I want new ones.
What do you want them to say?
Wolverine.
[METAL CLANG]
Some questions in life were never
meant to be answered or even asked.
As Wolverine grew in popularity, some of us
felt a familiar tinge of worry.
We knew what would come next.
The unraveling of a mystery that was never
intended to be answered.
But why do we do this to ourselves over and over again?
Why did we have to give Wolverine an origin story?
We finally got a good thing going here.
Don't you screw this up.
There is an archetype in media that
has really just become a snake eating its own tail:
the dragon.
A shadowy figure appears, doesn't say much,
looks amazingly cool, and then sends
the plot in wild directions.
We, as people, love them.
Without knowing the circumstances that brought them
to the exact moment of our introduction,
they become a blank slate for us to project ourselves onto.
Wolverine first appeared briefly in The Incredible Hulk #180
with his full issue in the following 181.
The characters introduction was twofold.
One, to give the Incredible Hulk an antagonist that could stand
toe to toe with the green Goliath.
And two, to appeal to Canadian comic book readers.
I'm Canadian.
Then editor Roy Thomas had originally
asked Len Wein to make a character that Canadians
could possibly relate to.
If it didn't work out, no harm as the original idea
was never for Wolverine to become one of Marvel's most
iconic characters.
But he quickly became so.
After his brief appearance in The Incredible Hulk,
fans couldn't get enough.
Next appearing in Giant-Sized X-Men,
Wolverine then hopped from book to book
until appearing in his own limited miniseries
by icons Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.
It's mostly in line with the ninja obsession of the time,
using the setting of Japan to give hints of a back story.
And that mystery is exactly what enticed readers to follow along
with the character.
It's a level of engagement that works perfectly
for the monthly serial format.
Wolverine's popularity only increased throughout the 90s.
Featured heavily in Jim Lee's X-Men
and the X-Men Animated Series, we spent decades of content
to let the character remain a mystery.
Then, the live action X-Men movie came out in 2000.
Give me a chance.
I may be able to help you find some answers.
With Wolverine serving alongside Rogue as audience surrogates,
both characters were new to the X-Men
and served as reasoning for exposition,
who the mutants were, why they lived
in the mansion, et cetera.
While comics initially encouraged mystery
to keep us engaged and pump long term sales,
films often treat mysteries as something to be resolved.
It's an inevitable event to draw in ticket sales
and with Joe Quesada then serving as editor in chief,
he was adamant Marvel comics not be beaten to the punch.
Quesada rushed to put the creative team together
in order to get the book out as quickly as possible.
While most characters' origin unfolds organically
within their series, Marvel was steadfast
on hyping up the mini as an event, something
to be celebrated and paid attention to.
Written by Paul Jenkins with art from Andy Kubert and Richard
Isanove, Origin was a six issue miniseries
released in 2001 and 2002.
It told the story of James Howlett, a sickly young boy who
would eventually mutate into the powerhouse Wolverine.
It is exactly what the character did not need.
We're told Howlett was the rich son of Canadian plantation
owners.
And look, when you've been told a character is over a century
old, it's safe to assume a lot of their origin
is steeped in our world's horrific past.
It's another thing entirely when a million dollar company
and its creative team drop you into the time period
and refuse to acknowledge it.
Erase his memory.
I think he heard you.
Until Origin, the breadcrumbs we received about Wolverine
involved his being forced or tricked
into participating in the Weapon X program.
At least, that's what we're led to believe.
But in Origin, the mutation saves James' life.
And that was not the character we had been led to believe in.
It was not someone to aspire to be.
But that series was infinitely better
than what the ridiculously titled X-Men Origins: Wolverine
would be.
The title itself is a threat to deliver more of these movies
and we should consider ourselves lucky that we did not.
Origins was released in 2009.
The movie attempts to combine several different comic book
runs into one film, Origin, Barry Windsor-Smith's Weapon
X, and the aforementioned Wolverine limited series.
While attempting to cram over 300 pages of comics
into 120 minute runtime, they also
try to shoehorn in fan favorite character Deadpool, played
by Ryan Reynolds.
Hey!
Just cleaning up the timeline.
[GUNSHOTS]
The fact is it just doesn't work.
There's no sort of coherence or through line
with no singular plot given enough time to track.
We see a quick montage of Logan and Sabretooth,
here half brothers, battling in wars throughout history
before being recruited by Stryker into the Weapon X
program, and then more montages and slow mo
walking away from explosions.
It is genuinely exhausting, mostly
because the series it pulls from were
spread over three decades with no intent on interconnectivity.
David Benioff has often said his initial script was
much more violent and dark, a story he
intended to be a hard R, riddled with violence and gore.
The movie instead works as a hodgepodge
of events from the books loosely strewn together.
And honestly, a lot of the material
the movie pulled from either didn't work
or was rushed in order to not be outdone by a different medium.
It's a sound business move, but a terrible way
to craft a story of a beloved and celebrated character.
Origins are not exactly what we want from our dragon archetype
Boba Fett was first introduced in the Star Wars animated
Christmas special.
People responded so positively that he appeared briefly
in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi
before being eaten by a giant sandworm.
But small cameos weren't enough.
We were not content enough to let him
live in our heads and hearts.
And just like with Wolverine, the corporations
were more than happy to take our money.
Next time, don't touch my buttons.
Wolverine works because he is a searcher.
Searchers are always finding a way
to come to grips with who they are and why.
If we're giving concrete answers,
the character finds peace and their journey ends,
which is great for the fictional character,
but necessitates constant reboots or memory loss in order
to give them new stories.
Released in 2017 and directed by James Mangold,
Logan was a chance to set right where
they felt like they came up short in 2013's The Wolverine.
Instead of rehashing a loose origin or story
from the main character's past, Logan focused on his death.
While still loosely based on the comic,
Logan felt more like a reward for our hard guesswork
and time.
Logan was a story about the results of the dragon's past.
This idea works because there are no contradictions or plot
holes, no tangled webs of continuity or fan theories
to navigate.
It is quite simply what brought us to Wolverine
in the first place, someone who is the best at what they do
being the best at what they do.
[WOLVERINE SHOUTING]
Origins, the movie or comic, was never
going to work the name itself is antithetical for what
Wolverine as a character means to so many people.
Part of his character is his enigma,
his absence of an origin.
When that mystery, that allure, is stripped
it's akin to pulling the adamantium from his skeleton.
One of the most essential supports of his being
is now gone.
As more and more media is produced every year
we will always have characters like Wolverine,
the man with no name, or Boba Fett, more dragons to show up
when we need them the most.
But it's important for us to not mirror them.
Sometimes when we're given a mystery,
maybe we should relish the idea of uncertainty in the unknown.
Otherwise, we'll become the snake
destined to eat our own tail in our search for answers.
So what do you think?
Do you need the answers either origin gave?
Did they live up to the ideas you
had formed with your friends on the playground?
Let us in the comments below.
And as always, thank you for subscribing to Nerdstalgic.
[MUSIC PLAYING]