The History Of Wolverine Pt.II

Alright before part two of my Wolverine article starts I would like to thank everyone for there kind word about part one of the Wolverine article. If you missed part one then what are you waiting for go check it out at the following link.

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/3307/




Also as much as I would love to take all the credit for it, lord knows my ego needs it. A lot of the credit also goes to that cool cat that proof-read and helped edit the article for me Knites.




And since I'm plugging how great Knites is again why not plug another fantasticly awesome article made by Knites for your viewing and reading pleasure.


Batman/Superman?
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/929/


First off odds are if you like Wolverine you like comics and if you comics you like Batman and Superman. So heres Knites article on the fantastic idea of a Batman and Superman movie.




And of course the Knites article that I can never promote enough, the one that I have said a million times before that should be read by everyone before they post there first article...

On Writing
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/2060/





Now before I get back into what you all came here for let me remind you this is a COMPLETE history of Wolverine, meaning that some of the events covered aren't necessarily retro this article goes beyond that long ago year of 1999.

Before I Kill Billed this article and split it into a two parter there was a lot of things that got cut out in the interest of making it shorter. The first thing covered in part two is one event in Wolverine's life though was one I felt bad about cutting out but now that I have split this article into a two parter its back. So lets jump into the thick of things in 1992.

1992: The death of Mariko

Every great character has one or two ladies that somewhat define the character. Superman had Lois Lane, Spider-Man had Mary-Jane and Gwen Stacy, who in my opinion was always better, Batman had Vickie Vale and Catwoman, though for Batman women always seemed like a quick passing interest perhaps to prove that he wasn't gay with Robin or something.




Wolverine has had a lot ladies over the years, more then most. The three biggies of course are Silver Fox, Jean Grey, who he forbidden territory being that she was Cyclops' wife and all but more than any other woman the one for Wolverine had always been Mariko Yashida. Mariko was the great love of Wolverine's life and someone who had been engaged to for a time, and despite all of the damage that he has taken over the years Mariko was also the only person to ever make Wolverine shed a tear when she broke off said engagement. Still though the love was always there on both sides.




While in Japan Wolverine was in the middle of a scuffle with those pesky ninjas The Hand yet again, this time though the always honorable Mariko, who's father Shingen was one of The Hands gang leaders, was caught in the middle of it while attempting the Japanese ceremony that involves cutting off her finger to right the wrongs of blood relation. Before doing this an assassin dipped the blade in blowfish toxin. By the time Wolverine finally finishes off The Hand its to late. Mariko knowing that its over for her begs Wolverine to end her suffering by stabbing her. Wolverine also knows that Mariko's life can't be saved and reluctantly does so ending any chance's of Wolverine ever settling down as a family man once and for all.




1993: Wolverine loses his adamantium

During the Fatal Attractions storyline, the biggest change for The X-Men came not so much for the team itself but for Wolverine. After being pestered by Wolverine for some 19 comic years, which would probably equal around 4-6 real years, Magneto was understandably getting quite annoyed by The X-Men's resident Canucklehead. On top of the annoyance, Magneto decided that he had enough of Wolverine after Wolverine nearly gutted him during the storyline. In a fit of rage Magneto seemed to finally realize the the adamantium laced skeleton of Wolverine was metal and thus ripped every bit of it out of Wolverine.




Professor X was enraged at Magneto's actions and mind wiped him. The X-Men then quickly rushed Wolverine home for treatment. After coming close to death, Wolverine's amazing healing factor finally overcame the trauma to his body and Wolverine recovered from his wounds. Though still pretty damn indestructible thanks to his impressive healing factor, Wolverine was now going to take a lot more damage. His formally unbreakable adamantium bones were now normal breakable human bones, and they would be broken quite a bit for the next few years. In addition to having the Adamanitum sucked out of his body, Wolverine also discovered that his claws were actually a part of his skeleton and not a side effect of The Weapon X program - a fact that rocked fans who had often debated this very issue, yup us comic fans really do seem to have nothing better to do with our time.




