Wolverine
Logan
Wolverine is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly associated with the X-Men.
Born James Howlett and commonly known as Logan, Wolverine is a mutant who possesses animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, and powerful regenerative ability known as a healing factor. He has been depicted variously as a member of the X-Men, Alpha Flight, and the Avengers.
The character first appeared in the last panel of The Incredible Hulk #180, with his first full appearance in #181 (cover-dated Nov. 1974). He was created by writer Len Wein and Marvel art director John Romita, Sr., who designed the character, and was first drawn for publication by Herb Trimpe. Wolverine then joined a revamped version of the superhero team the X-Men, where eventually writer Chris Claremont and artist-writer John Byrne would play significant roles in the character's development. ArtistFrank Miller collaborated with Claremont and helped to revise the character with a four-part eponymous limited series from September to December 1982 in which Wolverine's catchphrase, "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn't very nice", debuted.
Wolverine is typical of the many tough antiheroes that emerged in American popular culture after the Vietnam War; his willingness to use deadly force and his brooding nature became standard characteristics for comic book antiheroes by the end of the 1980s.As a result, the character became a fan favorite of the increasingly popular X-Men franchise, and has been featured in his own solo comic since 1988.
He has appeared in most X-Men adaptations, including animated television series, video games, and the live-action 20th Century Fox X-Men film series, in which he is portrayed by Hugh Jackman in eight of the nine films. Troye Sivan plays Wolverine as a child in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The character is highly rated in many comics best-of lists. For example, Wolverine was ranked #1 in Wizard magazine's 2008 Top 200 Comic Book Characters; 4th in Empire's 2008 Greatest Comic Characters; #21 on Fandomania.com's list of Greatest Fictional Characters; 4th on IGN's 2011 Top 100 Comic Book Heroes; 5th on IGN's Top 50 Avengers in 2012; and #41 in Comics Alliance's 50 Sexiest Male Characters in Comics in 2013.
Publication history
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| Wolverine without the mask |
Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas asked writer Len Wein to devise a character specifically named Wolverine, who is Canadian and of small stature and with a wolverine's fierce temper. John Romita, Sr. designed the first Wolverine costume, and believes he introduced the retractable claws, saying, "When I make a design, I want it to be practical and functional. I thought, 'If a man has claws like that, how does he scratch his nose or tie his shoelaces?'"[12] Wolverine first appeared in the final "teaser" panel of The Incredible Hulk #180 (cover-datedOctober 1974) written by Wein and penciled by Herb Trimpe. The character then appeared in a number of advertisements in various Marvel Comics publications before making his first major appearance in The Incredible Hulk #181 (November 1974) again by the Wein–Trimpe team. In 2009, Trimpe said he "distinctly remembers" Romita's sketch and that, "The way I see it, [Romita and writer Len Wein] sewed the monster together and I shocked it to life!... It was just one of those secondary or tertiary characters, actually, that we were using in that particular book with no particular notion of it going anywhere. We did characters in The [Incredible] Hulk all the time that were in [particular] issues and that was the end of them." Though often credited as co-creator, Trimpe adamantly denies having had any role in Wolverine's creation.
The character's introduction was ambiguous, revealing little beyond his being a superhuman agent of the Canadian government. In these appearances, he does not retract his claws, although Wein stated they had always been envisioned as retractable.[citation needed] He appears briefly in the finale to this story in The Incredible Hulk #182.
Wolverine's next appearance was in 1975's Giant-Size X-Men #1, written by Wein and penciled by Dave Cockrum, in which Wolverine is recruited for a new squad. Gil Kane illustrated the cover artwork but incorrectly drew Wolverine's mask with larger headpieces. Dave Cockrum liked Kane's accidental alteration (believing it to be similar to Batman's mask) and incorporated it into his own artwork for the actual story.Cockrum was also the first artist to draw Wolverine without his mask, and the distinctive hairstyle became a trademark of the character.
