The Best There Is: Wolverine appreciation

[lurkerforyears]

I would like to see most of the Romulus stuff retconned, but I don't think it's possible because Aaron was responsible for much of it, and he must be the biggest writer Marvel has currently.

[Gurz]

Origin was a mix of far and away and secret garden stories with wolverine elements... nothing special. It didn't ruin the character for me but it can't be considered a classic good Wolverine story as well.

Barry Winstor Smith's Weapon X on the other hand is exceptional. Best Wolverine story ever.

[Hush]

I see! I always liked the classic X-men, with Wolverine being my favorite. However, I never bought his solo book (and it's been a long time since I collected and X-Men book). I hope his return serves as a jumping point for me, And i'm already collecting Hunt for Wolverine.

I'm sure with all this fresh start initiative that Marvel is launching, the relaunch of the Wolverine serie will be the perfect jumping point

I would like to see most of the Romulus stuff retconned, but I don't think it's possible because Aaron was responsible for much of it, and he must be the biggest writer Marvel has currently.

Daniel Way and Jeph Loeb are the ones responsible for all the Romulus stuff, Loeb even tried to make Wolverine the co-creator of the Weapon X project with Romulus and Way turned Wolverine into a sadist, a war criminal and a puppet of Romulus

Jason Aaron on the other hand almost wrote nothing about Romulus, he referenced it twice in his run and made it look like an urban legend. He basically ignored most of it but at the same time, he had Logan referenced some of those revelations during a conversation with Spider-Man.

But I agree with you, this Romulus stuff should be retconned

[TheCape]

Don't get me wrong I don't think it's a bad story just a bad Wolverine's origins story and it completely ruined the appeal of the character for me. When I read it the first time, it was like the writers established a checklist and tried to work their way around it, you got the redhead fetish, the missing memory, the name Wolverine, the figure of authority (Smitty) who Rose fall in love with and who is just here to create a parralell with the Cyclops (figure of authority)/Jean (redhead)/Logan love triangle. Then you also got the mention of samurai and of course you have the Sabretooth look-alike with Dog and why he called everyone bub. On top of that you add some convoluted plots and you got Wolverine Origin.

By doing what they did with this story Marvel just demystified the character, they reduced him to another hero who became who he is after a traumatic event in his childhood. If only one competent writer worked on this story it could have been better, unfortunately the script was written by Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada who are not good writers at all and Jenkins had to adapt the story in comicbook form so the whole thing doesn't feel organic.
For me Wolverine is a lot like the Joker when it comes to their mysterious past, doing and origin story about those characters is like opening a pandora box meaning it's tempting in the short term but if you open that box a lot of bad things will come out of it and in the long term the appeal of these characters will be lost and that's exactly what happened with Logan after this story in my opinion.

Understandable, althougth Logan mysterious past is part of his appeal, i don't think that reveal it was bad, for me he always has been more about the constant struggle beetween his humanity and his inner animal, Claremon and Miller despicted that perfectly in his first mini with the scene when he talks about how an animal just accept his nature and rolls with it, when a man actually question it and try tonstrive for the better and even if he doesn't manage to completly resolve that conflic he would never give up. Besides i always thougth that having a constant mystery without an answer to and dangling it like a carrot in front of the reader is kind of lame.

Of course, the problem is that when they decided to open that box, they took the worst possible decisions for what i had seem, i didn't read Loeb's stuff about Romulus, but i did some digging about it in wikis and other sites and frankly, it sound dumb, like Ultimatum Loeb levels of dumb. Way had never written something that can be consider good on Marvel so i don't know why they gave him a Wolverine: Origins ongoing (i guest that somebody really liked that Venom title on the early 2000s), so, althougth i don't necesarely agreed with you is hard to argue against you considering the results.

[Dr. Banner]

I'm sure with all this fresh start initiative that Marvel is launching, the relaunch of the Wolverine serie will be the perfect jumping point

Yeah, and I am eager for some news about the creative team. I hope it's a great one.

[Bl00dwerK]

Yeah, and I am eager for some news about the creative team. I hope it's a great one.

