All-New Wolverine #22 Review

The “Immune” arc was an interesting change of pace for the series. Though we got some action the arc showed us a different way that Laura Kinney can save the day than her usual kicking villain ass. Using her healing factor to save an entire island was a strong way to conclude the arc while building to the next story, “Hive.” With this new arc we are going to see both Laura and Gabby go to a place they aren’t very familiar with: space. Though with the Guardians of Galaxy appearing to help Laura and Gabby out things shouldn’t be too bad for their adventure in space. Let’s find out if that is the case with All-New Wolverine #22.

Writer: Tom Taylor

Artist: Leonard Kirk

Inker: Leonard Kirk and Cory Hamscher

Colorist: Michael Garland and Erick Arciniega

Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: Laura wakes in a hospital and finds out that she almost died from helping save Roosevelt Island from the virus. Gabby then reveals that she was gifted an apartment by the officials at Roosevelt Island and is now best friends with Deadpool.

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Captain Marvel steps and tells Laura that Peter Parker, Monica Rappaccini and Hank McCoy have been able to figure out a cure during the two weeks Laura was out of commission. Laura tells Captain Marvel to take her to SHIELD as she still needs to figure out why the alien girl said her name.

At the Triskelion, Laura meets with Nick Fury and learns the location from where the alien girl’s ship came from. Nick calls in the Guardians of the Galaxy once Laura agrees to go out in space to figure out what is going on.

Laura meets up with the Guardians of the Galaxy sets off into space with the team, Gabby and Jonathan.

While she goes off in space a mysterious person begins to target Daken.

Up in space Laura catches up with Star-Lord while Gabby becomes quick friends with Groot and Rocket Raccoon.

After traveling for a week the coordinates take Laura and the Guardians of the Galaxy to an unknown moon. Though Gabby complains, Laura tells Gabby to stay on the ship while she goes out to explore the base on the moon.

Nearing the moon base, Rocket quickly gets the residents of the base attention with his gun. The residents tell the Guardians and Wolverine to leave. Wolverine asks about the girl that arrived on Earth. This causes the base’s residents to activate the defense system and they start firing on the Guardians and Wolverine.

An army of Brood suddenly show up and quickly overwhelm the Guardians and Wolverine. The Brood reach the Guardians ship and injure Jonathan. Gabby attacks the Brood army out of anger but is quickly overwhelmed.

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Before Wolverine can go try to save Gabby, Drax takes Wolverine in order to fall back since they can’t win the fight.

The Good: Continuing where the previous arc left off, Tom Taylor picks things up by taking Laura Kinney’s adventures as Wolverine into space. In doing so we get the chance to see the Guardians of the Galaxy enter the scene as they help out their old friend Wolverine. Taylor maximizes the relationships by delivering strong character interactions throughout All-New Wolverine #22.

Taking Wolverine and Gabby into space once again shows how Taylor isn’t looking to just give us the same type of adventures from Logan’s time as the character. Giving us a different setting like this continues to help separate Laura as her own character as she comes into her own as Wolverine and makes the mantle her’s.

The interaction between her and Star-Lord, along with the comfort Laura showed with going into space, helped further establish that she has been in the role for a while now. Star-Lord’s comments on Laura being much more open than their previous interaction speaks to how much Taylor has developed Laura as Wolverine during his run.

That said, the star of All-New Wolverine #22 was Gabby. Taylor has done a fantastic job developing Gabby as a character that is more than just Laura’s clone. Her interaction with Deadpool at the beginning of the issue was pure gold. Laura waking up to find out Gabby and Deadpool have become best friends was priceless. It was a development that was unexpected and delivered some strong comedy, for a series where we don’t get a lot of it.

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Gabby going up in space with Laura and interacting with the Guardians of the Galaxy furthered her development. Pairing Gabby up with Groot was a nice way to further the idea of how she is still a little kid. At the same time, Gabby still hasn’t learned to control her emotions as we saw her charge in against the Brood after Jonathan was hurt. That action led to a strong hook ending that does leave us wondering how Laura can help her little sister out while working with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Taylor does a nice job building the mystery behind the “Laura Kinney Virus” in All-New Wolverine #22. It’s clear that there is more going on that meets the eye. With the Brood’s sudden appearance at the end of issue there may be an even bigger conflict going on behind the scenes than we are aware of.

The quick scene of a mysterious person watching Wolverine take off with the Guardians of the Galaxy was interesting. It looks like after being hidden away for the last few years Daken is going to become a prominent character again, at least in All-New Wolverine. Though not my favorite character I am interested to see how Daken and Laura’s relationship is now that the latter has taken on their father’s legacy.

Leonard Kirk is once again a steady presence in this series. Kirk provides a consistent look to the entire issue. He nails the comedic scenes between Gabby and Deadpool while also delivering some strong action sequences at the end of All-New Wolverine #22.

The Bad: The jump in time did not provide any further context to the story. Since we didn’t what Wolverine and the Guardians of the Galaxy did during their week in space it felt like we missed out on some character development. Especially with characters like Gamora and Drax on the team, there were some key interactions that Wolverine possibly had that would’ve added to the direction of the story.

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Overall: All-New Wolverine #22 does a very good job picking up where the previous arc left off and kick start a team-up story between Laura Kinney and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Tom Taylor once again shows off his strength at developing Laura’s character and putting her in a position that will test who she is in and out of her role as Wolverine. Gabby also had some standout interactions with Deadpool and Groot that created a greater sense of worry for what happens next following the hook ending of All-New Wolverine #22.