He is, dare we say it, the best there is at what he does. As it turns out, “what he does” is sell comics, merchandise, and movie tickets. Wolverine debuted 50 years ago with a brief first appearance on the last page of Incredible Hulk #180 (October 1974), followed by his first full issue and cover appearance on the cover of Incredible Hulk #181 (November 1974).
As guided by writer Len Wein and artist Herb Trimpe, the character would in the years to come surprise many by becoming arguably the company’s most popular character not created, co-created or at least revived by Stan Lee. With his mutant healing ability and and razor-sharp adamantium claws, he was a mysterious Canadian operative who could go up against the Hulk and survive.
Wein next placed Wolverine in the pages of Giant Size X-Men #1, which was anything but a sure-fire hit in the conceptual stages. After decades of cartoons, video games, and several films, it may be difficult to understand just how “iffy” a proposition it was.
The X-Men had always been a second tier title at best for Marvel. In fact, despite some great stories, vibrant characters, and a line up of creators that included artists Barry Windsor-Smith and Neal Adams, the title had been suspended with the March 1970 issue The X-Men #66 and revived only as bimonthly reprints with The X-Men #67 for the December 1970 cover-dated issue.
In Giant Size X-Men #1, Wein was paired with artist Dave Cockrum. Under a cover by Gil Kane and Cockrum, Wolverine was introduced along with fellow new X-Men Banshee, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Thunderbird and Sunfire, as well as hold-over Cyclops.
Other than Cyclops, only Banshee (first appeared in The X-Men #28) and Sunfire (The X-Men #64) had ever seen the light of day before, so it wasn’t exactly a mutant version of The Avengers. There was no obvious star power being combined.
As it turned out, it didn’t matter. The new team was a hit and would soon leave the old team and indeed much of the Marvel line in the wake of its sales.
X-Men #94 (dropping the “The” from the title) was the first regular size issue featuring the new team. Despite Cockrum’s obvious visual affinity for Nightcrawler and storylines that leaned heavily on Colossus, in short order Wolverine caught on in a serious way with the fans and began to emerge as a major force under writer Chris Claremont.
Claremont has reportedly contributed ideas to Wein’s scripts for Giant Size X-Men #1, X-Men #94 and #95, but he began writing the team in earnest with X-Men #96.
As the story of the team moved forward, he began peeling back the layers of Wolverine’s character, revealing him to be far more compelling than simply being the short, angry, tough guy he was on the surface.
Claremont never gave readers too much at once, but instead kept them coming back issue after issue for further tidbits of the character’s background or personality. By the time John Byrne joined the creative team in 1977 as artist on X-Men #108, the Wolverine emergence was accelerating.
Over the next few years, that pattern continued as Wolverine walked the line between hero and antihero. By the time 1982 arrived, there was no question who the most popular X-Man was.
At the time, though, miniseries, one-shots or special format comics were in their infancy, so it wasn’t a fait accompli that a Wolverine miniseries would be given the greenlight, even with Claremont and artist Frank Miller driving it.
“As I recall, Chris came up with the idea and got Frank interested. Frank was really taking off then,” said former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter. “Probably, they cooked it up together in a ‘freewheeling’ session on a sugar high after a few too many root beers, which is the way such things often got done. Chris – or possibly the two of them – pitched it, probably first to the editor, who pitched it to me. Let’s see... Claremont, Miller, X-Man Wolverine... what’s not to do? I had the good sense to say yes. My main contribution was writing the new project memo to inform the upstairs and circulation department people that I was adding it to the schedule.”
Shooter said that before the launch of the Wolverine four-issue miniseries, they didn’t have much concern of diluting the franchise by spinning off the character. Given the number of Wolverine titles on the market today, it’s probably safe to say they were right.
“At that point, we were on a roll, and at that point, the market was hungry for product. Hard to imagine that now. That’s why independents were popping up in bunches, which I felt was good for us. The stronger and more diverse the market, the more opportunity for all. And the indies served as farm teams, sort of, developing droves of new talent. Anyway, I felt confident back then that anything we did that had merit would succeed, and at that point, there were no overexposure issues for the X-Men characters,” he said.
As far as the miniseries went, when did Marvel know they had a hit on their hands?
“My earliest indication was when I took a look at the first issue in progress,” Shooter said. “I suppose the first official, non-subjective indication was the Direct Market’s order for #1, which was phenomenal.”
In addition to continuing with a major role in The Uncanny X-Men (as the series had been retitled in 1981), Wolverine’s popularity propelled the character into many guest star spots.
In 1988, he became the lead feature in Marvel’s first weekly comic, Marvel Comics Presents, and he gained his first ongoing solo title as well. Wolverine Vol. 2 ran 189 issue from 1988 to June 2003 and Wolverine Vol. 3 started the next month and ran through 2009.
In 1992, Wolverine was among the X-Men featured with Fox TV began airing The X-Men on Saturday mornings. The animated series lasted five seasons.
In 2000, the first of the feature films debuted, with Hugh Jackman starring as Wolverine in X-Men, X2: X-Men United (2003), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).
In 2001, Marvel delved into Wolverine’s early life in the miniseries Wolverine: Origin, establishing that he was born as James Howlett, the second son of John and Elizabeth Howlett in 19th century Alberta.
After the brutal murder of his family by Thomas and Dog Logan, James and his one-time love, Rose, went into exile in the Canadian wilderness. Adopting the name Logan, Howlett was later taken for a secret government project called Weapon X, where his bones were surgically laced with adamantium.
He appeared in the ongoing series, Wolverine: Origins, and Jackman returned to the live-action role for the solo films, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013).
Following Cyclops’ orders, Wolverine reformed X-Force with X-23, Wolfsbane, and Warpath in the “Messiah Complex” storyline. Then he opened the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning with Kitty Pryde acting as co-headmistress and Hank McCoy as the vice principal. Several mutants who were on Utopia moved to the school in Westchester, New York.
The Avengers vs. X-Men series caused serious conflict when the Phoenix Force returned to Earth, possessed Cyclops, and forced him to kill Professor X. Despite wanting to kill Cyclops for what he did, Wolverine joined Captain America’s Avengers Unity Squad to improve relations between the two teams.
Wolverine lost his healing factor due to a virus in “Death of Wolverine,” and learned that Weapon X program founder Dr. Cornelius put a bounty on him. He confronted the doctor and was covered in adamantium, then died from suffocation. Kitty Pryde phased Logan’s body out of the adamantium shell, and the X-Men set up a public grave for the shell and put his body in a hidden grave. He was resurrected by Persephone in the Return of Wolverine miniseries.
Jackman reprised Wolverine for a starring role in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) and he played an older version of the character in the more dramatic, Logan (2017).
In the “Hellfire Gala” storyline across X-Men titles, Wolverine attempted to bond with his children, Laura and Daken. When the actual party commenced, Wolverine and Domino fought Deadpool, who crashed the event.
The X Lives of Wolverine and X Deaths of Wolverine took Wolverine through time to save a figure important to mutants. He relived moments from his past, which included witnessing the birth of Charles Xavier when he saved Professor X’s family from Omega Red.
His most recent exploits were played out on the big screen when Jackman matched wits (and fists) with Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool & Wolverine.
