A Wolf in Finale's Clothing
While comics have only started to play a major role in my life recently, I have already decided on my favorite comic writer of all time. A man known as Robert Kirkman has quickly risen to the top of my comic hierarchy with series like The Walking Dead, Invincible, Haunt and to a lesser extent The Astounding Wolf-Man. I have really liked the series, but it hasn’t really pulled me in kicking and screaming like the others have. The finale doesn’t really help that much, but it still is pretty decent ending to a pretty decent series.
Gary Hampton, the titular werewolf of astounding proportions, is confronted by the Elder of the pack and Zechariah, his former vampire mentor who killed his wife and turned his daughter into a half-vampire (kinda). Shit jumps off right out of the gate as the Elder kills Zechariah and tries to kill Gary. During this fight the Elder divulges how he came to be the elder and why Gary was turned into a werewolf. The fight feels a little rushed and anti-climatic. It’s just some talking then slash and done.
After all that is done in the first 12 pages, which is a significant chunk of the actual story in the issue, it just starts wrapping up stuff. The core story is about 19 pages of a 30 issue comic. It’s all just kinda thrown together, addressing what some people might want addressed and topped off with a cliffhanger ending that kind of pissed me off. I read it and thought “Oh, c’mon! You can do better than this Kirkman.” There is also an epilogue that sets up a possible sequel series that looks interesting if it happens, and even that is only 3 pages. The remaining 9 pages are mail and Code:Blue, which I never really read anyway.
The Astounding Wolf-Man was never really setting my comic world on fire but it was still a pretty good series with a decent amount of gore and a main character I kind of liked. If it had have run a little longer Kirkman probably could have come up with something better than what he did, but what he did come up with wasn’t exactly terrible. It just wasn’t up to the level I have come to expect from one of my favorite creative forces in the comic industry.
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