A while back, Marvel partnered with Stitcher to do their first Podcast audio drama (Podeo drama?) titled Wolverine: The Long Night. The podcast was originally exclusive to Stitcher subscribers before they later went on to adapt it to a comic mini-series, which picked up as it came out.
Twin Peaks with Claws
Wolverine: The Long Night is written with Logan as something of an ancillary character – with characters talking about him and reacting his actions instead of following him directly. The comic instead follows two FBI agents going to a remote town in Alaska to investigate a series of murders, ala Twin Peaks. Much like Twin Peaks, the story ends up tieing into serial killings (with a possibly supernatural bent), and a little drug smuggling, with a bit that I don’t recall Twin Peaks having involving a rich family that owns the town, and has a dark secret.
The story is also set at a point sometime after Wolverine escaped from the Weapon X project, but before he first joined the X-Men. Sadly, the story doesn’t visually put the story as contemporanious to Giant Size X-Men #1 either in terms of technology or setting, as it would have been nice to made this a period piece – either in the late ’70s, or to move it up the timeline to being contemporaneous to when Twin Peaks was airing.
I don’t know how this played out in the podcast, but it makes for a fun structure here. I like how the shifting narrative perspectives play out in the writing. If I have a complaint, there’s some missed potential in the art here to vary the art style based on the point of view of people providing information to the two FBI Agents.
All in all, I enjoyed the story a lot, and the underlying mystery of the story worked out well. Additionally, at this point in Logan’s career, making him a mystery figure who characters don’t quite know how to handle is also a nice touch. Consequently, I will be picking up the comic adaptation of the sequel podcast when that comes out.
Wolverine: The Long Night is available from Amazon.com. Buying anything through that link helps to support the site.
