Wolverine first appeared as a third wheel in a battle between Hulk and Wendigo in The Incredible Hulk #181, with his next appearance cementing his future as one of the most popular superheroes ever. As a member of the X-Men, Wolverine became the star of what was the hottest book in comics. He was the first of a new breed of anti-heroes and he excited fans with his more violent methods and mouthy demeanor. He was a loner with a heart of gold and a mysterious past, which became a huge part of his appeal. Sure, Wolverine had some amazing fights and his relationships with his fellow heroes were unique, but it was the slow drip feed of origin that kept readers coming back for a long time.
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Origin Was the Culmination of Years of Stories
Throughout the ’80s, the mystery of Wolverine was one of the most important in comics. It was the one thing that every fan of the character wanted and it was one thing that Marvel was never going to give them. It wouldn’t be until 1989’s Wolverine (Vol. 2) #10 that we’d get a major glimpse, learning about Sabretooth killing Silver Fox on Logan’s birthday, and that would open up the floodgates. Over the next few years, we’d learn about Logan fighting alongside Cap in World War II, the truth about the Weapon X Project, and his time with Team X in the Cold War. It would take the loss of his adamantium to shift focus away from his origin, something that would play out for the rest of the ’90s.
Quesada said immediately that his job was to take the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Wolverine and make them superstars again that fans wanted to read about. He did this by getting Grant Morrison and Joe Casey for the X-Men, giving The Amazing Spider-Man to J. Michael Straczynski and launching Ultimate Spider-Man, and Origin. Quesada would work on the story, something he did a lot back then, and draw the covers, with Paul Jenkins of Inhumansand The Sentry fame writing the script. Legendary X-Men artist Andy Kubert was on pencils, with Richard Isanove on colors, giving the book’s art a painterly finish that took the imagery to a new level. The book sold just as well as you could imagine.
The six-issue series revealed that Logan began his life as James Howlett, a sickly scion of a wealthy Canadian family. He spent his days with his nursemaid Rose and Dog, the son of groundskeeper Thomas Logan. His mother had numerous mental issues, his grandfather constantly bullied his father, and the groundskeeper drank too much and was too familiar with Mrs. Howlett. This all led to Thomas deciding to kill James and his father, with he and his son taking Rose and Elizabeth Howlett. James’s powers manifested the night they decided to attack, leading to him killing Logan and injuring Dog in a berserker rage. He and Rose ran off at his grandfather’s urging, the two of them joining a logging camp, James falling in love with her while she fell in love with someone else. Eventually, Dog is sent by the grandfather to find them, leading to another berserker rage, the death of Rose, and James running off into the woods in a feral state.
For years, one got the impression that Marvel was afraid of giving Logan a concrete origin and there was definitely something to that. Logan’s mysterious past kept fans coming back and they didn’t want to jeopardize that; in fact, the publisher even introduced a way to do away with anything revealed, establishing that Weapon X used memories implants to control the minds of their subjects. You could basically say that anything that was revealed from his past was an implant, meaning the mystery could go on indefinitely.
Origin was an example of Marvel going against their more cynical interests to give readers a story that they had been asking for, which is always a great thing. However, in the years since Origin came out, it feels like the critics of revealing Logan’s origin were right. Origin was a massive success saleswise, but Wolverine fans were kind of cold on the story. They didn’t hate it, but as far as it went, they didn’t overly praise it. What made the whole thing even more weird is that Marvel basically did nothing with the story until several years later, with Wolverine: The End tying into Origin. A few years after that, we’d get Origin II, which was about Sabretooth, and Wolverine: Origins, a book that would play off Origin on a surface level – Quesada/Isanove covers and similar logo and font – to tell the story of Wolverine and Romulus’s long relationship, and we’re getting a third volume in the months to come. However, ask yourself – how many really great stories have really spun out of Origin?
Marvel revealed Logan’s origin, but had no plans to take advantage of it. It was basically a Hail Mary pass for no reason other than to give Quesada an early success. It’s one of those books that is extremely important to Marvel history, but has very little esteem with fans. Wolverine has some amazing stories, but Origin never really earned its place. It was a book made to be an event and the fact that it didn’t really matter in the long run shows that it was a mistake. It ended up not meaning very much to the character’s history overall and hasn’t really ever led to some great stories. It’s just there and we’re living in the world it created.
Origin Did What Everyone Feared
If you went back in time and told Marvel that Origin would be a massive hit that doesn’t matter in the slightest to the character, they probably wouldn’t be all that surprised and wold certainly still do it. Marvel brass had been resisting revealing his origin for years, afraid that it would hurt the character to know his past. While they were wrong to an extent – he’s still one of the most popular characters in comics – it also hasn’t really helped the character. Look at something like “Weapon X”. That story revealed a major part of Logan’s history and has led to numerous amazing stories dealing with the ideas it brought up.
Now, point to all of the great Wolverine stories that used ideas from Origin. Wolverine: The End is great but no one ever really talks about it but me. Wolverine: Origins played off its success and then went right back to the Weapon X era and beyond, skipping his childhood. Dog Logan returned in Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine and Wolverine and the X-Men, was a cool villain for a short time, and then went away again. We got to see Elizabeth Howlett last year, in a lackluster Mastermind story that was so boring I don’t even feel like saying anything about it (it did have excellent fight scenes, but as a story it’s as blah as the rest of the current Wolvie run). That’s pretty much the extent of its impact. It didn’t surprise readers and it didn’t really lead anywhere interesting. It’s just a part of Wolverine history, one that we’re stuck with until someone does something that makes all of its ideas worthwhile.
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