Every year on Logan ’s birthday, he goes off to the woods, to some far off destination to hide and be away from friends and family, as he is ALWAYS attacked by Sabretooth. So this year, that’s the plan. Except Kitty Pryde is around.

And she really wants to go to the Dazzler concert (so she can show off to her old friends) and needs a ride. So to surprise Wolverine and get him on her good side (as no one else will even talk to her) so finds out its his birthday (by hacking the Professor’s files), gives him a surprise party, and then gets Mariko in town to celebrate with him at a local Ninja Restaurant.

Hi-larious.

Van Lente tells a wonderful story about a very young and naïve Kitty Pryde and a very brash and angry loner Wolverine. It puts them back in their roots. It gives them back their singular voice. It gives them the heroic qualities we remember liking in the first place.

And it makes Sabretooth look like a badass.

Wolverine’s final line while driving the limo full of girls about stabbing himself through the brain is worth it. The way these characters interact is spot-on. Kitty doesn’t understand Nightcrawler so barely talks to him. Billionaire playboy Angel doesn’t want to drive as he wears a glowing sign above his head that says Please Sue Me. She can’t talk to Colossus as she has a massive crush on him. So she asks Wolverine. Who just about hates everything.

Andrea DiVito is a talent, an amazing untapped talent that deserves the spotlight on some first-tier book like Avengers or an X-book. He has the potential to be one of the best, and the fact that he can hit a deadline and makes his characters all have very distinct appearances gives them all that much more of a visual cue from their dialogue. Wolverine is short and stocky. Kitty is really skinny and drawn really young (as she is about 13 or 14 when this is set). Nightcrawler just looks like a demon. And Sabretooth is a big tree of a villain.

It works on so many levels that this book should be one of the highest selling in the Marvel Pantheon. I will continue throwing money at it, as it will always brighten my otherwise terrible comic purchases, no matter if its an issue of Amazing Spidey or Hulk that just utterly frustrates me, this makes it better. BUY IT!