X-Rated Stories: Wolverine. Part 1 of 2
Making his debut as a featured character in the pages of the Incredible Hulk magazine, he’s become on e of Marvel Comics’ most recognizable faces, and arguably the most popular member of mutant super-ream The X-Men. With a natural tendency to call his own shots, he’s been an uneasy and sometimes straightly annoying pupil to Professor Charles Xavier, yet one of the most reliable when the occasion so demands. And as he would put it, he’s “the best at what he does, but what he does isn’t pretty”. We’re talking Wolverine, for sure, and with the recent X-Men Origins film: Wolverine hitting theatres it’s time to take a look back at this yellow-spandex wearing, adamantium-clawed antihero.
The Incredible Feature
Created by writer Len Wein, designed by John Romita Sr., and penciled by artist Herb Trimpe, the Marvel Universe’s X-mutant James Howlett -better known as Logan and better known still by his super heroic persona Wolverine, made his first appearance not as an X-Man, but as a guest featured rival to Bruce Banner’s raging alter ego The Hulk, back in the pages of the Incredible Hulk magazine Nº 181, cover date November 1974. Some sources register this debut as having happened in the magazine’s immediate previous issue, Nº 180 with cover date October ’74, but that would hardly count as a presentation, since the character was only visible at the issue’s end in a “teaser” vignette.
So there was everyone’s favorite Green Goliath mindlessly creating havoc everywhere he’d put his feet on, cheerlessly fighting furry villain Wendigo when, out of nothing comes the Wolverine, presented as an agent of the Canadian government with a berserker edge and a three-set of bone-claws in each hand, who gets in the middle of this clash of titans… only to be miserably defeated short after. Although we do not see his claws as being retractile in this first assault, both Wein and Romita have been quoted as saying they were always thought of as retractable.
Given this not so brilliant first appearance one would think this was a character destined to stay on the background as a support or guest superhero. Not a chance.
X-Men Giant Size
He appeared again briefly in issue 182, and then the “guest star” days were over, as Marvel Comics’ revamping of the somehow drained X-Men titles took place at the beginnings of 1975 with the Giant-Size X-Men Nº 1 issue, which introduced readers to a brand new multi-national, multi-ethnic X-team of evil-fighters.
This first issue was written by Wein himself, with art by Dave Cockrum and cover by Gil Kane. As a kind of trivia note, it is remarkable how Kane made a mistake when drawing the character’s mask, making the headpiece larger at the ears than it was according to Romita’s design. Nevertheless, Cockrum thought they looked cool and gave the personage a “sharper” look (besides of making the mask a bit resembling Batman’s), and so, he adapted his inside art to that of Kane’s cover.
It was also Cockrum who first drawed Wolverine unmasked, and his rendition of the X-man‘s hairstyle has become one of the characters trademarks.
Logan, The Man With a Slogan
After his debut as a member of the X-team, the character took the ladder to success and refused to climb it down again. He started to become most well liked and popular among readers, and before you knew, those titles in which he starred started to stand out as Marvel’s best sellers monthly. This, plus the excellent idea the team at the publisher’s house had of making the X-men as colorful and varied as possible, paved the grounds for the magazine’s success, and the rising of the X-Books as Marvel’s most profitable franchise.
The character was further developed by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne, and by 1982 his popularity took him quite near classic characters such as Spiderman or the Hulk or even Captain America in the rooster of Marvel heroes, as he got his own solo title which was a four-issue by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller; this saga would give him his now famous slogan-ish phrase: “I’m the best at what I do, and what I do ain’t pretty”.
Next: Logan’s Log
You can read the second part of this X-Rated Stories series here