Jason Aaron’s “Wolverine’s Revenge” storyline has followed nearly the same formula for several issues now. Wolverine fights one of the Red Right Hand’s Mongrel enforcers in between flashbacks that show how Logan has brought pain to different members of the mysterious group. It’s a formula that’s grown old and I’m ready for some meaningful story progression. Issue #13 follows the same path but is more satisfying due to a more interesting flashback story.

As I said last issue, it feels as if Aaron is going to the well one to many times. As this issue started, I felt we were getting more of the same. Thankfully that’s not completely the case. The best part of the issue is found in the flashback story about a young girl who grew up in the brutally harsh world of The Hand. We see how  The Hand effected her life but also the impact of their longstanding war with Wolverine. As with the other flashback stories, this has driven her to The Red Right Hand in hopes of revenge. It’s a well written story that I found pretty compelling. Once again Wolverine fights an enforcer that you know will be dead by issue’s end. He has some cool weapons and gives us a little bit of new information but overall that story ends in the same place it begins.

I really liked Renato Guedes’ art. His action panels are bloody and violent yet he has the impressive ability to convey raw emotion through his pencils. Some of Guedes’ past work wasn’t my favorite. But here he masterfully captures the almost mandatory brutal Wolverine-styled action as well as a genuine, organic look to his characters laced with a subtle bit of style. I loved the look of this book.

There’s not a lot of difference in this book and the last several. But what is different is the quality of the flashback story and noticeably strong artwork by Guedes. While I’m ready for this arc to move forward, I can handle issues like these. Just not many more.