Recently in Wolverine Category

Surely all fans of the Claremont/Byrne X-Men run remember this panel from the very last page of Uncanny X-Men #132 (1980)!

After being dumped in the sewers, Wolverine vowed to open up a can of whup-ass on the Hellfire Club, which he did in the next issue.  It was an exciting image, with the shadows of the sewer grate above shining down on Wolvy's costume.

John Byrne re-interpreted this moment for an illustration that appeared in his X-Men portfolio in 1993.  This version features a lot more muck and sewer gunk that surrounds Wolverine--a truly awful place to be!

Here's the pen & ink version of this illustration.  I imagine that some art collectors have commissioned similar pieces?  If so, please share them in the comments below.  Nuff Said!

In 1980, John Byrne was the featured interview in issue #57 of The Comics Journal.  Byrne and his superstar inker Terry Austin provided the cover.  Here's the original black and white version.

The classic core team of Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler.  Here's the actual color cover...

This was one of my favorite TCJ issues of all time.  The Byrne interview was full of behind the scenes stuff like his love for Wolverine and modeling some of his character from Clint Eastwood.  Byrne also talked openly about his disagreements with Claremont and desire to write his own material.  In addition to all of this, you had Steve Gerber, Harlan Ellison, and a Daredevil story rejected by the Comics Code.  Why did I ever throw away this issue?  Insanity.  Nuff said.

I’m usually a news monger on most days, but today was a very busy one at the office.  I was stunned to come home and read that Marvel was being acquire by Disney!  There’s been tons of speculation from pros to fans to Stan Lee about how all this will play out.  I’m hoping it’s going to do for Marvel what Warner did for DC Comics, and not affect the publishing line too much.  I found Marv Wolfman’s comments quite insightful—he’s worked for Marvel, DC, and Disney Publishing in his career.

What was really entertaining about today were all the Tweets.  If I were constantly checking twitter all day, I would have known earlier.

Joe Quesada, of course, started off today with a bang:

“G' morning, Marvel U! Welcome to this moment in history. Everyone relax, this is incredible news and all is well in the Marvel U.”

“Everybody take a deep breath, all your favorite comics remain unchanged and Tom Brevoort remains grouchy.”

Then Warren Ellis chimed in:

“Why is everyone at Marvel making quacking noises today? It's horrible.”

“so I got this phone call from Joe Quesada and it was just the sound of him rubbing himself with money and now I am confused.”

Quesada replied:

“Hey, @warrenellis I hope you're wearing your mouse ears as we agreed upon when you post that.”

Ellis fired back:

“@JoeQuesada Yes. Am wearing the mouse ears. AND NOTHING ELSE.”

Stephen Wacker:

“Deadpool is now called Alivepool.”

“Scarlet Witch Mountain.”

My favorite Wacker quote gets in another dig at the fans upset by One More Day: “Y'know I never thought Cinderella and Prince Charming shoulda gotten married...hmmm.”

Tom Peyer:

“Stan Lee Presents Walt Disney's Spider-Man.”

"THIS MAN, THIS MUPPET!"

Jason Aaron:

Can now officially have the Punisher target the entire cast of "Hannah Montana."

Please do Jason, my nieces torture me to death with that show!

BRIANMBENDIS:

if this merger has taught us anything is comedy writing isn't for everyone :)

GailSimone:

OH MY GOD MAKE THE MARVEL/DISNEY JOKES STOP.

For some sobering thoughts, listen to Gerry Conway:

“This can't be good news. RT @TVWriterCom: Disney buying Marvel for $4 bil? I'm completely stupefied”

“Re Disney buying Marvel: Any time a small creative operation (which Marvel is, still, in general terms) is bought by a large corp, bad news.”

“Disney is a huge enterprise, Marvel is a small one; Disney will swallow Marvel's creative culture, whatever's left of it.”

“Being purchased by Warners was bad for DC for many many many years, and still is, in terms of movies made from DC properties.”

“Look how long it's taken DC to get many of their properties into film production because Warner is the sole gateway.”

“If Warner doesn't want to do a DC project, they can make certain it doesn't get done anywhere else, and they do.”

“Howard the Duck. RT @A_Daly: @gerryconway The possibility of Donald Duck appearing in the Marvel universe surely can't be a bad thing =D”

“Good example of the Disney/Marvel problem: Howard the Duck would never have happened. Never.”

