Jason Aaron, Ron Garney: Adamantium Men (2010)

Whenever I'm thinking about great comic stories, there is one that always springs to my mind, but uniquely, with a touch of disappointment. The reason is that it's not exactly a great story. It's a very good one, possibly among the three best Wolverine stories, at least in my book, but it misses something. Still, I think there is a legitimate category of almost greatness (more like exceptional B-movies than flawed A-s) and its heroes should not go down in memory lane unsung.

This is the song for Adamantium Men.

When Jason Aaron opened his Wolverine-run with his 5-part story-arc, he rocketed to comics stardom overnight. And not a day too soon. The Adamantium Men displays all his trademark features. Guts, raw talent, an unparalleled gift for tapping onto what makes any character work, great one-liners or single-page moments, and a sadly unbalanced structure that makes the whole less than the sum of its parts.

The plot starts with Logan meeting his old-time buddy, the freelancer mercenary Maverick, who shows him some documents about a clandestine operation trying to re-create the Weapon X program that made Logan an amnesiac, self-loathing, adamantium-laced killing machine. And Logan does what he always does when this thing happens: sets off to find and kill everyone involved. Which, this time leads him to the Columbian jungles, where he wastes no time to take on a dozen ex-soldiers-turned Wolverine version 2.0s. Adamantium bones, laser claws, nanotechnology-driven healing factor, enhanced speed and strength, heightened senses. Surrounded and outnumbered twelve to one, Logan realizes the cold, hard truth: this is a fight he cannot win. Not like this. And a Ramboesque hit and run game in a jungle begins. The chase takes the hunter and his preys back to New York, then in the final showdown to an oil rig - military helicopter, explosions, sharks, and cold-blooded murder involved.

The story is simple but solid, intriguing, and action-packed. Loaded with beautifully illustrated fight scenes, chases, and firework, and almost as much with character-defining moments. Aaron captures Logan's character like no other writer before or after - not even Chris Claremont at his best. An irreparably damaged man, who is violent but deep, and most of all, pigheadedly stubborn with an obsession with guilt and self-punishment. The only worth he finds in himself is that he can make the world a bit better place by killing the ones who deserve killing. He is the scary badass from the eighties Claremont-era. It could be self-parody, but it's not. Aaron has an unmatched talent for mixing humor and pathos in the same scene.

A great example of this comes at one of the high points of the story. Shortly before Logan's final match with the leader of the super-soldiers, we see the latter frustratedly putting down a book just a couple of pages short of the end to answer the command of his idiot boss. Not long after, he is close to the end of a long and extremely cinematic fight with Logan. Both men are torn and bloody and worn out to their very limit. Sensing the inevitable outcome, the mercenary asks whether Logan read Go Down Moses by Faulkner. After the affirmative answer, he asks him to tell him how it ends. Logan obliges. "That musta been something to read" - says the mercenary with something between a tired half-smile and a bitter snarl, and launches his last attack.

The story is filled with such moments to the brink. Logan's reflection on his image of hell, on his uneasiness about the dark depths of the ocean, or the banters with Maverick. 

Maverick: "You smell like a distillery"
Logan: "If you were me, you'd drink too"
Maverick: "No, if I were you I'd drown myself and get it over with"
Logan: "Yeah? Then who'd keep your mother company?"

It is one of the books you can open on any page and you don't need the context to be instantly engrossed, either by the action or the narration. It feels like a Clint Eastwood Western on steroids. 

So why is it in the "almost great" category? Character work, dialogues, narration, and coolness are A+. The basic idea is only B (it's a good story). But most importantly, so many great pieces struggle to fit into mere 150 pages. The end comes suddenly and too soon, the background mostly stays in the dark. One cannot help the feeling that halfway in the original schedule, Aaron was ordered to round it off in one last episode. A minor cliffhanger is not a substitute for closure. In short, the story starts wonderfully and ends merely well, which leaves the reader unsatisfied. There could have been so much to do with this idea.