Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown
Marvel Comics, 1989
'Havok and Wolverine' was a four-issue miniseries issued by Marvel, under its Epic Comics imprint, from March to October, 1989.
The series was written by the husband-and-wife team of Walter and Louise Simonson, and illustrated by Jon J. Muth, with assistance from Ken Williams. Bill Oakley provided lettering.
The series opens with a confusing prologue, involving something to do with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown in April, 1986. The action then transitions to Mexico, where our X-Men Havok and Wolverine are enjoying some cervezas and sunshine.
That is, until a bar-room brawl ensues and out heroes have to deal out some pain to some disrespectful Mexicans.......
Barely have they gotten out of trouble when our heroes are accosted by Russian agents, who knock out both men and kidnap Havok. Wolverine sets out to find where his friend has gone.
At this point, the storyline becomes a prolonged chase sequence, as a brainwashed Havok is duped into following the guidance of a hot chick named Scarlett, who promises to take him to Europe, there to find Wolverine.
It turns out that the kidnapping has been engineered by some malevolent Russians, who want to get their hands on Havok for nefarious purposes. Scarlett is in fact their agent, code-name 'Quark.' Somehow Wolverine dies one or two more times before the three of them - Scarlett, Havok, and Wolverine - meet up in India, at the site of a disastrous reactor accident. I won't disclose any spoilers, but the X-Men have their work cut out for them. 'Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown' is a mediocre comic. It is very much a late Eighties production, when Marvel's Epic line was intended to give comic book creators 'artistic freedom' to do the kind of stories they wanted to do. But the Simonsons badly overwrite this series, shoveling in too many story beats, and leaving the reader to negotiate all sorts of abrupt, contrived transitions in plot and setting.
The artwork by Jon J. Muth may have been very 'artistic,' but it's so murky and abstract that I found myself scrutinizing too many panels trying to figure out what, exactly, was being rendered. For example, this panel below apparently shows Wolverine piloting a helicopter........
As for the eponymous villain, he is designed to look like 'Punch' from the venerable Punch and Judy puppet franchise (?!). Why Marvel editor Archie Goodwin signed off on this is puzzling, because its frivolous nature undermines the book's gravitas (whatever gravitas it was trying to achieve).When all is said and done, 'Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown' is a misfire, from the age of comics when editors gave writers full leeway to release all sorts of material even if that material was underwhelming.
As related by Marvel historian Sean Howe, in fact it was Louise Simonson who was among the first writers to be deposed from their position of primacy at Marvel. Early in 1991, editor Bob Harras resolved a growing conflict between Simonson and emerging superstar artist Rob Liefeld, over who was to be the creative lead on the series 'New Mutants,' in favor of Liefeld (Leifeld had grown tired of subordinating his artwork to accommodate Simonson's inane story lines and text-heavy compositions). With Liefeld in charge, 'New Mutants' was relaunched as 'X Force,' and quickly became one of Marvel's best-selling comics.
