Read Time: 2 Minutes
Perusing the sale items on Audible, I stumbled upon this going for the bargain price of two bucks. How could I not? I suppose a bit of history is in order. I’ve never owned much in the way of comics beyond Mad Magazines, and that was back when I was much younger. I did watch a lot of cartoons growing up, and X-Men was one of my favourites. Wolverine in the same yellow-spandex 30-something years in the future was one I re-watched a few times.
The movie adaptation left me wanting. I wasn’t a big fan of it. I’ve not read the graphic novel this audiobook is based on but going off some reviews I read before grabbing it, supposedly it’s a faithful retelling.
The first thing worth noting is this is marketed as a Graphic Audio production, meaning soundtrack, sound effects, and a full cast of voice actors playing the various parts. Typically, this level of production doesn’t interest me – I don’t mind some sound effects, but I usually avoid ones I feel are too heavy. For two dollars, though, I figured it was worth a shot.
Honestly, it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it might. Sure, I couldn’t speed up the playback like I normally prefer, as the music gets weird, but being just shy of five hours didn’t mean that was a deal-breaker. Some of the sound effects choices were a bit odd but generally fit the mood.
The story itself was really engaging, more so than what I remember of the cartoon and certainly what the movie served up. Some of it is a little cheesy, but it’s adapted from a comic so aimed at a younger audience than I fall into, so I might just be a little cynical.
The full cast narration was done well and well produced, with no obvious background noises or other production errors that I noticed. Richard Rohan did the bulk of the narration, with a cast of supporting actors doing the various characters. I particularly liked the voices of Wolverine and Magneto – though I couldn’t tell you who voiced them.
Would I buy more of these types of books? I gotta be honest and say that I don’t think so. While, like most of the planet, I’ve seen many of the Marvel movie adaptations, I’ve no real hankering to go out and find more. I mainly picked this one up because it was cheap, I knew the story, and Cyclops was dead. I’ve never much liked that dude. I will relisten to this one in the future though.