Essential Wolverine (Paperback)

The venerable Chris Claremont scribes the first third or so of the issues, and his are the best. You get Wolvie in top form, as he finds himself inside a web of intrigue in the seedy underworld of the fictional city of Madripoor. Claremont excels with the supporting cast, creating many memorable characters. Aging flyboy and reluctant adventurer Archie Corrigan is perhaps the best. He behaves the way any of us would if we were the ones playing sidekick to Logan, known in Madripoor as the mysterious "Patch". Former Spider-Woman Jessica Drew joins the cast as a tough P.I. protecting her flaky at times friend, Lindsay McCabe. After the first six-part story, Joe Fixit (the Gray Hulk) drops in for a painful and very humorous two-issue visit. After that, Claremont finishes his run with a couple filler issues, including the first (and possibly the best) encounter between Logan and Sabretooth. John Buscema provides excellent artwork throughout, aside from an Ernie Cowan fill-in. Worthy of mention is the Bill Sienckewicz inked Sabretooth issue, as it has some fantastic art from two of the masters, far better in black and white than in color.

Peter David takes the reins for the following six issues, titled "The Gehenna Stone Affair". Not quite as good as Claremont's run, it's still a great story, full of action and humor. David also nails the supporting cast as totally faithful to Claremont's characters from the first story arc. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the quality of the pictures takes a slight dive. Instead of just black and white, there are grays, which takes a lot away from the amazing Buscema and Sienckiwicz linework. Other than that, everything is great.

The final run of the volume is from Archie Goodwin and John Byrne, and frankly, it stinks to high-heaven. The story is contrived and weak in the first place, and only gets worse. And while John Byrne at his best produced some superb artwork, this is a far cry from his amazing X-Men and Fantastic Four runs. This is in no small part due to Klaus Jansen, whose inks just do not mix with Byrne's pencils. It's really not even worth reading, a stark contrast to the rest of the volume, which is classic.

To sum it all up, the terrible ending story arc doesn't come close to keeping me from recommending this. The first 16 issues featured are some of the best Wolverine stories you'll ever read, even if he doesn't actually suit up as Wolverine until the tail end.