Hero Profile: Wolverine

Make fun of the yellow suit, I dare you.

Number 75, whoop! That’s enough celebrating, onto the facts. Wolverine is one of the most popular comic book superheroes of all time. For most of his publication history his history was shrouded in mystery. We knew that he served in WWII alongside Captain America and the Howling Commandos. We knew that sometime after that he had the nearly indestructible adamantium alloy bonded to his skeleton. We knew that at some point his memories were tampered with, leaving him with a very severe case of amnesia. We also know that his mutant healing powers made even guessing at his real age…problematic. But, in 2001, the secret history of the furious little Canuck was finally revealed.

Logan aka Wolverine was born James Howlett, the only son of a wealthy landowning family. Young Wolverine was an incredibly frail boy, prone to illness and was physically weak. In his mid-teens, his father John was murdered by the Howlett’s disgruntled former Groundskeeper Thomas Logan. It’s insinuated here and later acknowledged that James was the illegitimate son of Thomas Logan and Elizabeth Howlett. Thomas was in fact planning, in a drunken stupor most likely, to take Elizabeth with him when he and his psychotic son Dog left. John was obviously unhappy with this idea and tried to stop it before the previously mentioned murder. Coming across the scene, James was thrown into his first ever berserker’s rage, which caused his mutant powers to manifest. His claws erupted from his knuckles and he instinctively used them to put six extra holes in Thomas’ chest, and also scars Dog’s face. Thomas Logan was not a good dad, if that wasn’t clear. Horrified by the carnage, Elizabeth banishes her son and shortly thereafter kills herself.

A little father/son time. Isn't it grand?

James and his childhood lady friend, Rose (who looks suspiciously like Jean Grey) spend the next several years in a mining town, with James taking up his Logan alias for the first time. James’ Grandpa, wishing to see his only family again, asks Dog to track him down. Dog agrees, but secretly plans to murder his half-brother instead. Apparently he was still holding a grudge for the family killing and scarring. Logan's have a problem letting things go, who knew? Dog tracks them down, and he and James throw down. Dog Logan is no lightweight, but the time in the mine plus his developing mutant power gives James the edge. After thoroughly trouncing Dog, Logan draws his claws to finish him off. Rose rushed to stop him, and is accidently impaled on James’ claws. James runs into the wilderness, leaving Rose’s corpse and the unconscious Dog.

He spent the next few decades intermingling with Canada’s wildlife and native peoples. He then spent a little time as…well, a slave in a traveling circus, but is freed by Saul Creed, older brother of his eventual nemesis Victor Creed, aka Sabertooth. A string of misunderstandings eventually lead to Logan killing Saul via drowning. So…Sabertooth might be a little justified in his hatred of Wolverine. He serves in WWI, lives in Japan for a while and unknowingly sires his insane son Daken. He returned to Europe to serve in WWII, meeting Captain America and the Commandoes.

To say, "there will be blood," is perhaps the understatement
of the year.

Impressed by his actions in WWII, the CIA recruit him to be part of their black ops unit Team X. Wolverine can’t seem to stay away from that letter. He doesn’t take it well when he discovered that Team X command was implanting false memories into his noodle. He escaped for a bit, before being kidnapped and experimented on to becoming the tenth experiment in the Weapon Plus program, making him Weapon X. Seriously can’t stay away from that letter. They bond Adamantium to his skeleton, and further screw up his noodle.

He escapes, and joins Department H. Think Canada’s version of SHIELD. He is Canada’s first real superhero and is asked to go up against some pretty crazy stuff, like getting between an angry Hulk and equally angry Wendigo. Logan grows disillusioned with Department H work, quits, and is later recruited by Xavier for a new X-men team. Since then, Wolverine has proven to be an unpredictable but fiercely loyal member of the X-men. He formed a strong but mostly friendly rivalry with Cyclops, a parent-child bond with X-man Jubilee, and is on generally good terms with most frequent X-men. Oh, and he’s also gotten into a kind of love triangle, formed between himself, Cyclops and Jean Grey. And he started seeing fellow X-man Storm after her marriage ended and Jean died. Logan’s a glutton for punishment. Despite a few problems here and there, it seems like the lone wolf finally found a place to call home.

Generally on good terms, unless Jean is involved.
Men do stupid, stupid things to try to impress women.

Wolverine’s most important power is his mutant healing factor. He is basically immune to disease, toxins, and drugs, unless they are specifically tailored to combat his healing factor. He’s recovered from just about every injury imaginable. Muscle tears, puncture wounds, lost organs, broken bones (pre Adamantium skeleton), massive blood loss, and even being reduced to a skeleton, he’s come back from all of it. The healing factor is also what’s kept him from not aging much past…I don’t know, 35? He’s still at his physical peak despite being over a hundred and fifty. He also has heightened senses, akin to a wolf or mountain lion. He can see in the dimmest light, smell with the accuracy of a bloodhound, and hear things at incredibly long distances. He once claimed to be able to “smell” the invisible lasers of a security system. Damn, that is a strong nose. He also has three extendable claws in either hand. Having been dipped in Adamantium, they are basically six mini-swords that he can use to slice through anything.

