History Of The Nerd Pt 1: Wolverine’s Real Origins

The long and torturous wait is long over. We have arrived at the distant oasis and we will drink deep and long. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is finally in theaters. We now can find out if Fox Studios actually did anything different to improve the movie millions downloaded, watched, and were dissatisfied by weeks ago. My guess is no, they didn’t. I had set my heart to “disappointment” a long time ago when Marvel published the Origins miniseries back in 2001. It’s not that I thought it sucked or anything, I just believed Logan’s mysterious past was too important to the character and was one of the key factors for why the he was “cool”. Oh, and I also thought it sucked. So instead of dwelling on the disappointments of the present we will look to the possibilities of the past – the unused, but original intended origins of Wolverine.

The origin of the actual character started when Marvel’s then editor-in-chief, Roy Thomas, took Len Wein out to lunch sometime in 1974. As they were enjoying their afternoon meal Thomas asked Wein to create a Canadian character named Wolverine. He specified that the character must be short because Wolverines are small, but ferocious. It was almost as if they wanted to create a character that would be initially repulsive. This was a superhero that would be short, hairy, prone to fits of rage, and had a weather beaten face created in a time of seven foot tall, corn-fed, chiseled-jawed, handsome man-boys like Superman and Cyclops.

After this conversation Len Wein worked with John Romita, Sr., who designed the furry kanuck’s original look. Len’s original idea for Wolverine’s claws was that they were mechanical and retracted into his gloves. They didn’t pop out of his fist in his first appearance in Incredible Hulk #180 and #181 and adamantium wasn’t even on the table yet. If this wasn’t shocking enough he might have had not even been a mutant or even human.

Someone had the idea that Wolverine was not a human at all, but an evolved wolverine cub created by the High Evolutionary. This is the origin that I want to see in a movie, I just don’t think anyone else does. In an article titled “10 Essential Facts About ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ written by Mat McDaniel, he stated the following as his #2 fact:

“Co-creator Len Wein’s original idea was that the character was actually a wolverine cub that was mutated into human form. He also intended for Wolverine’s signature claws to extend from his gloves, not from his body. But these ideas were dropped when new writer Chris Claremont took over the series.”

Len Wein vehemently denied this statement and pretty much blamed everyone else in his personal blog, Weinwords got his by publishing this rebuttal:

“Let me respond to this as emphatically as I possibly can.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! And…oh, yeah…WRONG!

Well, at least, in part.

While I readily admit that my original idea was for Wolvie’s claws to extend from the backs of his gloves (I figured that since Adamantium is indestructible, telescoping claws no more than a molecule thick could fit into those casings in the backs of Adamantium gloves, which had then been covered in cloth. Dave and Chris definitely improved on that idea), I absolutely DID NOT ever intend to make Logan a mutated wolverine. I write stories about human beings, not evolved animals (with apologies for any story I may have written that involved the High Evolutionary). The mutated wolverine thing came about long after I was no longer involved with the book. I’m not certain if the idea was first suggested by Chris Claremont, the late much-missed Dave Cockrum, or John Byrne when he came aboard as artist, but it most certainly DID NOT start with me.

Just setting the record straight here. As far as I’m concerned, that idea is spinach, and I say to Hell with it.”

I really was with Len on this one until he brought up spinach. Spinach is healthy, delicious, and makes you strong to the finish. I just don’t know what is his problem is with a little green on his plate.

Moving on…

The idea that wolverine was an evolved animal may have actually been Dave Cockrum’s after all. In an interview of the reprint of Wolverine’s debut titled Incredible Hulk and Wolverine he said that he thought about having the High Evolutionary play a critical role in making Wolverine human. He even did the following sketch of a proto-Wolverine.

Wolverine was originally conceived to be only a “secondary” character, and traditionally “secondary” characters (especially in 1974) were used only once or twice and then discarded and forgotten about. This would have been Logan’s fate as well if it weren’t for the rebirth of the X-Men with Giant Sized X-Men #1 written by Len Wein and drawn by Dave Cockrum. The second phase of the X-Men was that they were a team of international mutants. Colossus was Russian, Nightcrawler was German, Thunderbird was Indian, Sunfire was Japanese, Storm was African, Banshee was Scottish and of course Wolverine was Canadian. The lamest (or coolest!) aspect of Logan, that of him being Canadian, might have been the major reason he was brought out of mothballs. 

An interesting note about his costume change in Giant Sized X-Men #1 was that it was all a mistake. Cover artist Gil Kane penciled Wolverine’s costume wrong. Dave Cockrum who drew the book and also inked Gil’s pencils liked the change so much that just kept drawing him that way. He thought the pointed ears looked like Batman’s cowl.

When John Byrne came onto the scene he drew a face for Logan under the mask not realizing John Romita, Sr. had already drawn a face and it had already been used by Dave Cockrum. So like every self-respecting artist, he just used it for another character, Sabertooth. Sabertooth was originally Iron Fist’s enemy, but, perhaps because of his similar powers to Wolverine, Bryne had the notion that he was Wolverine’s father. Chris Claremont and John Byrne worked together and worked out a story in which Wolverine was crushed in an accident. Logan remained a cripple after discovering that his healing factor didn’t work on bones. This would be the catalyst for him agreeing with the Canadian government experiment to replace his skeleton with adamantium. His claws, however, were not bone, but an unintended result of the experiment. This story was never used.

These unused ideas may not have been the most inventive ones, but they had the virtue of being extremely entertaining. While Fox will unleash a bland serving of Wolverine’s identity this weekend you can still have the enjoyment of looking into Hugh Jackman’s face and thinking to yourself, you evolved from a smelly, clawed, weasel. Lord knows I did.