Wolverine first graced us with his presence back in 1974 when he fought the Hulk. Since then, through joining the X-Men, being the mysterious outsider, finding out about the Weapon X project, regular run-ins with arch enemy Sabertooth, having his adamantium skeleton removed (and put back in) and, of course, via the X-Men movie franchise he has woven his way into our hearts and in turn become one of the most popular comic book characters around. It’s hard not to love Wolverine yet somewhere over the past 5-10 years our clawed hero seems to have slipped a little.
Now pinpointing Wolverine’s arrival in comic book limbo is a tough one. Was it the reveal of his origin story? Finding out all about ‘James’ and his first steps towards becoming Wolverine. This was a great story but was the mystery of Wolverine’s past ,the thing we loved about him? Was it the X-Men films, that made Wolverine the central mutant when we all knew he shouldn’t have been this front and centre? Was it his own dire movie, Wolverine: Origins that bombarded us with a bastardised version our his past? Maybe it’s all of these reasons and more.
One big thing is pure Wolverine overkill in the Marvel books. Wolverine appears in pretty much ALL of the Marvel titles every month it seems. This character that we all fell in love with for being a loner, the quiet one with claws and the guy that is the best at what he does is now quite literally a character who is everything for everybody. He’s a headmaster of a school full of mutant kids. He’s the leader of a dark version of the X-Men. He’s in the Avengers. He’s out on his own and if anyone puts a team together, Wolverine usual rocks up to join the party. Pretty sociable for a loner, right?
More recently Wolverine proved to be almost utterly flaccid within the Avengers vs X-Men summer 2012 event. His bickering with Scott Summers has been milked to death and there’s a real sense that Marvel really doesn’t really know what to do with him at the moment. Well then, here’s 5 ways to make Wolverine great again.
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7 Comments
I like the idea of having Logan fail as headmaster. I can see it being something that echoes the original Wolverine miniseries with the students being disgusted with him the same way Mariko was seeing him in a bezerker rage for the first time.
Another angle would be for Logan to refuse his animalistic urges with dire consequences for the school. He then has to rediscover his animalistic nature. Like how Storm in the 80s became something she didn’t want to be in order to be a better leader.
Yeah, he totally needs you let that animal out again. It hasn’t really been unleashed for a while. Well at least succesfully anyway. I’m hoping Frank Cho’s upcoming ‘Savage Wolverine’ goes there but given that the ‘Savage’ part of the title seems to refer to The Savage Land I’m not sure that’s gonna happen.
The problem is we know too much about the character. When I was growing up we got bits here and there about this mysterious savage. Now we know his whole history. On top of that they made his healing factor too incredible. I just read Civil War and he was a skeleton, but he still healed from that. They need to go back to basics. What would be cool is for him to just say, “hey, I’m going on a walkabout” and travel across the country or something. Set up some cool adventures with normal people where he tries to fit in. Show something different and real. I’m guessing here. I just lost interest in him over the years.
I think his past being revealed is a good thing. A very good thing.
It showed that Wolverine, deep down and at his earliest stages… was a scared, gentle kid. You can even freely call him a wuss… until life forced him to adapt. And that flew against the “is he man or an animal/mutated Wolvering” argument and theory. That gave him a dimension…
Having said that, I agree: Wolverine needs a back-to-basics approach. I’m against any form of regression (which is why I CANNOT stand the current Spider-Man comics at all)…. and the fact is: Wolverine is the only superhero I can think of who actually had a positive character arc within the history of comic books, actually (I wouldn’t count Bucky Barnes because he was largely absent until the last decade. While every other character has gone through tons of changes and returns to their status quo. And Spidey regressed)….
Wolverine is a badass because he was the one guy that wasn’t rebooted or regressed as a character. Let’s keep it that way.
Great ideas all around! Logan will always be that fallen Samauri character to me, or the hero that is in constant struggle with his inner animal. I think the Origin of Wolverine really did destroy the character’s mystique and to be honest wasn’t a great origin story at all. I love how the artist in the book kept changing the hair colors of Dog and Logan, so the reader never knew which one was Wolverine , yeah great job, you decieved me with colors. But yeah I totally agree with your assessement here, he needs to be a loner again. Those solo Wolverine books in the 90′s were so good.
100 percent agree that Logan is overexposed. Never thought about how wrong Wolverine and the X-men sounds when compared to the likes of Captain America and the Avengers.
I think taking an idea from Old Man Logan would be a good place to start: having mysterio (or a similarly powered foe) creating the illusion that Logan is under attack so he (out of no choice) kills his attackers for it to then be revealed that he’s attacked and killed his teammates. Obviously we cant kill all the x-men so just a few that would be significant but not to the detriment of the franchise such as: – Jubilee. her importance to Logan is obvious, story wise when Logan is in his rage Jubilee attempts to calm him and she fails. Logans guilt over killing his first surrogate daughter would be immense. also from a publication aspect the new adjectiveless x-men features her as a main character so when she is killed her death could be properly dealt with in that series. (as a side note shes also a vampire now so that connection to being undead means a easy resurrection years later, when everyone has moved on but of course she’d be pissed with the guy she saw as her dad for killing her so there would be a new dynamic to be explored with her and Logan)
-Kitty Pryde, now i’m not saying we kill kitty. im suggesting that Logan stabs kitty with half/or one third of the length of his claws because he gets the jump on her and kitty uses her powers to not be fully stabbed, with her injuries putting her into a coma. i suggest the coma aspect because with logan gone and kitty incapacitated this would allow storm to FINALLY be the leader she should be and when kitty inevitably comes to from her coma, she and storm share joint leadership of their faction of the x-men.
