The unlikeliest comics crossover of 2023 is halfway through its four-issue run, and it's turning out to be a good deal of blood-soaked fun.
Its premise - that Wolverine and a young Predator cross paths in Alaska in 1900 and strike up a blood feud that lasts for more than a century - is simple and appealing and plays to the strengths of both these characters. It also allows artists Ken Lashley, Andrea Di Vito and Hayden Sherman to draw some pretty gnarly action scenes, while writer Benjamin Percy's script jumps backwards and forwards to different parts of Logan's long life. Incidentally, you can read more about Percy's intentions for the series in our interview with the writer here.
Now, with this week's #2, the comic is calling directly back to John McTiernan's original 1987 action classic. Spoilers ahead.
The first issue ended with Wolverine seemingly besting the Predator thanks to the intervention of a hungry bear. He left the alien for dead and went on with his life, little realising that the Predator had actually killed the bear and escaped.
Cue a flashforward to South America many years later. Now Wolverine is a member of Team X working with fellow mutants Sabretooth and Maverick, plus newbies Jackson and Kruel, to take out a guerrilla force plotting a coup. What they find instead is a whole squad of Predators.
That in itself is a situation very reminiscent of McTiernan's movie, which saw Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch lead a team of hardasses into an unspecified South American country on a rescue mission, only for them to get slaughtered one-by-one.
Wolverine still carries a Yautja (the canonical name of the Predator race) weapon that he took back in Alaska and which he uses here to injure one of the hunters before ordering his team to fall back. Sabretooth has a different idea however...
Yep, there he is furiously unloading a minigun, just as Mac (Bill Duke) does in the first film. Unfortunately, like in that film, all he succeeds in doing is mowing down a lot of foliage.
From there the rest of this section of the issue sees Team X picked off by the Predators until only Wolverine and an injured Maverick are left (Sabretooth appears to be killed in the issue, but we can safely assume that his healing factor will patch him up) and forced to join forces with the human enemy they were sent to wipe out. Eventually a big explosion seemingly puts paid to the Predators once and for all while Wolverine and Maverick get to da choppa and escape - but of course one of the aliens has survived.
The last few pages of the issue take place in Alberta some time later at the Weapon X facility, where the surviving Yautja appears to have tracked down and found an unconscious Logan. Cliffhanger!
Predator Versus Wolverine #2 is out now from Marvel Comics.
OK, so none of them feature a Predator, but this list is full of the best Wolverine stories of all time.
