What Happened To Wolverine?

Wolverine used to be the coolest, most badass and mysterious character this side of Boba Fett before the Prequels. But something, somewhere, went horribly wrong. Gone is the beer-drinking, stogie-chewing psychopath who read nudie magazines while all the other X-men were trying to keep a low profile in a drug store. Gone is the Wolverine who didn't take orders from a bald cripple, let alone his ass-kissing, four-eyed team leader. This guy is a pale shadow of his Former Self.

Admittedly, I'm not as much of a Marvel guy as I used to be, but I follow certain things and check up on what's going on at the former House Of Ideas just to keep the certification current on my dork credentials: Bucky has been brought back to life (in admittedly cool fashion) and is currently Captain America. Spider-man is no longer married to Mary Jane Watson. Tony Stark has become a huge dick and went "Mutant Registration Act" on the whole Marvel Universe. Some of these things are good; more often than not, like the continued kiddie-fying and pussification of our man Logan, they are very, very, bad.

Thanks to Joe "I swallowed Stan Lee's soul and shit it out in a big turd on Jack Kirby's grave" Quesada, there is a smoking ban in Marvel Comics. None of their characters are allowed to smoke (not even the Nazis!). But it started to go wrong before that. If I remember correctly, he quit the cigars when Magneto ripped out his Adamantium skeleton during one of the hologram-cover events that were so popular during the nineties. I suppose on some level I understand why they don't want their characters smoking; I assume, although I don't know for sure, that DC has a similar editorial mandate. The smoking thing is just a sign of the times.

What is not a sign of the times is the way he's been treated in the media over the last few decades.

I realized how domesticated they've made him just recently. My fantastic girlfriend has a four-year-old and she's just started introducing him to dorky staples such as Ghostbusters and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. This past weekend, she put on a DVD for him that had several episodes of Marvel's latest animated endeavor, The Superhero Squad Show. Now, I'm all for the characters of my childhood being re-worked, re-imagined and simplified (to a point) for a new generation. This is why I don't hate on new iterations of Transformers, G.I.Joe, etcetera even though it might not appeal to me.

But this Superhero Squad nonsense? It's pretty bad. It's purposely aimed toward children, and I get that. But I see a three-fingered, butterknife-clawed, super-deformed iteration of Wolverine running around alongside cutesy-fied versions of Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man and I feel, in Wolvie's case, that this is the straw that broke the camel's back.

So where did it start to go wrong?

It started right before our (my generation's) eyes with over-exposure. It began way before that, perhaps, when he was given his own monthly title, but he was still an X-man. Okay, fine. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America all have their own monthly books while still co-starring in Justice League and the Avengers, respectively.

But Wolverine is, to my knowledge, currently a member of the New Avengers, the X-men, X-Force, and still has strong ties to SHIELD. How does the furry little runt have time for all that? Then there's the numerous guest appearances and mini-series as well as several self-titled books (and yes, I'm counting his son, Daken's title, Dark Wolverine, where Logan is a recurring character).

Now, I understand why Wolverine appeals to kids. He's got fucking knives that pop out at will from the backs of his hands! How fucking cool would that be? He's a tough guy, he's mysterious.

Or at least he used to be. Thanks to recent storylines, he now remembers all of his murky, violent past. It's had the same effect on him that the Star Wars prequels had on Darth Vader and Boba Fett: nobody wants to see the cool mysterious badasses as whiny little kids. And while Origin, the story that laid out Wolverine's story from birth up until the time he lost his first love (at his own hands, er, claws, no less) and repressed the traumatic memories, was fairly entertaining and handled carefully, I feel as if taking the mystery away from the character also takes away the character's edge.

Continuing that line of thought: why did they start pairing him with increasingly annoying teenagers? Kitty "Shadowcat" Pryde was the first, of course, but that was when Wolverine was merely a member of the X-men and not the unofficial star. Then came Jubilee, the annoying, yellow-raincoat-wearing, bubble-gum popping character with the incredibly useless power of being able to annoy the shit out of her foes with harmless fireworks. Briefly he was paired with Cannonball, the former New Mutant whose ass and legs disappear into an explosion that propels him skyward.

This trend has continued into the three X-men movies, where Hugh Jackman was paired with Anna Paquin's Rogue. It continued into the X-men: Evolution cartoon where Logan was the elder on a team of de-aged X-men who were still in high school. Even in Grant Morrison's New X-men he was stuck with a foul-mouth insect-winged hispanic girl named Angel. It's almost as if Marvel wants Wolverine to be kid-friendly by pairing him with younger characters as a Point of Reference for the kiddies. And say what you want about the lackluster big screen Wolverine movie, but they had the decency to keep the young sidekicks out of it (unless you count the pretty boy Twilight reject they had playing "Gambit." I don't).

So what can be done about it? Nothing, really. I for one steer clear of most X-men fare these days, especially since things with Marvel's Merry Mutants have gotten so murky (I understand they've spent the last few months battling vampires. Really, Marvel? No wonder you don't call yourself "The House of Ideas" anymore).

I just feel it's a shame that a character who used to be the epitome of badass in comics has been toned down in so many other forms of media (let alone his own funnybooks), not to mention watered down by imitators and rip-offs, many of whom are from his own company (I'm looking at you, Wild Child, Sabretooth and X-23)!

It could be argued that Marvel is just after its own bottom line; that they are simply capitalizing on a popular character to make as much money as possible off him. But time was that Logan would black out into a Berserker Rage and kill friend and foe alike! This was a man who has killed at least three of the women he loved! He is a tragic, complicated character who was great because you didn't know a lot about him. Even he didn't know all of his own past!

When he was created and first showed up in the pages of X-men, he was a very different character. He was a loose cannon, a loner, a guy you didn't want to fuck with and were glad to have on your side. In a time when the terms "grim and gritty" and "anti-hero" weren't overused, Wolverine was revolutionary. He was fresh in that his morals and restraint weren't as rigidly structured or laid out as say, Batman or Spider-man. And alongside established, tamer characters such as that, Logan was unique.

But now he's just another cash cow for Marvel, as much a character franchise as Batman or Iron Man or any other traditional superhero, the only small difference being that he's willing to implicitly kill, but only in the comics.

So, as I lament the character's fall into mediocrity, I will leave on an uncharacteristic note of hope: director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem For a Dream, The Wrestler, The Black Swan) is currently working on a pseudo-sequel to the abysmal X-men Origins: Wolverine. Simply titled "The Wolverine," Hugh Jackman has stated he loves the script and that it's heavily influenced by the original Chris Claremont and Frank Miller Wolverine mini-series set in Japan.

A few suggestions for Mister Aronofsky: Turn up the violence, keep Joe Quesada and Avi Arad at arm's length (and off your set) and give fans like me the Wolverine we've been waiting decades to see on the big screen. Give us a Wolverine who really is the best there is at what he does, with extra emphasis on what he does not being very nice.

-Swift