Great point!  Disney did sue Marvel to make them change Howard the Duck’s outfit…I think they made Marvel promise to have Howard wear pants.  Steve Gerber’s MAX series had Howard changed into a rat to avoid the terms of the settlement.  But on the other hand…if Disney owns both Howard and Mickey…maybe they’d let Howard come back in his original form?

“Guarantee: If Disney had owned Marvel, no "Death of Captain America." Can't mess with a valuable corporate asset.”

Not too sure about that.  Warner Brothers let DC do Death of Superman.  Although they would not have allowed DC to stretch it out 2-3 years.

“And with $4 bil invested, no way is Disney going to be a "hands off" silent partner, letting the kids do what they want. Civil War? Ha!”

To close out on a more cheerful note, there’s always Brian Reed with a handy zinger:

"Face it, Tigger, you hit the jackpot!"

At least, Marvel’s shareholders certainly have!  For the fans of the comic books, we’ll have to wait and see a few years down the line.  What happens whenever Joe Quesada leaves the company?  I’m a bit concerned if that happens in a new corporate environment—Joe’s been a rock of stability for nearly a decade.  Nuff said.

The best thing from the Marvel Swimsuit issues were the faux advertisements.  Take these two, from Marvel Swimsuit 1991:

The Beast, drawn by George Perez, selling Ultra-X shampoo!  Seeing this reminds me that I prefer the Beast in his blue and furry form.  After reading Dark Avengers #7, do you think it’s possible Marvel will revert him back?

If you’ve ever given a dog a bath, you’ll know how much hair comes out—it can clog your drain if you do it in the bathroom.  The amount of hair the Beast would shed…OMG.  Probably there would be hair all over his bedroom and lab as well.

Wolverine, drawn by Mike Zeck, selling Macho speed stick deodorant!  Notice that it’s misspelled “deoderant”.  Never thought about superhero sweat until reading this ad.  The Marvel Universe must be a very stinky place indeed.  Nuff said.

A while back I showcased the pencils to full color versions of Adam Kubert’s cover to Wolverine #73.  I think this is a very iconic cover for Wolverine, right up there with Sub-Mariner #1, Silver Surfer #1, or Dr. Strange #177,  Other than the cover, I didn’t think there would be anything special about this issue.

Whoops!  There are two great short stories, one by Jason Aaron/Adam Kubert, the other by Daniel Way\Tommy Lee Edwards.

The story by Aaron and Kubert answers that question we’ve all been asking since New Avengers started.  How the heck can Wolverine be a member on the Avengers, on the X-Men, on X-Force, in his own 2-3 monthly books and do the random team-up guest appearance in other series?  You see Wolverine’s weekly adventures, condensed into quick snapshots taken each day.  Monday he’s with the New Avengers. Tuesday he’s teamed up with the Punisher and Ghost Rider.  Wednesday he’s assassinating racists in X-Force.  Thursday he’s with his original crew, the X-Men.  Friday he’s doing a Spider-Man team up.  Saturday looks like a good day—he’s talking up bar girls in Bangkok.  He repeats the cycle over and over.  Finally, he gets together with Yukio (from the very first mini-series) who figures out why Wolverine can never rest.

The story is very clever, but the art by Kubert is amazing.  I especially love this two page spread of Wolverine riding his motorcycle in Japan.  Look at the detail in the city streets with the buildings and signs in the background.  The color by Justin Posnor really make this scene pop.  Nuff said.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was precisely the movie I expected to see.  It was executed by Fox in the same manner as Ghost Rider or Fantastic Four—with little regard to the original source material.

The positives:  Hugh Jackman’s performance, he still brings a lot to this character.  Lynn Collins as Silverfox was beautiful—she reminded me of Evangeline Lilly on Lost.  It was fun seeing Gambit and the cameo at the end by Xavier was cool.  The action scenes, though highly implausible, were well executed.