1996: Wolverine turns 100

As Wolverine's solo series reached issue #100, Marvel decided to celebrate. They teased that something big was going to happen to everyone's sawed off butt kicker for months. It seemed a forgone conclusion to fans that the big change would be that Wolverine would regain his adamantium skeleton after three long years without it. Cable's son, Tyler Dayspring, now going under the name Genesis, seemed to think the same way when he decided that he was the new heir of Apocalypse. As such, he decided Wolverine would be a great Horseman. He captured Wolverine and tried to both erase his memories and rebond the adamantium to his skeleton. Hey it worked once before so why wouldn't it work a second time right? Genesis even prepared for Wolverine going on a berserker rage and tearing the place up like the last time he went through the procedure and had a bunch of lackeys to help him out if such an event would happen again.




Unfortunately for Genesis, things did not go quite the way that he wanted. Wolverine's body rejected the adamantium process the second time around, and after rejecting the adamantium, Wolverine's healing factor went into overdrive in a way it never had before and mutated him further. Wolverine underwent a bizarre transformation. He was now more powerful and vicious then ever, which was a plus, but everything else about the change was nothing but puzzling, he grew fangs, his hair became even more crazy, puffs of hair sprung from his elbows, his nose disappeared, threw out his mask in favor of red and blue bandannas and his speech balloons had changed so that the words looked like they had more attitude. Sure, the speech balloons didn't really have any affect on the character but still it added to the oddness of it all. For there part in the unwanted transformation, Wolverine easily killed all of Genesis' lackeys before killing Genesis himself. Needless to say, fans were surprised but it wasn't the pleasant type of surprise. The Marvel offices were bombarded with letters from complaining fans. Consequently, gradually, over the next year, Wolverine reverted back to normal. The explanation on how be went back to normality: The healing factor. The mutant power was a convenient device for Marvel to remedy what many fans saw as a big mistake.





1999: Wolverine regains adamantium




Now, an incredible six years after losing his adamantium, a near eternity for his fans, it was finally time for Wolverine to get it back. Wolverine was kidnapped by Apocalypse who sets up a fight between Wolverine and Sabretooth. The latter had recently undergone the same process Wolverine had years earlier of having adamantium bonded to his skeleton. The winner of this fight would become the new leader of Apocalypse's Horsemen, Death. Despite the fact that winning the fight would cause him to be brainwashed again and then turned against his friends, Wolverine knew that if Sabretooth won he would enjoy being set loose as a killing machine. So, Wolverine decided to fight to win. After defeating Sabretooth, Apocalypse renamed Wolverine Death, stripped the adamantium out of Sabretooth's skeleton and bonded it to Wolverine's once more. Wolverine was right in knowing he could fight off Apocalypse's conditioning as well as he eventually fought free of it thanks to the aid of Jubilee.





2000: X-Men movie


After the Blade movie hit it big for Marvel in 1998, it was proven that movies based on there characters were indeed viable after a couple of failed attempts from other franchises of there's such as Captain America and the never released Fantastic Four from 1994. Still, Blade was about vampires, a proven box office money maker. Weather or not other super hero movies could hit it big was still unknown, epically after the abysmal 1997 Batman & Robin film. Still despite all of this Marvel finally decided it was time that its merry mutants hit the silver screen, and, after years of development and bad script after bad script, they finally landed on a good one. When it was announced that Aussie actor Hugh Jackman was taking on the part of Wolverine fan boys cried foul. Wolverine was supposed to be 5'3 and Jackman had over a foot on that. Fans were also complaining about the fact that he was Australian. Perhaps, this was because a similar event occurred in a 1980's X-Men cartoon pilot called "Pryde of The X-Men". There, Wolverine spoke with an Austrian accent when it was common knowledge that he was Canadian. However, on July 14th, 2000, all of those fears were put to rest as the movie quickly became a massive hit, much in part to the fact that Hugh Jackman did such an excellent job as Wolverine, so much so that the fans who said they would never accept him as Wolverine now changed there tune to be that no one BUT Jackman should play Wolverine. Now that Wolvie had hit the big screen, he was finally the official #2 Marvel hero behind Spider-Man in popularity despite years of fans believing it to be so.




