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Cover to Origin # 1 - Art by Joe Quesada & Richard Isanove
It’s a good time to be living the geek lifestyle. I can sleep soundly with the knowledge that, as soon as one nerdgasm reaches its climax, there something else around the corner to get the blood pumping again. Yesterday, I saw Watchmen for the first time, and though I’m going to see it again tomorrow, I’ve already set my sights on X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which opens May 1st.
See, I’m a sucker for all things X, and Wolverine was the first character that resonated with me as a child. One of the first comics I picked up was a reprint of Uncanny X-Men # 133, a middle chapter of the extraordinary Dark Phoenix Saga. The team had been captured with the exception of Wolverine, and he had to fight, sneak, and claw his way through the entire Hellfire Club in an attempt to rescue them. For some reason, this issue has stuck with me (surely aided by the legendary creative team of writer Chris Claremont, penciler John Byrne, and inker Terry Austin), as one of the best interpretations and uses of the character. And though he’s been widely overused since his emergence in 1974 (a cameo in The Incredible Hulk # 180, the first full appearance in # 181), I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Wolvie. People grow up, tastes change, but you always remember your first.
From a trailer standpoint, it looks like the filmmakers of X-Men Origins: Wolverine are taking a liberal approach in regards to the storyline and the comic continuity, peppering in popular characters such as Gambit and Emma Frost that have yet to make an appearance in the franchise, but have had little to no interaction with Wolverine before he joined the X-Men. However, some of the more accurate (in relation to the comics) scenes tend to lean towards Logan’s childhood. There was always an air of mystery surrounding Wolverine, a past that not even he could decipher, blocked out by repeated memory implants. And while this enigmatic backstory added to the character’s popularity early on, it soon wore out the patience of his audience, myself included. However, with publication beginning in November 2001, Marvel finally decided to tell the origin of Wolverine…or at least the beginning of it with Origin, a six-issue mini-series detailing Logan’s formative years.
Written by Paul Jenkins (with assists from Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada and former Marvel president Bill Jemas), and illustrated by Adam Kubert and Richard Isanove, Origin tells the story of a young Logan (real name revealed to be James Howlett) and details the manifestation of his bone claws, mutant healing factor, relationship with Sabretooth (though not expressly stated), and his somewhat unhealthy obsession with spunky redheads. It gave a new spin on Wolverine’s motivations and basic character makeup, giving a sense of finality to his mysterious history. Marvel is re-releasing a trade collecting the entire story later this month, and stores and online distributors may still have copies of the previously released hardcover for sale.
Though the movie will differ somewhat from his original adventures (they inevitably do), X-Men Origins: Wolverine seems intent to deliver the childhood of Wolverine using the best possible source material around for a comic adaptation…the comics themselves.
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