Keeping my fingers crossed Larraz is on it.

[Dr. Banner]

Keeping my fingers crossed Larraz is on it.

Great artist! He was amazing in No Surrender. Actually, all the artists in NS are great, and i'd welcome in a Wolverine book easily.

[Bl00dwerK]

Great artist! He was amazing in No Surrender. Actually, all the artists in NS are great, and i'd welcome in a Wolverine book easily.

He's my favorite artist working at Marvel.

[Hush]

Understandable, althougth Logan mysterious past is part of his appeal, i don't think that reveal it was bad, for me he always has been more about the constant struggle beetween his humanity and his inner animal, Claremon and Miller despicted that perfectly in his first mini with the scene when he talks about how an animal just accept his nature and rolls with it, when a man actually question it and try tonstrive for the better and even if he doesn't manage to completly resolve that conflic he would never give up. Besides i always thougth that having a constant mystery without an answer to and dangling it like a carrot in front of the reader is kind of lame.

Oh I agree with the depiction of the Logan's struggle between his humanity and his inner animal, it was well done especially when you see Logan living and hunting with the wolves, the art and the colors during those scenes were really impressive, it's just in the end the cons of this mini-serie outweight the pros for me.
Regarding the mysterious past, something I like before House of M, was how some writers gave you some clues and even some revelations about his past but in the end you ended up with more questions than answers. But yeah if the writers focus too much on the mysterious past it could become an annoying trope after a while, that's why they had to juggle between his past and moving forward.

That's what Hama, Tieri and Rucka did during their runs, they only used the mysterious past of Logan for some very important stories but as a whole that wasn't the main plot of their others stories, that way it wasn't repetitive and you could keep Logan's mysterious nature. As Claremont said : "the less we know about him the better".

Of course, the problem is that when they decided to open that box, they took the worst possible decisions for what i had seem, i didn't read Loeb's stuff about Romulus, but i did some digging about it in wikis and other sites and frankly, it sound dumb, like Ultimatum Loeb levels of dumb. Way had never written something that can be consider good on Marvel so i don't know why they gave him a Wolverine: Origins ongoing (i guest that somebody really liked that Venom title on the early 2000s), so, althougth i don't necesarely agreed with you is hard to argue against you considering the results.

Yeah that's something I never understood, why would you choose someone like Way to write a very ambitious story like that, Marvel cancelled most of the mini series he worked on previously, notably Ant-Man where he basically didn't care about the character, never did any research and yet Axel Alonso and Joe Quesada still gave him the reigns of the Wolverine universe. Just take a look at this old interview and you will understand what kind of writer Way is : https://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/12...n-ant-man-max/

[TheCape]

Oh I agree with the depiction of the Logan's struggle between his humanity and his inner animal, it was well done especially when you see Logan living and hunting with the wolves, the art and the colors during those scenes were really impressive, it's just in the end the cons of this mini-serie outweight the pros for me.
Regarding the mysterious past, something I like before House of M, was how some writers gave you some clues and even some revelations about his past but in the end you ended up with more questions than answers. But yeah if the writers focus too much on the mysterious past it could become an annoying trope after a while, that's why they had to juggle between his past and moving forward.

That's what Hama, Tieri and Rucka did during their runs, they only used the mysterious past of Logan for some very important stories but as a whole that wasn't the main plot of their others stories, that way it wasn't repetitive and you could keep Logan's mysterious nature. As Claremont said : "the less we know about him the better".



Yeah that's something I never understood, why would you choose someone like Way to write a very ambitious story like that, Marvel cancelled most of the mini series he worked on previously, notably Ant-Man where he basically didn't care about the character, never did any research and yet Axel Alonso and Joe Quesada still gave him the reigns of the Wolverine universe. Just take a look at this old interview and you will understand what kind of writer Way is : https://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/12...n-ant-man-max/

Jesus, i'm not a busineman, but why would you give the job to someone that seems to be unable to see beyond the surface of a characther, no wonder why his writting sucks, this sound just as bad as his Venom ongoing, why you would give one of your most popular characthers to this guy.