Fictional character biography
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| Wolverine depicted using his claws for the first time in Origin #2 Art by Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove |
Wolverine was born James Howlett in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, during the late 1880s, purportedly to rich farm owners John and Elizabeth Howlett though he is actually the illegitimate son of the Howletts' groundskeeper, Thomas Logan. After Thomas is thrown off the Howletts' property for an attempted rape perpetrated by his other son, named simply Dog, he returns to the Howlett manor and kills John Howlett. In retaliation, young James kills Thomas with bone claws that emerge from the back of his hands, as his mutation manifests. He flees with his childhood companion, Rose, and grows into manhood on a mining colony in the Yukon, adopting the name "Logan." Logan accidentally kills Rose with his claws, causing him to leave the colony and live in the wilderness among wolves until he is captured and placed in a circus. Saul Creed, brother of Victor Creed, frees Logan, but after he betrays Logan and Clara Creed toNathaniel Essex, Logan drowns Creed in Essex's potion. Logan returns to civilization, residing with the Blackfoot people. Following the death of his Blackfoot lover, Silver Fox, at the hands of Victor Creed, now known as Sabretooth, he is ushered into the Canadian military during World War I. Logan spends time in Madripoor before settling in Japan, where he marries Itsu and has a son, Daken, of whom Logan for many years is unaware.
During World War II, Logan teams up with Captain America and continues a career as a soldier of fortune. He serves with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion during D-Day, and later with the CIA before being recruited by Team X, a black ops unit.
As a member of Team X, Logan is given false memory implants. Eventually breaking free of this mental control, he joins the Canadian Defence Ministry. Logan is subsequently kidnapped by the Weapon X program, where he remains captive and experimented on, until he escapes. It is during his imprisonment by Weapon X that he has adamantium forcibly fused onto his bones. James and Heather Hudson help him recover his humanity, and Logan begins work as an intelligence operative for the Canadian government's Department H. He becomes Wolverine, one of Canada's first superheroes. In his first mission, he is dispatched to stop the destruction caused by a brawl between the Hulk and the Wendigo.
Later, Professor Charles Xavier recruits Wolverine to a new iteration of his superhero-mutant team, the X-Men. It was later revealed that Wolverine had been sent to assassinate Xavier, who wiped Logan's memories and forced him to join the X-Men.
In X-Men #25 (1993), at the culmination of the "Fatal Attractions" crossover, the supervillain Magneto forcibly removes the adamantium from Wolverine's skeleton. This massive trauma causes his healing factor to burn out and also leads to the discovery that his claws are actually bone. Wolverine leaves the X-Men for a time, embarking on a series of adventures during which his healing factor returns. Feral by nature, Wolverine's mutation process will eventually cause him to degenerate physically into a more primitive, bestial state.
After his return to the X-Men, Cable's son Genesis kidnaps Wolverine and attempts to re-bond adamantium to his skeleton. This is unsuccessful and causes Wolverine's mutation to accelerate out of control. He is temporarily changed into a semi-sentient beast-like form. Eventually, the villain Apocalypse captures Wolverine, brainwashes him into becoming the Horseman Death, and successfully re-bonds adamantium to his skeleton. Wolverine overcomes Apocalypse's programming and returns to the X-Men.
In 2005, author Brian Michael Bendis had Wolverine join the Avengers. After the miniseries House of M, Wolverine regains his memories and prepares to seek out and enact vengeance on those who wronged him. In Wolverine: Origins, the character's second solo series, Wolverine discovers that he has a son named Daken, who has been brainwashed and made a living weapon by the villain Romulus, the man behind Wolverine's own brainwashing. Wolverine then makes it his mission to rescue Daken and stop Romulus from manipulating or harming anyone again.
During the events of the "Messiah Complex" storyline, Cyclops orders Wolverine to reform X-Force. Since then, Wolverine and the team (initially consisting of X-23, Warpath, andWolfsbane) have starred in a new monthly title. The team was also featured in the "Messiah War" storyline, a sequel to "Messiah Complex". After the events of Second Coming, Cyclops ends the X-Force program, but Wolverine continues a new X-Force team in secrecy with Angel/Archangel, Psylocke, Deadpool and Fantomex.
