Disappointed by the Wolverine Game? This Great Comics Story Has You Covered

Insomniac’s Wolverine was one of the most anticipated games of 2026, bringing the ol’Canucklehead to current gen gaming technology for the first time in years. Insomniac’s Spider-Man games are some of the best superhero video games ever and many Wolverine fans hoped that his game would match the ones starring the Wall-Crawler. The game has just released and the general consensus is that it’s a fine game that suffers from a lot of problems that 99.9% of AAA games suffer from. If you’re a Wolverine fan, you’ll find things to like about it and the gameplay is fun (and easy to make fun of; his version of detective vision from the Arkham games is kind of hilarious), but it’s not the perfect showcase for the character and his world that fans wanted it to be.

Wolverine was supposed to be the game that cemented his place as one of the greatest heroes ever, but so far it looks like it’s just going to go down as yet another fine AAA game that got overhyped by the fandom. There are lots of fans who hoped the game would bring new fans to the character, showcasing everything he does well and the whole situation is rather disappointing. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a perfect piece of Wolverine media that showcases everything cool about his stories and why he’s such an important Marvel hero. 22 years ago, Marvel gave readers the perfect Wolverine epic, a story that you can hand to anyone and make them love the character – the 12-issue action extravaganza “Enemy of the State”.

“Enemy of the State” Is Wolverine at His Best

The early ’00s were a great time to be a comic fan. The industry was coming out of the doldrums of the ’90s and introducing a whole new generation of superstar creators. Comics were pushed to new levels in the ’00s, with Marvel often leading the way, in sales if nothing else. The X-Men books were doing pretty well, as usual, and Wolverine had been given a new Marvel Knights series to replace his longrunning solo book. After Greg Rucka and Darick Robertson finished up their run on the ol’Canucklehead, the House of Ideas announced that superstar writer Mark Millar was going to take over the book, joined by the legendary art team of John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson for a 12-issue story that would prove to be one of the best Wolverine stories of the ’00s.

Millar took an idea that had been floating around for years – Wolverine killed and resurrected by a Hand assassin – and created two six-issue stories around it (this was originally going to be legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont‘s plan the X-Men books in the early ’90s leading up to Uncanny X-Men #300; strangely enough, Millar would use another older idea – “Acts of Vengeance” – as a foundational idea for his other Wolverine epic “Old Man Logan”). The first, “Enemy of the State”, would see Hand leader Gorgon send Wolverine against the heroes of the world, working with Hydra to create a weapon to take over the planet. The next six issues, “Agent of SHIELD”, would see Logan out for revenge against Hydra and the Hand.

It’s a simple story and it’s one the creative team knocked out of the park. While we didn’t get the battles against the Fantastic Four and Iron Man that the covers promised us, Millar, Romita Jr., and Janson were able to create action-packed stories that showed off just how formidable Wolvie could be when he was trying. There’s an excellent fights against Elektra, Daredevil, and the X-Men. There’s an issue where Logan uses a SHIELD-built Sentinel to fry thousands of Hand ninja. The final fight against Gorgon is everything you could want from a Wolverine fight, a brutal, hard-hitting affair that puts the perfect capstone on this story.

“Enemy of the State” isn’t some deep Wolverine story that digs into his past and demands years of Logan expertise to understand. It’s not out to reinvent the wheel for the character, either. What it does is show why Wolverine is one of the greatest superheroes ever. It’s the little things that make it work so well; the way that Millar writes Logan actively rebelling against the brainwashing while his body betrays, his ability to think his way through situations that seem hopeless, his grasp of strategy, and the tenacity that defines him. It’s touches on various parts of his history with Elektra, the X-Men, and the Hand, showing his place in the Marvel Universe hierarchy. It has some of the best Wolverine action scenes you can imagine.

All of that sounds like stuff that people expected from Insomniac’s latest game. They wanted a Wolverine game that would touch on everything that made the character great and present it to players. However, for a variety of reasons, the game has disappointed, both from a technical and story standpoint. It’s not the killer Wolverine app that will make everyone who plays it love the character. However, we always had that, a piece of perfect Wolverine media that anyone will love, and it’s been “Enemy of the State” this entire time.

The Best There Is

Superhero video games have had a lot of ups and downs over the years and Insomniac has helped show how great these kinds of games can be. That’s one of the reasons why Wolverine has proven to be so disappointing for fans; they wanted Insomniac to knock it out of the park again and give Logan the kind of game they gave Peter and Miles. However, they were able merely able to create a standard AAA game, one with the common batch of problems you find all over the industry right now. Fans wanted the second coming of Sony’s Spider-Man and not another forgettable superhero game.

Video games are a great way to get people into different franchises and many were hoping that Wolverine would serve to make more people love the hero. It can be hard to get people to read comics and every little bit helps. However, Wolverine never needed a video game to show would-be fans why the character was amazing; we already had “Enemy of the State”. It’s everything you could want from the character, a story that shows off everything his stories do well. It’s the perfect thing to hand a Wolverine player who wants to see how it’s done.

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