This is it. This is the volume of Wolverine and the X-men I was waiting for. Volume 8 collects Wolverine
and the X-men Annual #1 and issues #38-42. This is the last volume of the
series before it got rebooted and it’s the best volume of the series since the
first two volumes. With this final volume the Jason Aaron and the artists
demonstrate once again what the series is about. It’s also nice to be able to
look at the series as a whole. After concluding my reading of Wolverine and the X-men it is clear to
me that the series is yet another example of how the modern climate of
superhero comics negatively affected the quality of this and other comics.
Wolverine and the
X-men has been disrupted by event storylines on three occasions. Several issues
where spent telling tie-in issues to Avengers
vs. X-men, two issues completed wasted as part of the X-men: Battle of the Atom event, and finally the annual issue was
linked to the events of Infinity. Thankfully
for two of these events (Avengers vs.
X-men and Infinity) Aaron was
able to tell engaging stories despite editorial requirements to make his story
work in tandem with the larger story of the Marvel Universe. The downside is that
it completely undermines any momentum the series had built at the time the
event storylines intruded.
