in 1974 marvels then editor-in-chief Roy
Thomas sat down with writer Len Wein and
talked about introducing a new Canadian
comic book character Thomas wanted it to
be named after a fierce northern
creature so it was between two options
Wolverine or badger Thomas explains
quote I finally decided badger had the
connotation of mere heckling or nagging
while Wolverine virtually had the word
wolf in it the character now dubbed
Wolverine made his first appearance in
the very last page of Incredible Hulk
number 180 with his first full
appearance being in the subsequent issue
181 his famous adamantium claws were
originally just a part of his gloves not
his skeleton and he was supposed to be a
fairly young kid but you wouldn't know
that his early appearances because his
mask was always on oh yeah and he was
also supposed to be a literal Wolverine
so that's weird
we've got one more real-world origin of
an x-man today for nerdsync mutant
mayhem and it's about one of Marvel's
most popular characters Wolverine if you
miss the other two videos about
Nightcrawler and storm I recommend
checking those out first to get some
more context but let's get right into it
when Marvel relaunched the x-men in the
70s with a new international team of
mutants Wolverine was among the roster
in giant-size x-men number one the new
team is assembled and Wolverine gets a
much needed design change from his
appearances an Incredible Hulk can you
spot it yes Wolverine was given his big
pointy cowl that we all know and love
and the movies go great lengths to avoid
this was actually done by a mistake
Wolverines cowl was supposed to look
like this and that's exactly how the
artist of giant-size x-men Dave Cockrum
originally drew it inside the issue but
the cover artist Gil Kane had either
accidentally or perhaps purposefully
drew it wrong creating the distinctive
mask that Wolverine has had ever since
Cockrum loved this design so he went
through the comic that was already drawn
up and inked over Wolverine every single
panel with those bold black wingy things
to match Kane's design Dave Cockrum if
you recall head at this point recently
and did his work in DC Comics to work
for Marvel where he was given the job of
creating this new x-men team and while
at DC Cockrum had pitched a new series
called The Outsiders which would have
been a spin-off of the Legion of
super-heroes but DC never took him up on
that idea interestingly Cockrum created
a second rival team that would face off
against the outsiders they're reportedly
going to be called either the
devastators or the strangers here's a
picture of them you see this little guy
right here his name is Wolverine and yes
he predates this Wolverine when it
Marvel Cockrum said that he specifically
pitched this Wolverine character to Roy
Thomas to be on the new x-men team that
they were assembling but Thomas just
basically ignored him so when Thomas sat
down with Len Wein about creating a new
character named Wolverine yeah Cockrum
was quote kind of miffed about the whole
thing further explained that he never
liked the now official Wolverine for a
long time because of this whole ordeal
but Cockrum got the chance to recycle
his own Wolverine character for the
first time in uncanny
x-men number 107 with an alien named Fey
probably not coincidentally Fang and
Wolverine fought one-on-one in that
issue in an off panel battle
Wolverine emerges victorious Heaven
taking fangs costume after the fight the
metaphor here is just it's so good you
might think that Cockrum is designed for
a Wolverine character was too feral and
beastial but it was nothing compared to
one idea for the mutant he was almost
going to be a mutated Wolverine like an
actual Wolverine experimented on by a
character called the High Evolutionary
who is known for making mutated animal
creatures to become a superhero you can
see how this started to play out in the
comics and x-men number 98 when the team
is captured and one technician who
scanned Wolverine remarked quote I don't
know sir is this Wolverine a mutant his
readings are nothing like the others end
quote
now the person who for some reason gets
the blame occasionally for this idea is
Len Wein but he vigorously defends that
that is quote wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong and oh yeah wrong thinking it
could be wrong guys he says the three
possible culprits are Dave Cockrum Chris
Claremont and John Byrne but whoever it
was thank God it never happened to
Wolverine anyway it still did happen but
to a different character spider-woman
we're not gonna go into a ton of detail
here because this honestly could be its
own video one that I'm sure Aurum would
want to host but Spider Woman was solely
created because Marvel was scrambling to
get the trademark on her name so when
they found themselves needing an origin
story and fast they took the idea from
Wolverines proposed origin of the High
Evolutionary mutating an animal to
create a superhero but just replaced
Wolverine with spider and in Marvel
spotlight number 32 Spider Woman made
her big debut hey that kind of rhymed
totally unintentional it was just me
saying it out loud for the first time
and since Spider Woman did that origin
first the team working on x-man had to
think of something else
so because of that because of Spider
Woman and Marvel's greedy trademark
practices Wolverine never became a
literal Wolverine he's just a regular
old Canadian murder machine what do you
think about all this would you like to
see the mutated Wolverine angle play
a little bit how about Dave Cockrum
original take on the Wolverine character
let's talk about it all in the comments
we're doing a whole week of x-men videos
here at nerdsync if you missed the last
two on Nightcrawler and storm we have
them right here and in the description
below click right here to learn the real
origin behind storm and how she was an
amalgamation of five distinct comic book
characters or you can click right here
to learn about how Nightcrawler was
almost a DC character my name is Scott
reminding you to read between the panels
and grow smarter through comics see ya