In 2008, writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven explored a possible future for Wolverine in an eight-issue story arc entitled "Old Man Logan" that debuted with Wolverine #66. Millar, the writer for the story, said, "It's The Dark Knight Returns for Wolverine, essentially. The big, wide, show-stopping series that plays around with the most popular Marvel character of the last forty years, a dystopian vision of the Marvel Universe and a unique look at their futures. The heroes have gone, the villains have won and we're two generations away from the Marvel we know."
In X-Men #5, it is revealed that in order for Wolverine to fully infiltrate the ranks of the vampires that were attacking Utopia at the behest of Dracula's son (when Wolverine thought the vampire virus had simply bested his healing factor), Cyclops has to infect him with nanites that are capable of shutting off Wolverine's healing factor. Cyclops can activate them by merely clicking a button on a remote control device he carries with him at all times.
Avengers vs. X-Men
When the Phoenix Force returned to Earth, Wolverine sided with the Avengers and went with them to Utopia to take Hope Summers into custody (as they suspected her of being the Phoenix Force's intended host). Wolverine found this particularly difficult to do as he was forced to fight those he once thought of as family.
Cyclops arrived at the Jean Grey School in order to try and convince Wolverine to switch sides and become part of the X-Men once more. Wolverine was infuriated, saying Cyclops didn't get to decide who was and wasn't part of the X-Men and that Cyclops had betrayed everything the X-Men stood for.
After Hope's escape, Wolverine accompanies her to the Blue Area of the Moon. She promises to let Wolverine kill her if she is unable to control the Phoenix Force; her only request is that she gets the chance to control it. However, Wolverine betrays her by summoning the Avengers.The Phoenix Force begins to bond with Hope, at which point she admits that she cannot contain it. She asks Wolverine to kill her, but he is prevented from doing so by Cyclops. Eventually, the Phoenix Force possesses the X-Men present on the moon, who then return to Earth, leaving Wolverine and the Avengers injured on the Blue Area of the Moon.
Powers and abilities
Healing and defensive powers
His primary mutant power is an accelerated healing process, typically referred to as his mutant healing factor, that regenerates damaged or destroyed tissues of his body far beyond the capabilities of an ordinary human. In addition to accelerated healing of physical traumas, Wolverine's healing factor makes him extraordinarily resistant to diseases, drugs, and toxins. However, he can still suffer the immediate effects of such substances in massive quantities; he has been shown to become intoxicated after ingesting significant amounts of alcohol, and has been incapacitated on several occasions with large amounts of powerful drugs and poisons; S.H.I.E.L.D. once managed to keep Wolverine anesthetized by constantly pumping eighty milliliters of anesthetic a minute into his system.
His healing factor is facilitated by artificial improvements he was subjected to under the Weapon X program (in later comics called the Weapon Plus program), in which his skeleton was reinforced with the virtually indestructible metal adamantium. While the adamantium in his body stops or reduces many injuries, his healing factor must also work constantly to prevent metal poisoning from killing him. As his healing powers are currently inactive, Beast has synthesized a drug to counteract the adamantium poisoning.
His healing factor also dramatically affects his aging process, allowing him to live far beyond the normal lifespan of a human. Despite being born in the late 19th century, he has the appearance, conditioning, health, and vitality of a man in his physical prime. While seemingly ageless, it is unknown exactly how greatly his healing factor extends his life expectancy.
Although his body heals, the healing factor does not suppress the pain he endures while injured. Wolverine also admits to feeling phantom pains for weeks or months after healing from his injuries. He does not enjoy being hurt and sometimes has to work himself up for situations where extreme pain is certain. Wolverine, on occasion, has deliberately injured himself or allowed himself to be injured for varying reasons, including freeing himself from capture, intimidation, strategy,or simply indulging his feral nature. Though he now has all of his memories, his healing abilities can provide increased recovery from psychological trauma by suppressing memories in which he experiences profound distress.
