Savage Wolverine teams the Canucklehead up with Shanna the She-Devil of the Savage Land … in the Savage Land. It’s the first of two Marvel Now Wolverine books, and is both written and drawn by Frank Cho. When first announced it felt like it could make for a good mini-series, but making an ongoing series out of it felt like a stretch. Let’s see how the first issue turned out.
Savage Wolverine 1 was fairly good, and a lot actually happens in it. The plot is clearly set-up, and both characters are established well enough for anyone who hasn’t read about them before. There’s also a fair amount of action to keep the pacing up. The plot is intriguing as well. It doesn’t explain how Wolverine ended up trapped on the cursed island, but it does explain how Shanna got trapped there. My only complaint is that some of the written sentences during Shanna’s exposition dump are run-on sentences; they sometimes need several read-throughs to fully understand.
The art is also fairly good. There’s a decent amount of colour variety and the action is easy to follow. The background details are sometimes light or non-existent, but the art never feels lazy thanks to the well-detailed character details. At the very least, it’s a visually appealing book.
It still feels like it won’t last much longer than a mini-series unless there’s much more plot to be revealed, but this is an enjoyable read. If you’re a Wolverine fan, this is an easy recommendation. If a self-contained book about two combat experts trapped on a cursed island sounds interesting to you, this is worth checking out. As for myself, I’m starting to feel Wolverine fatigue, but I could see myself enjoying this if there isn’t too much else on my pull list. We’ll see, but I doubt I’ll read much beyond issue 2.
healed1337 
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I was actually pleasantly surprised at how good this was. Frank Cho is known for drawing cheesecake. And while that’s impossible to avoid with Shanna – she’s a gorgeous woman running around in a fur bikini, after all – Cho didn’t really feel like he was exploiting her. Aside from the ridiculously huge breasts, of course. She was drawn in natural poses, and he drew her with muscles. She looked solid, which was nice.
As for the writing, it was very good. Sharp, clever, and taking the inherent absurdity of the story completely in stride. This looks like it’s be a really fun series.
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I don’t know much about Frank Cho’s reputation for drawing cheescake, but your right that he could have exploited her much worse than he did. It’s worth applauding him drawing her in natural poses despite her revealing outfit. I just figured it wasn’t worth mentioning that when the art didn’t focus on her … assets.
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