2001: Origin

It had been 27 years since Wolverine had debuted back in 1974 and his past was still pretty much unknown. It was also 10 years since Weapon X, and, still despite that Wolverine's origin was largely unknown. In 2001 Marvel announced starting in November they would launch a six issue mini-series that would tell of Wolverine's origin once and for all. The name of that book would fittingly be "Origin".




The move was a controversial one by Marvel that seemed sure to alienate the characters massive fan base. Sure there were alot of people dying to know Wolverines origin, but there were just as many if not more who believed that after after 27 years there was nothing that Marvel could present to them in terms of Wolverine's origin that would be worthy of the character after that long of a wait and that Weapon X should be the characters true origin. There were also the fans who believed that Weapon X should be the characters origin and the few stories that showed Wolverine before that were still ok due to the characters long life-span.




Regardless, in 2001 The series would come out anyways. It begins in the late 19th century and introduces us to a young boy named James Howlett, the boy who would one day be better known as Logan, and later Wolverine. It turns out James was the son of a rich parents and suffered from several allergies. Because of his poor health, James can hardly ever leave the confines of his home without getting sick. His loving father John decided to bring an orphaned girl named Rose into his home for companionship for James and the two children regularly played with another child named Dog Logan, who was the son of The Howlett's grounds keeper Thomas Logan.




James and Dog's friendship was very often ruined however over the tension between there fathers that centered around James mother Elizabeth who went mad after their first son John died years earlier. As the years passed, Dog became violent like his father and eventually, James father expelled Thomas and his son from the manor. A disgruntled and drunk Thomas returned late one night to rob the estate and to convince Elizabeth to come with him. James hearing noises from the bedroom comes in only to see his father be shot by Thomas in front of Elizabeth and the three children. The horror of the situation causes James powers to manifest for the first time and uses his claws to kill Thomas and injure Dog, the first example of what would become Wolverine's rage. This all proves too much for Elizabeth to bear as she then grabs Thomas' shotgun and takes her own life.




After the events of that evening James grandfather drives both James and Rose from the manor. They then take a train from Alberta to British Columbia to get work at a stone quarry, where Rose and James claim to be cousins, and, to conceal his identity, James takes to calling himself Logan though James never explained why he took the name of his enemy.




Gradually Logan's powers come into full effect and his healing factor eliminated his allergies all together. Logan also becomes stronger, often going into the woods to hunt game alongside a pack of wolves, with only his claws as weapons.




Eventually, Logan starts to grow romantic feelings towards Rose who herself becomes romantically involved with the quarry foreman Smitty who eventually asks Rose to marry him, she accepts. Smitty tells her that the cage matches that the town holds are a quick way for him to get some money that they can use to leave town. His opponent happens to be Logan who, although having Smitty at his mercy, decides to throw the fight wanting nothing more then for Rose to be happy.




Before Rose and Smitty can leave however, Logan's first enemy Dog comes to the quarry looking for him, seeking vengeance for his father. Rose is killed during the ensuing fight between Dog and Logan by accidentally being impaled on Logan's claws. Dog leaves the scene never to be seen again and Logan, in grief, runs into the woods where he stays for an unknown amount of time.




2004: Joining the New Avengers




Following the events of The Avengers epic "Disassembled" storyline, Captain America and Iron Man sought to reform the Avengers. They initially offered membership to Luke Cage, Spider-Man, The Sentry, Spider-Woman and Daredevil after a large group of super villains escaped from the maximum-maximum security prison called the Raft. All the heroes but Daredevil agreed to join. On their first mission, the Avengers went to the Savage Land where they meet Wolverine who would help them there out a great deal in there mission, because of this Wolverine was offered membership in the New Avengers and, despite already being an X-Man on several different X-Teams, he decided to spread himself a little thinner yet again and accepted the offer.




