(Strand)om Stories: Wolverine: Blood Hungry Review
This Peter David/Sam Keith mash-up, strengthened by some trippy art, is entertaining enough if you're willing to overlook a few flaws
—by Nathan on October 2, 2025—
For anyone reading these reviews, it's probably ridiculously apparent that most of what I read has been collected in volume. Outside of the digital issues I own, most of my "floppies" are housed in a single longbox, and I could probably fit a few more than what I currently have in there. So any story I'm going to read and review will probably have been collected at some point, and I do get a bit of a thrill when I learn that an issue or arc I'm interested in reading has been collected in this format.
Hence this review.
On a whim, I became curious if the Marvel Comics Presents issues immediately following Barry Windsor-Smith's epic "Weapon X" storyline had been collected and–lo and behold!–they had been. Marvel Comics Presents was an anthology title, and I have technically already analyzed portions of the issues appearing in some of the Presents issues collected in the "Weapon X" trade and this volume through my X-Men: Origins Firestar review. But we're not here for Firestar; we're here for Wolverine! Specifically, "Wolverine as written by the late Peter David."
I don't know if there was any pressure on David to follow up Windsor-Smith once "Weapon X" wrapped up–was the narrative critically acclaimed as it was being released? I'm not aware. David comes out swinging anyway, bringing us into the then-present days of Logan hanging around his home-away-from-home Madripoor. Because I just reviewed a standalone issue of David's Spider-Man 2099 run, I figured now would be an appropriate time to tackle another Marvel narrative he wrote, one with less webbing yet still proving to be a sticky situation.
Wolverine: Blood Hungry
Writer: Peter David
Penciler: Sam Keith
Inker: Sam Keith
Colorists: Glynis Oliver and Pat Garrahy
Letterers: Clem Robins, Dave Sharpe, and Steve Dutro
Issues Collected: Marvel Comics Presents #85-92
Volume Publication Date: December 1993
Issue Publication Dates: September 1991-December 1991
Let me start by noting I shouldn't just give David all the credit here. While Windsor-Smith wrote and illustrated "Weapon X," David teamed up with an artist for "Blood Hungry," the incomparable Sam Keith. I've not much experience with Keith's work outside of a few issues of The Maxx I have read and a couple covers he did for the Marvel Comics Presents issues immediately following "Blood Hungry." Keith's style is a strange blend of hyper detailed figures and some exaggerated proportions, meaning there are moments here where he makes Wolverine look gnarly and cool and other moments where things just don't quite look right.
What makes Keith the perfect artist for at least a portion of this narrative is David's use of drug-induced flashbacks, and here Keith can go all out creating crazy sequences that makes you feel like you stepped into an Alice in Wonderland chapter. I'll touch on those flashbacks' importance to the narrative in a moment, but for now, I want to appreciate the art. It's suitably weird and trippy yet done in such a way that doesn't feel too abstract and loses all meaning. Elsewhere, despite making some figures appear odd, Keith does a fantastic job crafting singular moments, such as a rain-soaked Wolverine leering out of the darkness of night or Wolverine and enemy Cyber staring each other down before a bitter confrontation.
Keith's sense of pacing is also to be commended, though I assume this is also thanks to Peter David's knack at writing. If anything feels leftover or inspired by Windsor-Smith, it's a sense of space. David and Keith play with panels of different sizes, choosing when to let a scene linger across several panels, when to have images parallel each in detailing a sequence (something I felt David worked well with Rick Buckler on "The Death of Jean DeWolff"), or when to have a larger panel cement a singular moment as important, such as Wolverine in the rain. The combination between Keith's panels and David's writing leads to a remarkably easy read that lets both the art and dialogue flow well.
