Wisdom - Rudiments of Wisdom

My knowledge of Pete Wisdom is woefully inadequate. I had pretty much given up on the Excalibur comic series by the time the character was introduced in the book, and have never really revisited that time period to see if it was ever worth reading. Yet once in a while I get a naughty hankering for a Max title (Marvel's more 'mature-themed' line of stories) and since Rudiments of Wisdom was written by Paul Cornell of recent Doctor Who fame, I was curious what sort of resurrection he'd give to this character.

It's actually a pretty good read, though it has a rushed feel. With a premise involving a department of the British Secret Service investigating supernatural and other dimensional conflicts, Cornell does some interesting uses of Wisdom as a M-level government agent in odd settings mixing X-Files type conspiracy, traditional folklore and last but not least, the Martian invasion of War of the Worlds! The artwork by Trevor Hairsine and Manual Garcia is quite pleasing to look at. I got a serious John Cassaday art vibe reading it and that was worth the price of admission alone.

There are some odd approaches to the story. The inclusion of Shang-Chi (Master of Kung Fu) and the Killraven mythos seems out of left field, as if Cornell was looking to give it more ties into the Marvel Universe over just using Wisdom and his ties to Excalibur (and Kitty Pryde of X-Men fame in particular) and he definitely pushes the boundaries of believable relationships for these characters. Pete Wisdom is quickly pushed into a relationship with Tink in the resolution of the first chapter, and then breaks that off to be with Maureen, another character barely introduced in the pages of the series, within the span of a couple chapters, . However, there are only six total issues ('chapters') that make up the entire book, so by the end it's hard to have a serious attachment to any of them.

Either way it is definitely worth a read, at least once. It did also accomplish something that should make Marvel Comics happy though. It got me interested in looking at the character of Pete Wisdom and the MI-13 section more within the Marvel Universe, so I shall be hunting down what I can of the Captain Britain and the MI-13 series, which in turn also got me to go back and re-read some classic Captain Britain, which in turn made me want to re-read those classic Excalibur issues I gave up on many years ago. Pretty sneaky Marvel Comics. You may get my money yet!