Wolverine: Snikt by Tsutomu Nihei

In a war-torn desolate future, a small group of humans fights desperately against an endlessly replicating monster that seems to have only one weakness: adamantium. With only a few adamantium bullets left, they decide their last hope is to rip a warrior from his timeline. A young girl reaches back into our time and pulls Wolverine forward, but he struggles against her efforts and lands outside their shelter in the wasteland that used to be a city. They rescue him and he sees first hand the terrible enemy they're up against. Wolverine could demand to be sent home, but that means abandoning them to these creatures. Instead, the hero and what's left of these rag-tag warriors must mount a last-ditch, all-out assault against the source of their enemies, hoping they can stop the plague and rebuild their society.

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This title is a marriage between Western comics and manga, and the product is of mixed results. The length matches with Western comics, which will disatisfy manga readers who will feel like there should be more to the story. The conclusion was fairly nonexistent, so a few more pages could have brought some satisfaction in that regard. The coloring didn't add anything to this story - in fact, based on the black-and-white pages included in the back matter, I would have enjoyed this title far more had Nihei-sensei's pages been left alone. The story itself seemed like it could have been a side-story in the Matrix universe, so not wholly original nor groundbreaking. Overall, this seemed like it wanted to be something bigger and more groundbreaking than it really was.

This was originally published in 2003, so knowing that, it kind of seems like Marvel is trying to recycle something to capitalize on the Manga boom happening right now, but this ain't it.

Sara's Rating: 5/10
Suitability Level: Grades 9-10

Publisher: VIZ Media
Publication Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781974738533 (Paperback)

This review was made possible with a digital reader copy from the publisher through Net Galley.

​Tags: Rating: 5/10, Suitability: High School, Manga, Action Adventure, Superheroes, Science Fiction, Dystopian, ​Marvel