From a narrative perspective, given what I've read about this story online, "Blood Hungry" is not without its dissenters. Perhaps inspired by Windsor-Smith, David is interested in uncovering another facet of Wolverine's dark history by introducing Cyber, a villain with adamantium bonded to his skin and a couple retractable claws of his own (though these are smaller, maybe cuter if you're so inclined to think so, and laced with a hallucinogenic drug). Under the influence of that drug, Logan has flashbacks of Cyber as a coach who hit on a girl Logan favored, with the insinuation that they fought over her, leading to the girl's death. This is told in Keith's stylized method, however, so part of me believes the hallucinogenic flashbacks are up to some interpretation–at the very least, they don't tell a straightforward story.
The complaint I've seen is that, in re-entering Logan's life as a muscle-bound monster shielded by his own adamantium, Cyber has become the one guy Logan is terrified of…and folks don't think he's up to snuff as the one guy Logan should be terrified of, lending the story some controversy. I'd call it more of a "non-troversy," as David chalks up the fear to the drugs themselves, not because of Wolverine's own initial doubts The narrative does allow Wolverine, after a fairly quick initial defeat, some wrestling with how he can handle this latest adversary, lending him a decent struggle to head into the final fight with.
I'm less frustrated with Cyber defeating Wolverine than other people, I suppose. The plot works well enough, if not a little predictable with the benefit of hindsight–David isn't the first writer to toy with Logan's malleable excuse of a memory, nor is this the first or last time Wolverine would stare down a villain or rival from his past. Keeping their shared history to flashbacks is a clever way to tell this portion of the narrative. David plays coy with the details, letting the reader's imagination play with the practical reality as they watch Keith exaggerate the actual circumstances. You understand enough of what most likely happened to assume the specifics. Other writers have added more to Cyber's past, which I approve of–based on this tale, as I noted above, we're supposed to believe he's a high school coach who Logan ran afoul of while pursuing the same woman, but none of that answers the questions I have of why Cyber is this adamantium-laced killer who's found his way to Madripoor. Maybe this is where some of the interplay must happen between Keith's art and the reader's imagination, but even though I liked the ambiguous nature of the flashbacks, I wanted a mite more explanation in the present.
David's writing also caused some consternation in moments. I should first note that I generally appreciate David's ability to craft witty dialogue–it's what I enjoy about "The Death of Jean DeWolff" and his Spider-Man 2099 material. Most of what he wrote has a good cadence to it, clipping quickly and sounding realistic while also maintaining a sense of humor. Some of the humor works fine here, but a bit of it seems misplaced or a little forced. When Cyber begins reciting a limerick, Wolverine savagely snarls how much he hates limericks, which feels like an odd detail to drop in suddenly and really says nothing about his character. Elsewhere, David allows a few jokes to overstay their welcome and even hauls in the old "Don't call me Shirley" during a tense moment from a character who I wouldn't think would naturally use such a cliche quip.
Yet moments of humor do land well, particularly when David works with Keith to create visual humor. A short bit where Cyber and Logan's then-flame Tyger Tiger pass notes via paper airplane lets Keith pace the moment humorously–it's already amusing that these two adults would share notes using this method, but that Keith draws out the sequence twice just adds to the absurdity. Two characters holding each other at gunpoint are rendered as doing so lackadaisically, adding a touch of humor to a tense situation–here, the amusement feels more appropriate, the tense standoff and subsequent negotiations balanced by the ludicrousness of sipping tea on a sofa or playing table tennis. It feels more natural than some of the dialogue David generates, though several of his lines land fairly well.
If you're looking to compare "Blood Hungry" with the Marvel Comics Presents narrative immediately before it, you have no contest: "Weapon X" is by far the winner, a searing examination of what made Logan the Wolverine. "Blood Hungry" is different enough that it really needs to be treated as its own beast. It's more amusing, though not perfectly. The art is a step in a wildly different direction, appropriate for David's narrative though not without its flaws. And the narrative hinges on Logan's ever shadowy past, which does lend an enigmatic air of uncertainty through the flashbacks. I have a few quibbles with "Blood Hungry" but nothing to the extent of some other reviewers. Fun writing and unique art can help cover over a multitude of sins–it's not as impervious as coating your bones in adamantium, but it should prevent the doubts from the drug-tipped claws from reaching your bloodstream.