lead a team of hardasses into an unspecified South American country on a rescue mission, only forą¶£ them to get slaughtered one-by-one.
Wolverine still carries a Yautja (the canonical name of the Predator race) weapon that he took back in Alaska andš which he uses here to injure one of the hunters before ordering his tešam to fall back. Sabretooth has a different idea however...
Yep, there he is furiously uš„nloading a minigun, just as Mac (Bill Duke) does in the first film. Unfortunately, like in that film, all he succeeds in doing is mowing down a lot of foliage.
From thereš¬ the rest of this section of the issue sees Team X picked off by the Predators until only Wolš”verine and an injured Maverick are left (Sabretooth appears to be killed in the issue, but we can safely assume that his healing factor will patch him up) and forced to join forces with the human enemy they were sent to wipe out. Eventually a big explosion seemingly puts paid to the Predators once and for all while Wolverine and Maverick and escape - but of course one of the aliens has survived.
The last few pages of the issue take place in Alberta some time later at the Weapon X facility, where the surviving Yautja appears to have tracked down and found an unconscious Loganš“. Cliffhanger!
Predator Veš ŗrsus ź©²Wolverine #2 is out now from Marvel Comics.
OK, so none of them feature a Predator, but this list is full of ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:the best Wolverine stories of all time.
Will Salmon is the Streaming Editor for GamesRadar+. He has been writing about film, TV, comics, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he launched thešÆ scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for well over a decade. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places too.