Wolverine is the most famous of all the X-men, arguably more well-known than even Charles Xavier. Okay, maybe not to that level, but he’s probably the number 2 on the list. He’s appeared in just about every X-men or Avengers related thing since his creation.

I'll just give myself a disabling gunshot wound,
lie down and you three can move along.

You want to see classic Wolverine, the lone wolf that just kind of works with the rest of the team? Then check out X-men: The Animated Series of the 90s. He works okay with the team, though as far as I can tell when Cyclops’ plans its “Storm go there, Beast go there, and watch out for Wolverine. He’s doing his own thing." Which is probably the best plan one can make when Wolverine is involved.

A different spin on the character appears in X-men: Evolution. In this version, Wolverine, Storm and Xavier are the teachers in the Xavier institute, training young Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Spyke and other young mutants. Wolverine is a stern taskmaster and seems to be in charge of combat training. He appears mostly in an orange version of his classic yellow costume. The rivalry between he and Cyclops is turned into a sort of Master and Apprentice style bond. They might disagree on tactics or what a good leader does, but Cyclops respects Wolverine and his advice and Wolverine grows to trust the younger X-man over the course of the series. Shadowcat also takes Jubilee’s place as the young girl that Wolverine forms a fatherly bond with. He softens as the series progresses and eventually adopts a costume more like the rest of the team.

He’s the leader of the present day X-men in Wolverine and the X-men. This is mostly due to Cyclops battling depression after Jean’s death before the start of the series. He reforms the X-men a year after an explosion kills Jean and grievously wounds Xavier. Xavier, as it turns out, is comotose for several years and awakens in the Days of Future Past Sentinel controlled timeline. He's able to communicate to present day Wolverine via his telepathy and own unconscious body. The two agree to do everything they can to fix the future, and to try to ensure it doesn't come to pass, respectively. Xavier gives a little sagely advice from across space and time, but it’s mostly up to Wolverine to pick up the slack. We’re asking quite a lot from the guy who doesn’t work well with others… Just saying.

Movies may be inconsistent, but Jackman always kicks butt.

He appeared in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes final season. It’s a little odd, in his episode “New Avenges” the main Avenger’s team is incapacitated by Kang the Conqueror. Spider-man, Iron Fist and Luke Cage are all recruited while on the job in downtown New York. Apparently, Wolverine was also in the area in his full costume. No reason is really given as to how or why he is there, or why he's running around downtown New York in his yellow suit, but he does take out a dozen time displaced raptors in his first five minutes, which is cool.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance I and II, he’s in it, he’s awesome, play it.

He was a support character in Spider-man: Web of Shadows and is one of a number of heroes and villains that are forcibly bonded to Venom’s spawn. When Wolverine becomes Venom-Wolverine he roars, “Finally! I’m the BIGGEST guy in the room!” Apparently he has a little bit of a complex about being only 5’3”. Who knew? The fight is intense, and the overall game is pretty decent to. Check it out if you’re bored.

Wolverine's kind-of-daughter Jubilee and
kind-of-daughter Laura. Do I need to say
how dead you'll be if you cross either?

Wolverine is portrayed in every X-men movie by Hugh Jackman. While the overall quality of the movies seemed to drop a little from number 1 to 3, Jackman’s performance stayed stellar throughout. And while his solo movie X-men Origins: Wolverine sucked, A lot, Jackman was great. Apparently he did intensive training to get the "right body” for the movie. So if you want to turn your brain off and watch Jackman slice things, give it a watch. Ignore everything else. He cameoed in X-men: First Class and was a central character for both past and future X-men in Days of Future Past. Jackman is great, and it makes me sad that odds are we’ll soon see the last of him as Wolverine, but until then I shall enjoy him slashing baddies to pieces.

Wolverine is awesome. He’s a man of few words and big actions. He’s had a hard life, and while that does color his view of the world he does try to make up for any and all damage he’s caused over the ages. He’s the guy that you want at your back, and not one that you’d ever want to cross. Despite his habit of robbing the cradle (It’s more like he’s robbing the maternity ward at this point) he’s a real good guy. Cross him, you die. Cross Captain America, you die. Cross someone he cares about, you die. Look at him funny, he’ll make you wet your pants. He’s Wolverine, the best there is at what he does, and despite his recent ending in The Death of Wolverine storyline, we’ll probably be seeing him again real soon. That was a longy, sorry. One does not skimp on a Wolverine story, if they want it to not be awful. Wait until I get to Captain America, that'll probably be two separate posts. Next time, the start of my next theme week. Wait patiently until then.

 http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/wolverine-vs-captian-america-1538697/
 http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/marvel-comics/images/10236072/title/wolverine-photo
 http://www.wallpaperup.com/133073/Wolverine_Marvel_superhero_f.html
 http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/cyclops-wolverine-vs-batman-deathstroke-1601749/
 http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/deathstroke-vs-captain-america-deadpool-and-wolver-1504167/
 http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/hugh-jackman/images/3013401/title/origins-wolverine-photo
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