(If youve never read the 1982 mini-series, spoilers ahead) I have not purchased a Wolverine comic in well, ever. This is not to say that, I, like a lot of adolescent comic book fans didnt think the cigar-smoking, beer-guzzling ultimate fighting machine wasnt the coolest character ever for a time; like many of them, I thrilled to his adventures in the X-Men. I, too, wanted to stalk the world like Dirty Harry, minding my own business, serving the good, but doling out the kind of entirely understandable, potentially fatal ass-kickings that my more liberal-minded buddies in the X-Men, with all their angsty hand-wringing, never could. Before Wolverine, Batman was the biggest badass, but there was never any doubt that Wolverine wouldve taken care of that problem called the Joker a long time ago. Whats there for a teenage boy not to love? Then as I got older, he lost his appeal. Being a one-dimensional character tends to have that effect on adult readers. Theres only so many times you can watch your hero engage in a pissing contest with a small army of villains/ninjas/aliens/bar patrons/more ninjas knowing full well the guys become about as unkillable as Superman; only so many times he can save the day by flying into the requisite berserker rage before you realize the guys got an extraordinarily limited and numbingly predictable - set of coping skills. This is a long-winded way of saying I am probably the last person in the comic-book- reading world who would buy the original 1982 Chris Claremont-Frank Miller mini-series, and much less, enjoy it. But guess what? I spotted the newly re-released hardcover collection in the library, and just out of curiosity, just to see what all the fuss had been about, I picked it up. I figured, if nothing else, Id enjoy Millers artwork (and I did), but, much to my surprise, the thing worked great as a story. A great story. Since I, like many others, found the last Wolverine film to be more than a little disappointing and hope this new one will deliver some kind of payoff on comic-book fans entrenched sense of obligation to patronize big-budget superhero flicks starring characters they once loved, Im hoping this sequel draws on a lot more than the superficial elements from the 1982 classic its reportedly based on. While its probably a very good idea that The Wolverines director, James Mangold, doesnt seem to have pulled a Robert Rodriguez-on-Sin City and filled the screen with scrupulously faithful recreations of Claremont and Millers classic, there are a lot of key story elements from which The Wolverine could benefit. Here are just 5 key story elements from the 1982 mini-series that Mangold, Jackman, and company have, hopefully, made good use of: