Wolverine and Jubilee #1 (of 4)

This was an impulse buy.

I certainly have fond memories of Wolverine and Jubilee becoming friends when she first joined the original X-Men comic book in the '90s. (Or was it earlier than that?)

Writer Chris Claremont apparently intended her to play "Robin" to Wolverine's "Batman" (at least that's how it looked, based on the "Boy Wonder" color scheme of her costume) - and it worked pretty well for a while.

I have to admit that I lost track of Jubilee's character long ago - I'm not sure if she was just written out of the comic or was shipped out to be involved in one of the multitude of peripheral X-Men titles.

She was brought back recently just in time to become involved with the battle between the X-Men and an army of vampires - and as a result, Jubilee is now a vampire.

(I know I'm in the minority on this, but I am really bored to tears with vampires in every way, shape and form! OK, just had to get that off my chest.)

The X-Men are tying to cure her condition - with limited success - so Wolverine decides to take control of the situation to try to bring her back to "normal."

I'm a fan of Kathryn Immonen's writing (she's the reason I picked up this comic, to be honest), but so far this series is really leaving me cold (see paragraph #6 above). The characters at least speak like real people - but everyone is just angry all the time, and the story takes a bizarre turn toward the end.

Phil Noto's art is strong as ever, but he doesn't get much room to stretch here - almost the entire issue is about people sitting around talking. It's tough to make that visually interesting, though he gives it a good shot, and the emotions of the character play well.

It's a shame this series is burdened with having to deal with vampires and the like. This could have been a fun, breezy adventure, if it had been about these characters as they existed when they first met.

Instead, it's all dark, angst-y and bloody. Sorry, it's just boring. Pass.

Grade: C+

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