The Hunter becomes the hunted as the Predator faces off against Wolverine!
Ever since it was announced that Marvel were releasing a range of comics based off of the Alien and Predator franchises - my mind delved into so many possibilities. From the teaser image of a lone Predator standing on top of Avengers Tower with a shattered Iron-Man helmet, I was expecting plenty of bloody shenanigans featuring Marvel’s bread and butter.
However, since then the two monster heavyweights have stayed well within their own universes. So far Alien has seen four respectful arcs courtesy of Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Declan Shelvey, and Predator has two arcs from Ed Bisson. Now it’s over to Benjamin Percy to stir that melting pot as he pits the galaxy’s most feared hunter against Marvel’s most formidable Mutant - Wolverine.
Taking place across three different time periods, Predator Vs. Wolverine sets up its history quite well. Kicking things off and the bulk of the story takes place back in the 1900’s. Logan finds himself in the Alaskan wilderness and has been hired by a prospector to help rescue his kidnapped son. Meanwhile a lone Predator is also in the area and we soon see it tackling the local fauna. Naturally the young Logan and the Predator soon cross paths and a pretty bloody battle soon takes place. The next time jump takes us into closer to the present as we find Wolverine during his time with Task Force X. This time however, the Yatuja are prepared and rather than a lone Predator, there’s a whole group of them. As the two sides barrel into their inevitable showdown, Percy then ends everything with a tantalising cliffhanger.
Percy handles the two characters incredibly well. While this isn’t a traditional origins story, it doesn’t need be. Both characters are extremely well known and too be fair you really don’t need to know what previous beef they have with each other. But with Predator Vs. Wolverine Percy is given a lot of room to set his own spin to the two pop culture heavyweights. It’s clear that the writer is having a blast with choreographing this battle through time, and this opening chapter does a lot to make you come back.
Meanwhile having three individual artists to tackle each of the time periods makes everything stand out, and gives a good sense of progression. Greg Land, and Jay Leisten make up the bulk of this issues work with their time with young Logan. The art work here is more cleaner when compared to the rest of the book, and works well in showing a less scarred Logan. This is then reflected furthermore with Frank D’ Armata who uses plenty of colours that reflect the time period. Andrea Divito and Juan Fernandez then give us the Team X portion of the comic with everything oozing the costumes and character designs of the period. Rounding things off is Ken Lashley and D’Armata who deal with the present day. For me this is the more striking out of the three periods as everything is given a dark gritty feel. The darkness does a superb job in highlighting two veteran hunters playing a game of cat and mouse across the wilderness. The image of the lone Predator revealing itself to Wolverine also does a great job in showing its confidence in its own abilities - even though we probably know how it’ll end.
Overall and Predator Vs. Wolverine #1 lives up to the expectations that fans have theorised about for years. While a few of my friends will no doubt have ridiculous grievances with how Benjamin Percy hasn’t just let Wolverine steam roll over everything - they’re complete idiots! What we do get is the opening rounds to a bloody and quite brutal fight between two highly skilled killers.
And if that isn’t a good thing. Well I don’t know what is!
Rating: 10/10
Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow us on X/Facebook @GeekCultureRev, TikTok/YouTube @Geekculturereviews, and BlueSky @geekculturereviews.bsky.social
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