Depictions of the speed and extent of injury to which Wolverine can heal vary due to a broad degree of artistic license employed by various comic book writers. Originally, this was portrayed as accelerated healing of minor wounds, though Chris Claremont, head writer of the X-Men comics from the mid 1970s to the early 1990s increased Wolverine's healing factor substantially, though not nearly as later writers would. During the 1980s, Wolverine's mutant healing factor is depicted as being able to heal massive levels of trauma, though his recovery time could extend to days, weeks or months before fully healing; often depending upon the severity of the injuries, their extent and the frequency with which they're inflicted. During the 1990s through the modern era, other writers have increased Wolverine's healing factor to the point that it could fully regenerate nearly any damaged or destroyed bodily tissues within seconds. Among the more extreme depictions of Wolverine's healing factor include fully healing after being caught near the center of an atomic explosion and the total regeneration of his soft body tissue, within a matter of minutes, after having it incinerated from his skeleton. An explanation is given in a recent mini-series starring Wolverine for the increase of his healing powers. In the series, Wolverine is referred to as an "adaptive self-healer" after undergoing numerous traumatic injuries to test the efficiency of his healing factor. Wolverine has endured so much trauma, and so frequently, that his healing factor has adapted, becoming faster and more efficient to cope with increasing levels of trauma. The Xavier Protocols, a series of profiles created by Xavier that lists the strengths and weaknesses of the X-Men, states that Wolverine's healing factor is increased to "incredible levels" and theorizes that the only way to stop him is to decapitate him and remove his head from the vicinity of his body.
Skills and personality
During his time in Japan and other countries, Wolverine becomes a master of virtually all forms of martial arts and is experienced in virtually every fighting style on Earth. He is proficient with most weaponry, including firearms, though he is partial to bladed weapons. He has demonstrated sufficient skills to defeat the likes of Shang-Chi and Captain America in single combat. He also has a wide knowledge of the body and pressure points. He is also an accomplished pilot and highly skilled in the field of espionage and covert operations.
Wolverine will sometimes lapse into a "berserker rage" while in close combat. In this state he lashes out with the intensity and aggression of an enraged animal and is even more resistant to psionic attack. Though he loathes it, he acknowledges that it has saved his life many times, it being most notably useful when he faced the telepathic 'Mister X', as X's ability to read his mind and predict his next move in a fight was useless as not even Wolverine knows what he will do next in his berserk state. Despite his apparent ease at taking lives, he mournfully regrets and does not enjoy killing or giving in to his berserker rages. Logan adheres to a firm code \of personal honor and morality.
In contrast to his brutish nature, Wolverine is extremely knowledgeable. Due to his increased lifespan, he has traveled around the world and amassed extensive knowledge of foreign languages and cultures. He is fluent in English, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Cheyenne, Spanish, Arabic, and Lakota; he also has some knowledge of French, Filipino,Thai, Vietnamese, German, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Hindi, and Persian. When Forge monitors Wolverine's vitals during a Danger Room training session, he calls Logan's physical and mental state "equivalent of an Olympic-level gymnast performing a gold medal routine while simultaneously beating four chess computers in his head."Much to Professor Xavier's disapproval, Wolverine is also a heavy drinker and smoker; his healing powers negate the long-term effects of alcohol and tobacco and allow him to indulge in prolonged binges.
Wolverine is frequently depicted as a gruff loner, often taking leave from the X-Men to deal with personal issues or problems. He is often irreverent and rebellious towards authority figures, though he is a reliable ally and capable leader. He has been a mentor and father figure to several younger women, especially Jubilee, Kitty Pryde and X-23, and has had failed romantic relationships with numerous women (most notably Mariko Yashida), as well as a mutual, but unfulfilled attraction to Jean Grey, leading to arguments with her boyfriend (and later husband), Scott Summers. He also married Viper as part of a debt,then later divorced her. It has also been implied that he and Squirrel Girl had a relationship at some point in the past. Wolverine has had an on-again, off-again romantic relationship with teammate Storm.
