Wolverine #72

This is the seventh part of the Old Man Logan storyline. Wow, 7 parts already... After this there's only one more part to go before this story ends. I have to say, Mark Millar is crafting one hell of a fantastic story here.

-Huh, so the President of the United States WAS actually the Red Skull. Anyway, here's the review.

-We begin with the Skull thinking back to that moment 50 years ago when along with his army of villains, he managed to defeat Captain America and conquer the US. In the here and now, Skull stands in his trophy room(dressed in the bloodied uniform of Captain America, which is just brilliant!)in his perverse version of the White House and awaits the arrival of his SHIELD agents.

-The SHIELD agents arrive carrying the bodies of Hawkeye and Logan. Apparently Skull intends on adding them to his trophy collection of dead heroes. Before Skull or his men can mount Clint or Logan on the wall, Logan springs up and takes out the 4 SHIELD agents who brought him in. Didn't those guys ever hear of a healing factor?

-Skull attacks Logan and beats the hell out of him. Who knew a 100 and something year old Nazi still packed that kind of punch! Skull knocks Logan into his collection of weapons and proceeds to lock his guards out of the room, obviously wanting to kill Logan himself.

-Skull grabs Black Knight's Ebony Sword and swings it at Logan, who managed to grab Captain America's shield from the broken trophy case. Logan blocks Skull's initial parry and beats the Skull to the ground with the shield. The prone Skull then insults Logan, claiming Logan didn't have the guts to deliver the killing stroke. Logan responds by beheading Skull with Cap's shield in a truly awesome visual.

-The guards outside Skull's trophy room decide to blow the doors open, and Logan quickly surveils the room looking for something to get him past the guards. The guards enter the room and discover Logan wearing the helmet, boots and chest piece of Iron Man. Logan blasts the guards out of his way, grabs the suitcase full of money the Skull was going to give his SHIELD agents for bringing Clint and Logan in, and flies away using the thrusters from IM's boots.

-Logan almost makes it back home to California, but the boots run out of power about 500 miles short. For the next 36 hours, Logan walks back the rest of the way, never letting go of the suitcase full of money.

-Upon arriving back at his homestead, Logan is met by a neighbor named Donovan, who gives Logan the grim news that the Hulk's children had come back to his home while he was away and slaughtered his wife and kids.

-Logan opens the front door to his house and looks expressionlessly at the corpses of his loved ones while Donovan implores him to stay calm, telling Logan that if he does anything rash, he'll be inviting the wrath of the Hulk's family on the entire community. Logan's neighbor asks if he's listening and Logan responds by popping his claws for the first time in over 50 years and telling Donovan that his name isn't Logan, it's Wolverine.

What a spectacular comic book!!! Not only was Mark's storytelling spellbinding, Steve McNiven's artwork was just amazing. I didn't think Steve could top the full page beheading of the Red Skull with Cap's shield, but those last few pages where Logan was looking at his dead family, followed by the claws finally coming out was simply phenomenal! The artwork throughout this entire storyline has really been inspired.

Oh, and Mark's story has been as good as the splendid art. After reading this issue I completely forgive Mark for his terrible depiction of Doc Doom in this months Fantastic Four. I truly believe this storyline will go down as one of the all-time great Wolverine stories. The only complaint I have is that this story has to come to an end! I've enjoyed "Old Man Logan" that much. What more is there to say? After my comments, I think the score should be pretty obvious... This issue easily gets a perfect score of 10 out of 10. Um, if you aren't reading this storyline, my advice would be to run out to your local comic shop and buy the this series! This gets my highest recommendation.