-Northstar. although i dont know when it happened on the marvel wikia page for wolverine it says that Logan killed Northstar so him having killed Northstar again would be a reference to that storyline. Plus Northstar is recently married so Logan would feel guilt over having taken someones husband. this would also create an interesting relationship with Northstars husband when they meet down the road. there is even potential there to turn northstars husband into a villain, which would be an incredibly personal hero/villain relationship; as Logan made him into a villain, he has to stop him.
-Forge. storm and logan are dating/seeing each other/hooking up at the moment so Logan killing one of her ex’s would be an interesting way to complicate the relationship, with storm initially being unable to forgive Logan for killing someone close to her and then when he returns feeling conflicted over her attraction/love for Logan but trying to deny those feelings out of respect for Forge.
-one of the stepford cuckoos. given that there is 3 of them 1 is kind of expendable, plus there used to be five so the remaining two would have to acknowledge the low mortality rate around and question whether being with the x-men is good for them.
-Broo, i was as horrfied as everyone when i thought broo had died in AVX – so i dont intend we kill him rather due to broo’s alien physiology everyone initially believes that Logan killed broo but it is then revealed that broo entered a hibernation process to adapt to the injury for the future (or something) this can better inform the life cycle of the brood species as Broo returns in a adolescent form, aging from the childlike form he has at the minute.
(i know that last one with broo was a bit lazily explained but i just thought of it)
After Logan has injured or killed these individuals his faction of x-men take a vote to decide whether he should stay, even though they were going to give him the benefit of the doubt, the villains that hired mysterio (or whoever) release this information of Logans attack to the public – creating bad publicity for the school and for the avengers for having Logan in their ranks. This forces both teams to retract Logans membership, but Logan is gone before either can tell him ala Batman in the tower of babel (also this idea of the avengers taking his membership immediately makes me think of how upset Spider-man would be, with him making comments about how you cant blame a person for mind control/taking over your body ala his recent storyline).
This forces Logan into the only option of leaving with a bag of his things and going off somewhere new. This now puts Logan in an interesting position, where he cant make a scene out of himself doing heroic deeds because the media believe he is insane plus his awareness of how dangerous he is coupled with the guilt from what he’s done means he cannot bring himself to pop his claws. Logan has to lay low, operate under the grid. and find out who did this to him. this would then pretty much make the storyline a road trip, logan on his motorbike going from town to town following clues about who hired mysterio and why with the reveal being that it was an alliance of his villains such as silver samurai, mystique, sabretooth, (and if they do go all out in turning him into a villain – which i hope they dont – cyclops) etc. their rational being that since they can never kill logan, they can still break his spirit and kill those around him.
Now even after Logan thwarts the alliance and clears his name he stays on the road anyway out of his shame, hopefully allowing another year of stories as his travels help move past what happened to him, when he is close to acheiving this, this would be a good time for him to meet northstars husband for the frist time to set him back a bit.
Eventually, most likely when a major marvel event turns up, Logan returns to help his comrades (im talking MAJOR level event so both x-men and avengers would be in battle) with Logan dealing the finishing blow/possessing knowledge on how to turn the tide. Although both teams have their members who both want him back and those that dont, for instance in the x-men: those that do: kitty, rogue, x-23, (although he denies it) quentin, bobby. and those that dont: storm, lockheed, the stepfords with beast being unsure.
the avengers: those that do: spider-man, iron man, hawkeye, spider-woman, hulk and those that dont or are unsure: captain america, carol, falcon, wasp and scarlet witch.
The x-men (much to the objection of storm) give logan the offer to come back and Tony offers Logan an honourary membership as steve comments its too soon and these things take time. Logan accepts the offer of the x-men, although he says he wont be moving into the school at westchester and he declines the avengers, although he states someday he will return, when he once again feels worthy of the title “Earths Mightiest” but at this moment its time for him to reconnect with his family.
You realize that marvel already did pretty much this exact thing right? When they relaunched the title in 2009 Wolverine was attacked by a group called the Red Right Hand. They send Wolverine’s soul to hell while his demon possessed body tries to kill the X-Men. The Red Right Hand also targets Wolverine’s other friends and acquaintances (Silver Samurai and Wraith are killed, Yukio is paralyzed…). Of course Wolverine gets his body back and seek his bloody and savage revenge in a storyline fittingly called Wolverine’s Revenge. The Red Right Hand hurts Wolverine worse than anyone has ever hurt him before. It’s pretty brutal. The fallout leads into Schism and Wolverine reopening the school, so it pretty much goes full circle with what you’re suggesting.
The thing is, Wolverine’s berserker rage and constant need for revenge aren’t heroic traits. They’re actually his tragic flaw. Bad things happen when Wolverine goes berserk. Often to bad people, but still.