The negatives: Barry Smith’s Weapon X origin was discarded in favor of having General Stryker being the one responsible for Wolvy’s adamantium skeleton.  Deadpool appears in character at the beginning of the movie—but it seems like we only get 10 minutes of Ryan Reynolds.  Then Deadpool is transformed into a mega mutant…who can’t speak?  That was really stupid.  I kind of expected these mistakes from the previews.  The really big missed opportunity was the scenes of Wolverine and Sabretooth in all the various wars throughout history.  Those seemed more promising than the rest of the film.  The ending was terrible and a real downer—too many depressing superhero movies lately.  I thought of a better one right away: what if Lynn Collins’ character is alive but thinks Wolverine is dead?  Lovers are tragically separated, but with a chance to get reunited one day.

Basically, I went in knowing it was a very flawed movie, but just enjoyed it for mindless escapism.

But here’s one thing that’s always bothered me.  Why spend a lot of time and effort coming up with a failed movie script, done by committee, when you have the perfect source material for a film?

I’ve always thought the original Wolverine mini-series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller was practically begging for a cinematic adaption.  It’s self contained, it’s got a classic three act story structure, and it has that man vs animal conflict that’s always tortured Logan.

This mini-series blew the entire legion of fans away when it was published in 1982.  Claremont and Miller were at the top of their abilities when they collaborated on the story—supposedly during a car trip after a comics convention.  The first issue features an opening scene made for one of those panoramic helicopter shots where Wolverine is tracking down a wild bear in the Canadian Rockies.  Ok, if you want to punch that up, make it a Wendigo for the movie—we haven’t seen one of those before.  Logan flies off to Japan in search of his lady friend, Mariko, who it turns out is the daughter of a Japanese Yakuza crime-lord, Shingen.  Shingen gives Logan a bushwacking with a samurai sword, and cast out into Tokyo like a bum.

If that’s not enough action, here’s how issue two starts off…

An arms of ninjas chasing Logan across the rooftops of Tokyo.  Tons of arrows embedded all over Wolverine’s body, but he keeps fighting and slashing.  Zack Snyder, are you interested in filming this?

There’s one problem with making this as a movie: you’ve got to try and make the action scenes more realistic.  The sword fight between Shingen and Wolverine has to be painful for Logan.  Yes, Logan has a healing factor, but he should feel a frackin’ load of pain when a sword pierces his belly or shoulder.  And he doesn’t heal in nanoseconds.  When Liev Schreiber dumps a truckload full of giant logs on top of Logan in the movie, it should have taken Logan at least a few minutes to recover.  Wolverine’s so freakin’ invulnerable in X-Men Origins, he’s almost like Superman.

I predict that if Fox were to adapt this story, more or less as a faithful adaption, they would make twice the profit of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Hire a well known Asian actor for Shingen.  Get Asian (or Asian-American) actresses to play Yukio (Maggie Q would be a good choice, although not of Japanese ancestry) and Mariko, actually shoot part of the production in an Asian country, and you’ve got a big international mega-hit on your hands.

Second choice for a Wolverine adaption?  I’m tempted to say Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s Enemy of the State.  But that’s too frackin’ big.  And Fox wouldn’t have the rights to all the other superhero characters in the story.

I think a good second choice would be Jason Aaron and Ron Garney’s Get Mystique story.  Wolverine takes a helluva lot of punishment in this story.  Imagine if you got Rebecca Romijn back as Mystique.  Do the flashback scenes in the old west and put her in one of the western-madam costumes.  Have Hugh Jackman chase Romijn throughout the middle east in the present day, sniffing out her various disguises.  That’s highly cinematic and after seeing Romijn outwit all kinds of men in Brian DePalma’s Femme Fatale, this is a slam dunk.   

Fox executives, you’ve got plenty of options for good Wolverine stories.  Pick one of them and run with it.  Don’t feel the need to throw in random mutants—have confidence, you own the rights to one of the most popular characters in the history of comics!  Nuff said.

Adam Kubert kind of silently migrated back over to Marvel Comics (while his brother Andy is staying put at DC Comics).  I am glad he is back, because we are getting some great covers.  Like this one from Wolverine #73…

I like the design of this cover, with the perspective of Wolverine shot from below the motorcycle.  The speed lines are drawing your attention into Wolverine’s figure.

The color version really pops when you notice those sparkle-reflections from Wolvy’s claws as he hurtles toward this prey. 

This cover gave me an idea.  Wouldn’t Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert produce a kick-ass comic if they worked together?  Nuff said.