[Hush]

Jesus, i'm not a busineman, but why would you give the job to someone that seems to be unable to see beyond the surface of a characther, no wonder why his writting sucks, this sound just as bad as his Venom ongoing, why you would give one of your most popular characthers to this guy.

Yep, that's mindblowing he must have been friend with some higher ups that's the only reason I can think of lol. From various interviews it seems that was Alonso who gave him the serie and he worked closely with him on it.

[Wolverine12]

Way's time on Origin was a mixed bag for me. I really liked seeing Logan be a bastard in WWII and basically turn Nuke into a psychopath via torture, and I loved seeing him beat Cap in hand to hand combat which imho should be the outcome 99 out of 100 times those two square off but a lot of the other stuff was kind of boring for me. I didn't think Dillon was a great choice for artist either, I like Dillon just not on that series and artists can really make or break a book for me.

[Hush]

Way's time on Origin was a mixed bag for me. I really liked seeing Logan be a bastard in WWII and basically turn Nuke into a psychopath via torture, and I loved seeing him beat Cap in hand to hand combat which imho should be the outcome 99 out of 100 times those two square off but a lot of the other stuff was kind of boring for me. I didn't think Dillon was a great choice for artist either, I like Dillon just not on that series and artists can really make or break a book for me.

I dunno, I wasn't a big fan of making Logan that much of a bastard during WWII, I always prefered Logan as the kind of guy who did the things no one wanted to do but always because he believed it was the right thing to do not just because of mind control. If torturing Nuke and "betraying" Cap were the only bad things he did during WWII yeah that wouldn't bother me but him and Seraph working with nazis and what he did in issue 26 were pure character assassination.

On his own free will he basically lured japanese americans citizens to an american concentration camp and he made sure they never escaped while they were being tortured and experimented on. And after all of that he killed all the scientists and burned everything to cover his tracks, that's going too far not even Romulus was aware of all that. Logan was for me a failed samurai, a man who kills because he doen't want other to do it and because he believed that sometimes that's the only way, but after that he's just a mass murderer, a war criminal as worse than a nazi guard during WWII.

On top of that Way and Carey completely changed the reason why Logan joined the X-Men, it wasn't because he believe in Xavier's Dream but because he wanted to kill him and as a result Xavier brainwash him to make him join the X-Men, that's pure nonsense. That kind of thing worked in the Ultimate universe but it didn't work at all in the classic universe and it completely ruined both Xavier and Logan. Remember those times when Xavier was trying to help Logan uncovers his real memories? Just a lie, Xavier knew exactely about Logan and Romulus from the beginning.

I do agree about the captain america battle and the art though, Dillon wasn't the right artist for the book they should have let Pelletier, Deodato or Braithwaite draw the whole run.

[Alan2099]

One thing that really bugged me about Origins is them changing Wolverine's name.

For decades he was Logan. Nothing else. Just Logan. Then we find out Logan wasn't even part of his name. His name is James Howlett. Even that would be excusable, but afterwards, it seemed like everybody suddenly knew he was named James.

The fact that Wolverine even accepts his name is really James Howlett bugs me. He's not. He was born James Howlett, but only used that name for somewhere around 20 years. After that, he became who he really is and has been Logan ever since.

[Hush]

One thing that really bugged me about Origins is them changing Wolverine's name.

For decades he was Logan. Nothing else. Just Logan. Then we find out Logan wasn't even part of his name. His name is James Howlett. Even that would be excusable, but afterwards, it seemed like everybody suddenly knew he was named James.

The fact that Wolverine even accepts his name is really James Howlett bugs me. He's not. He was born James Howlett, but only used that name for somewhere around 20 years. After that, he became who he really is and has been Logan ever since.

Yeah I'm not a big fan of the James Howlett name either and I agree it never made any sense for other characters such as Squirrel Girl or Teen Jean to call him James.
I think the worst instance was during that horrendous Wolverine run by Paul Cornell where Logan even asked Kitty to call him James and not Logan anymore that was dumb and quickly forgotten fortunately lol.