2005: Wolverine Remembers

During the "House of M" storyline, there were three words spoken by The Scarlet Witch that had a huge effect on the Marvel universe "No more mutants". As if that were not enough for him another huge event happened for Wolverine at the same time that would have just as big an impact on the character as now massive loss of mutants. That event would be his total recall of his entire memory. What was wiped out was back, the memories that were still there were now proven to be real and not implanted like so many other memories that he had.




2007: The Death Of Sabretooth

Batman has The Joker, Superman has Lex Luthor, Spider-Man has The Green Goblin, The Fantastic Four have Dr. Doom. Any super hero worth anything has a villain just as awesome as they are. For Wolverine this villain has always been Sabretooth.




Sabretooth has every power that Wolverine has aside from Wolverine's Adamatium skeleton and the six one foot long claws, he does have razor sharp claws at the end of his fingers, however. Sabretooth is a mirror image of what Wolverine would be if Wolverine did not care about anyone and always gave into his feral rages: a truth that always haunts Wolverine.




So, when Sabretooth joined the X-Men, Wolverine was none to pleased. Although, it should be noted that this displeasure was not so much from the fact that Sabertooh had joined as much as the fact that this was yet another chance that The X-Men were giving Sabretooth, and the last time that Sabretooth moved into The X-Mansion as a member of The X-Men it did not work out all that well for them.




Wolverine tracked down Sabretooth in the mansion, an easy task given Wolverine's powers and since Sabretooth wasn't exactly hiding in the first place. Wolverine offered Sabretooth one last chance to leave, but Sabretooth, enjoying the comfortable life that came with being an X-Man at the mansion, laughed at the threat and flatly declined. It was then that the two engaged in what would be there final battle. During the fight, Wolverine recalls when Sabretooth had raped and killed Silver Fox, one of his old flames, and said "qoud sum eris" which Sabretooth translated as "I am what you will be."




The fight continues until both give what should be fatal blows to each other. When Wolverine wakes up, healed from his injury's, he finds himself chained up in the Blackbird, after breaking the chains he discovers that Sabretooth is piloting the jet and attacks him resuming the fight. The jet crashes and both emerge from the wreckage still fighting until they are struck by lightning, courtesy of the X-Man Storm. Later, when Sabretooth wakes up, he finds it is now he who is chained up, but this time in the royal place of The Black Panther ruled country Wakanda. To make matters worse, Sabretooth's intelligence had been regressed to no more than that of a wild animal by a mysterious being known as Romulus, who is connected to both his and Wolverine's past, though this connection isn't explained. Sabretooth easily snaps the chains that bind him and heads into the jungle. The Black Panther gives chase and both engage in a fight in which Sabretooth quickly gets the upper hand.




Sabrtooth is about to deliver the fatal blow to the Wakandan King when Wolverine shows up and slices Sabretooth's right hand off with The Muramasa Blade, a sword forged from Wolverine's own soul. The Sword is made with supernatural properties that can cuase wounds difficult for Sabretooth or Wolverine's healing factors to overcome. At first, Sabretooth resists because the terrible mutant is still under the control of Romulus, but Sabertooth breaks through this control enough to ask Wolverine to kill him, which Wolverine is all to happy to do. And, with that, Wolverine decapitates Sabertooth with the Muramasa blade. With his oldest and most deadly enemy now dead, Wolverine just looks over the body before he turns and leaves it in the snow.




Now though he has to deal with Romulus, a being he doesn't know anything about and the mutant Romulus chose as Sabretooth's successor Wildchild.





And there you have it part two of my two part history of Wolverine article. Now I would be remiss if I didn't once again thank the always awesome and super helpful yup, you guessed it, Knites.




And what better way to thank Knites yet again then to plug some more articles.

One of the definitive articles on evil doers everywhere.

The Bad Guys (and a few Gals)
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/612/






And of course....

On Writing
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/2060/





So in closing I would like to thank everyone for the time to read this and hope that you got alot of new information about Wolverine. Until my next article, have a good one...Oh and enjoy these pictures that didn't quite fit in anywhere else but wanted to include.