Wolverine: First Cuts

Reprints X-Men Origins: Wolverine #1, Uncanny X-Men #118-119, Wolverine (1982) #1-2, Marvel Team-Up #83-85 and material from the Best Of Marvel Comics hc.
Written by Chris Yost, Chris Claremont and John Byrne.
Penciled by Mark Texeira, John Byrne, Marshall Rogers Frank Miller and Sal Buscema.
Inked by Terry Austin, Steve Leialoha, Mark Texeira, Josef Rubenstein, Ricardo Villamonte and Randy Emberlin.

Three Bronze Age tales that introduce people who would be important in the life of Wolverine!

The X-Men sail into the Japanese port city Agarashima. The city is on fire and an earthquake has recently occured. Team leader Cyclops says they must visit Sunfire, a former X-Man so that they can remain in Japan legally.

Wolverine meets Mariko for the first time.

When they arrive at Sunfire's compound, Wolverine meets Sunfire's cousin Mariko Yashida. They are instantly attracted to one another. Wolverine and Mariko are having a pleasant conversation, when suddenly another earthquake hits. Wolverine saves Mariko while the house around them is reduced to rubble. Storm says the quake was likely man-made.

The X-Men battle the Mandroids.

In the midst of this, the X-Men are attacked by Mandroids. They're easily defeated, but the real brains behind the threat has arrived: Moses Magnum, a criminal arms dealer who previously battled Spider-Man and Luke Cage. Magnum demands that he be appointed ruler of Japan. If his request is denied, he will sink the island nation. Can the X-Men stop Magnum before he destroys Japan?

Next, Wolverine takes a leave of absence from the X-Men to visit Mariko in Tokyo. He has not heard from Mariko in months. All his letters to her have been returned unopened and she will not take his phone calls.

Wolverine learns that Mariko is married and that her husband is abusive.

Upon arrival in Japan, Logan learns that Mariko has been forced to marry a man she does not love. Her father, Lord Shingen Harada has returned and arranged this marriage to a man named Noboru-Hideki, to settle a family debt.

Wolverine visits Mariko and finds that Noboru is abusing her. He's determined to exact revenge, but is attacked by ninjas who drug him with poisoned shurikens.

When he wakes up, Wolverine is brought before Shingen. He says Wolverine is unworthy of his daughter's love and challenges him to a duel, with wooden bokan swords. Wolverine is still suffering from the effects of the poison, and Shingen is a master swordsman. The battle is brief and Shingen wins easily. He has succeeded in humiliating Wolverine in front of Mariko, who turns her back on Logan.

The Hand attacks Wolverine & Yukio.

Wolverine is dumped in an alley. A street gang finds the drugged, beaten-down Logan and attacks him. But he's saved by a woman named Yukio, who takes down the gang with knives and martial arts. She claims to be a ronin, a samurai who serves no master. Wolverine is grateful to Yukio for saving his life and he feels they are very similar. Yukio is falling in love with Logan, but his heart is set on Mariko. He will need Yukio's help if he wants to take down Shingen and win back Mariko's love. But can Yukio be trusted?

Viper's recent history is recounted.

Lastly,we get the first ever team-up of Viper and Silver Samurai! Viper has hypnotized SHIELD agents and has taken over their Helicarrier base. She plans to crash it into the United States Capitol while Pres. Carter is giving a speech. Viper believes it will encourage the smaller nations of the world to rise up and destroy the U.S..

Silver Samurai & Boomerang battle the heroes and teleport away.

But all hope is not lost. Spider-Man, Black Widow, Shang Chi (Master Of Kung Fu) and SHIELD chief Nick Fury have teamed up to thwart Viper's scheme. If they want to stop her, they'll have to get through Silver Samurai and Boomerang first!

Shang Chi takes on Boomerang on the Hellicarrier.

Review:
As the cover image would indicate, Wolverine: First Cuts features stories that introduce characters featured in the 2013 movie The Wolverine. It's an odd hodgepodge of stories (see the "Extras" section below for specifics) from all over Wolverine's history. As per usual, this review focuses on the Bronze Age stories contained in this tpb.

Story:
The two-part X-men story is pretty good. It's from a long-ish arc from X-men that ran from 114 through 125. The X-men are presumed dead and go on a "World Tour" that will eventually take them home. Mariko's introduction is a small part of this story. But it's an important step in Wolverine's growth from animalistic killing machine to complicated hero. Chris Claremont and John Byrne give us a solid story here that features plenty of action.

The X-men attack Moses Magnum, Wolverine gets slapped around.

Moses Magnum is hardly an A-list villain, but he works okay here. These stories have been reprinted several times in Masterworks and Omnibuses, but the non-completists will appreciate their inclusion. I hadn't read it in 20+ years and it holds up pretty well. It's not exactly essential, but it's a good "battle" issue, and it includes Banshee's finest moment as a superhero.

I've always been a sucker for stories that take place at Christmas time, so that was a nice touch.

Banshee is released from the hospital, just in time to celebrate Christmas.

The second portion comes from the 1982 Wolverine miniseries, but we only get reprints of the first two issues. I recently reviewed the book that reprints the whole series here, so I won't go into detail about the content. At the end of the reprint from #2, we get an ad that directs the reader to buy the book that reprints the whole series. You'd think Marvel could have reprinted the whole miniseries here (and included the follow-up story) and just raised the price by a buck or two, but no. Feels sort of like making readers buy the same material twice.

The highlight of the book is a story that does not feature Wolverine at all. The reprints from Marvel Team-Up #83-85 are here because they feature the first time Viper worked with Silver Samurai. It's a three-part epic, with heroes taking on three villains. Claremont writes this as well, though we get a much different dynamic between the Viper & the Samurai than we're used to. She treats him like a hired thug, whereas they treat each other more less equally when they later battle the X-Men and the New Mutants.

Another nice part of this is story is that it mentions John Belushi...twice! In the Silver Samurai's previous appearance (Marvel Team-Up #74), he attacked Belushi on the set of Saturday Night Live. This is discussed in two separate flashbacks. As a big fan of the original SNL cast, I think Belushi would get a kick out of being referenced twice in a reprint book published 30+ years after his passing.

Art:
The X-Men story features pencils by John Byrne inked by Terry Austin. They're one of the all-time great art teams and they were hitting their stride here. Simply gorgeous.

The Wolverine portion contains art by Frank Miller and Josef Rubenstein that I gushed over in my earlier review.

Lastly, the Marvel Team-Up story simply credits Sal Buscema and Steve Leialoha as "artists". I don't see a lot of Buscema here. Perhaps Sal drew some rough breakdowns, because all the faces certainly look like they're drawn by Leialoha. I'm geneally not a big fan of his penciling, but Leiloha does a nice job here. They make a good art team.

How does it look?:

Looks fine to me, and here's another scan:

Extras:

We get stories published after the Bronze Age, plus entries from The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe for several characters.

Wolverine:First Cuts would be a better book if it included the whole miniseries. The X-Men story can be found elsewhere. The inclusion of the Marvel Team-Up story makes it worth reading, but it shouldn't be at the top of your Bronze Age Reprint reading list.

J.A. Morris' rating: