Depending on how you took last issue, Wolverine #67 will offer you more of exactly what you like – or didn’t like. Personally, I found the future depicted to be an incredibly unlikely mish-mash of current Marvel Universe concepts designed more as a nod to the fans than as any real, organically-reached time period.

Fortunately – or unfortunately, depend on how you look at it, those references are way more interesting than the hopelessly contrived idea of Wolverine as a pacifist. It’s amusing to see a homely, humble Ultron and wonder how that happened, but waiting for Wolverine to pop his claws and come out of retirement isn’t the same. We know it’ll happen – it’s virtually the point of this story – and it’s not going to have the significance it wants to have, because there’s only the flimsiest explanation of why he put away his claws. “They broke me, bub” he says, as if that were possible. Let’s hope we get a little more clarification on what actually happened, because, let’s put it this way – Batman’s “badass” trait is that he just won’t go down. Wolverine’s, on the other hand, is that every time he goes down, he’ll get back up. That’s what he does. Removing that aspect of the character doesn’t evolve him, it removes one of the core things that make the character consistent.

McNiven’s artwork is clearly the best reason to keep reading this book. Wolverine hasn’t looked this amazing in years, and it’s a pity that the story doesn’t feel like it has a little more to do with the character. it’s more about Hawkeye giving us a tour around the latest bleak Marvel future, and we’re just along with Wolvey for the ride. The level of detail in the pencils is staggering and virtually every panel would make an amazing poster, but it’s hard to hang an entire comic off looks alone.

The idea of a future gone rotten isn’t exactly a new one – the last time we saw one with Wolverine in was in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run, which conceived and resolved it brilliantly in one arc. This story, however, feels more like it’s been conceived to add texture to the future so that Millar’s Fantastic Four run has some extra context when the two tie together.

Ultimately, there are some fun moments, but it’s not hanging together well as a story for me. In fact, that’s the problem with the whole Wolverine title at the moment. Gone are the continuing adventures of Logan (spun out into Wolverine: Origins) and we’re left with a series-of-miniseries, where no story can ever really impact the character – and that goes double for stuff set in alternate futures.