As an avid and complete Wolverine fan, I could not agree more there. Logan has gone from a warrior unlike anything the world has ever seen to an over-used, under-thinking tank whose primary role is to soak up and shrug off bullet fire, before butchering bad guys.
Once, he had nobility and grace; he was the warrior poet, with the inner tranquility of his Japanese training at war with the beast of his nature, and a heart as open and pure as the wide blue sky.
A skilled fighter trained in many disciplines (Jiu-jitsu, and other Samurai disciplines, Weapon X combat tactical training, X-Men training, to name but a few), and a smooth covert operative with knowledge of many languages (Japanese, Spanish, Russian, German, and others were all demonstrated), his brain processes in combat were described by Forge as "equivalent to an olympic gymnast performing a gold-medal-winning routine whilst simultaneously beating four chess computers in his head", which gives an idea of the physical and mental skill and complexity he can maintain whilst in combat.
In one of the earliest issues of his solo series, at the end of the "Spore" arc, we saw an example of the delicacy of his clawwork, as he gave the Nazi remnant Gheist a clean, close shave, cutting so fine and smoothly all over that Gheist felt nothing, but all of the armour bonded to his skin fell off. To see him go from that skill and delicacy to the wildly swinging brute that he has largely been for years is nothing short of appalling.
To me, at his peak, Logan was the ultimate symbol of the warrior: skilled, he overcame adversity; brave, he overcame fear; intelligent, he overcame challenges; trained, he overcame the baseness of his nature. His was the epitome of transcendence, mastering his rages long before it occurred to Bruce Banner, he stared the beast in the eye, and beat it back with nothing but the strength of his own conviction, and belief in what was right.
To see him become what he has has been a painful experience, but the recent Enemy of the State and Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D arcs in the Wolverine solo series, written by Mark Millar, have gone some way to repairing the damage.
