Hunt for Wolverine: Mystery in Madripoor #3 Review

by Charles Martin on July 25, 2018

Hunt for Wolverine: Mystery in Madripoor #3 Review
Writer: Jim Zub
Artist: Thony Silas
Colourist: Felipe Sobreiro
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Publisher: Marvel Comics

The Femme Fatales got their moment in the sun in the last issue; now it's time for the wheels to come off their plan and for the heroes to save the day. While this issue is a more pleasant read than the last two, it still feels like a product extruded to fill a hole rather than an organically-nurtured story.

Domino grabs the POV baton and recounts a Logan flashback that includes a page of ugly-bumping. The plot detaches her from Kitty and Jubilee. It's an unfortunate scripting choice; the proper X-Men have way more fun than Domino here. They whomp a couple Femmes and liberate a very vengeful Magneto. Meanwhile, Viper drops a few breadcrumbs about the Soteira organization that's shaping up into the event's Big Bad. Why do they need the Femmes to launch a satellite, and why are Rogue and Storm being loaded onto the rocket too? Oh, and Sapphire is tormented throughout the issue by a ghostly vision of Patch that implies (i.e. practically telegraphs) that Psylocke is alive and well and disassembling her brain telepathically.

The best news I can share about this comic is that Thony Silas has given up the hideous Patrick Nagel impressions of the previous issues and settled into a sketchy but tolerable Bruce Timm impersonation instead. I'm OK with the part of Madripoor being played here by Gotham from Batman: TAS. The visuals still clock in well below "satisfactory." I feel that inflating the size of every head in this book by 15 percent would do more good than harm. 

This issue's pace is solid and speedy, but the characterization is strictly kiddie-pool shallow. Nothing presented here has much chance of sticking in the reader's memory after the comic is finished. Even the Soteira breadcrumbs are rationed so that only the upcoming final issue stands a chance of making an "essential" contribution to the Hunt for Wolverine.

Jim Zub and Thony Silas deliver another puff pastry of superficial female X-action. A slight uptick in the visuals can't elevate this into a rewarding or meaningful read; the main accomplishment here is filling another box on the editors' 16-issue Hunt for Wolverine roadmap. Our recommendation for this title is stuck firmly on 'Skip It.'

Our Score:

5/10

A Look Inside

Comments

Charles Martin's picture
Why yes, I am snooty enough to point out to all the Marvel writers who have used this baddie squad that the proper pluralization is "Femmes Fatale."