Written by: Ales Kot
Art by: Ricardo Ortiz and Lee Loughridge
Publisher: Image
Huh; Wolf is back. Normally I’d say this with a bit more excitement, but I kind of forgot about this one, figuring that Issue 5 would be the end of the first arc and not the start of a second. It’s a shame too, because Issue 4 ended on a major cliffhanger.
I am, however, glad to have it back. There’s a lot to like about this comic, even if the execution thus far hasn’t been amazing.
Issue 5 starts off anew, five years after the events of Issue 4. It turns out Anita might not be the Antichrist after all, though she is very much a werewolf. Freddie is also back to life—which is awesome since he’s my favorite character of the whole bunch.
Oh, Wolfe is also in prison.
It’s a prison run by vampires from the looks of it. That’s not good, especially since he’s immortal and all. Poor Wolfe cannot catch a break.
Issue 5 feels a bit like a soft reboot. The characters are all the same, as is the world, yet the events of the first four issues thus far don’t mean much. We get a brief recap here and there—all delivered quite well mind you—and I can’t help but wonder if this would have been a good starting point for the whole series. Issues 1 through 4 really do feel like a prologue to me, but I’ve also had the benefit of reading them. I know what I’d be missing.
As a soft reboot though, it’s very good, probably the best Wolf comic to date. Anita is much more interesting now that she’s grown up a bit, gotten herself some werewolf powers, and in general, acts like a teenager. Wolfe is missing, and god damn is she going to find him!
It’s a cool reversal, having her try and save Wolfe when he was out to save her in the first arc. I like it.
One of my biggest complaints with the first four issues of Wolf were that there were swaths of confusion. I knew what was going on, yet I didn’t quite get everything in front of me. It was like there were missing details here and there for some kind of effect or later payoff.
Those are all gone.
This is a much easier issue to follow, made even better with more of Wolfe’s backstory. We finally get some of what happened when he was in Iraq, and it’s all pretty good stuff. It involves vampires, by the way. This shouldn’t be that surprising though, given the world this comic inhabits.
Artistically, I like this comic. I’m not blown away, but the style present is cool. There’s a simplicity to it yet still plenty of detail. Character expressions all look great, and the panels flow well. Like I said, there’s no confusion this go around.
In lazy summation: Issue 5 of Wolf is the best issue this comic has had to date. I think this arc will pull ahead of the last one, which is really cool.
