Wolverine
Character » Wolverine appears in 16062 issues.
A long-lived mutant with the rage of a beast and the soul of a Samurai, James "Logan" Howlett's once mysterious past is filled with blood, war, and betrayal. Possessing an accelerated healing factor, keenly enhanced senses, and bone claws in each hand (along with his skeleton) that are coated in adamantium; Wolverine is, without question, the ultimate weapon.
Off My Mind: Are Characters Cooler With or Without a Mysterious Past?
I like to use Wolverine as an example in the knowing/not knowing the past argument. These days, I know a lot of people are tired of his multiple appearances everywhere. Once upon a time, he was actually a really cool character (I still think he's kind of cool). We had this tough and deadly little mutant who didn't know anything about his past. We would slowly find things out like about his past as a "samurai" or I remember when he was talking to Puck about the Spanish Civil War (or some other war from a while ago). The fact that he had a mysterious past and had lived for so long added to the appeal of his character.
After Wolverine: Origin we found out a lot about his past and at the end of House Of M, he remembered everything. Did this reveal make him less cool?
== TEASER ==
I find that I don't care as much about Wolverine as I used to. We also now know Red Hulk's secret as well. I actually haven't heard any feedback from readers. As I mentioned, people complained about not knowing who he was. Are those readers happy now that they know? Was the reveal to their satisfaction? Personally I was happy with the way things turned out but part of me liked it a little better not knowing. Maybe I'm just patient and could've waited a little loner to enjoy the mystery.
Playing the guessing game can be fun. As long as it's clear that there is a an answer to the mystery. Once it's out, the character is on a new path. You can't go back (unless a writer does some comic book trickery or retcons the past). I think not knowing almost makes you feel like you're part of the comic book universe. The "civilians" see masked superheroes all the time and have no idea who they could be. It's not often that we get characters that we can look at that way. I think Red Hulk is a good example that today's readers simply want the answers as soon as possible. It was decades before we got Wolverine's full story and (as you can see above), Red Hulk's secret didn't even last two years.
I don't think we need to know everything at once. Let's just sit back and enjoy the stories. There's no need to skip to the end. I think people just need a little Patience.
So should the answer be revealed of a hero or villains past. Be answered in a year or so, or maybe as long as Wolverines origin?
I think it depends on the character. I didn't mind knowing Wolverine's past, that whole thing could've only been played for so long, eventually I wouldn't even care and the mystery behind it would've been irrelevant anyways. Red Hulk....was depressing, did not like who he was revealed to be and frankly I found myself not caring to begin with.
But characters like the Joker, full on anarchy. I don't mind not knowing much about his past. It makes his maniacal attitude far superior.
The answer's only necessary when it's good. They didn't have a good story for Wolverine and Sentry, just to name a few, so they shouldn't have told us anything until they did.
P.S. Paul Jenkins shouldn't be writing origins.
Characters are much cooler without us knowing every single thing about them. I agree Wolverine was a much better character before he knew everything. Now? Just another Mutie.
From a readers perspective I find the different takes by multiple writers over the decades to be more interesting when little is known about the characters past. The Joker has had so many origins that I have lost count. Many of them have been interesting but even the worst has been better than seeing Peter Parkers origin retold for the one zillionth time.
When a mini series is released telling us the beginning of a character I am at once excited about it and also unhappy. This knowing how he/she began as a hero/villian gives a realism to the character but also eliminates further story opportunities down the line. The story can also be told so poorly or drawn so badly that I would rather not have the story told at all.
I never needed to know who the RULK was. Knowing didnt really add to the story in any way. The definitive origin of Deadshot from several years ago didnt really add anything to that character either and I am really not looking forward to the secret origin of the Taskmaster either. Every character doesnt need their story told. Its the mystery itself that sells the character to the public.
I think when a character has a secret past it's cool, but I would have to agree that one has to know that the characters story will be revealed eventually. What I don't like about origin stories is that everything seems to be revealed really quickly, so you have to wait for the origin for years and then everything is revealed within a couple issues as if the writers are bored with story now.
And Wolverine remembered everything? Not remembering stuff was what he based on pretty much! (Hulk is the only marvel comic I read)
It depends on the character, umm I'll use Emma Frost as an example we didnt know much about her past from before she decided to join the Hellfire club, what her motivations were, or really anything at all about the time before that. When her mini series came out about her family, time in school/college, and what she went through it made her so much more interesting. I really felt sorry for her and it added a whole other side to her character we hadn't really seen before! Some characters don't really need that though... Unless it is written really well, but then again I am always interested in findinh out what drives characters.
A character's past and mystery is like a book. You keep reading a book because it's a good story, but eventually you want the book to end (for the most part). But once the book is over, you should feel some sort of accomplishment and satisfaction from the enjoyment of experiencing the story.
As long as the continued story brings up more questions that aren't convoluted we should keep reading.
Yes, some characters should remain mysterious because it is part of essence of the character.
Wolverine is one, Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe is another. We can get teases of their past, we can get glimpses because those only build the mystery, but ultimately we don't want to know everything. Part of Wolverine's driving angst was that he didn't even know his past and it created limitless story potential. Once Marvel opened the box, they limited the stories. Eventually, Wolverine will be able to resolve his past issues and get closure. That's horrible! And boring!
Larry Hama was brilliant about handling Snake Eyes' origins back in the '80s. He fed you crumbs--lots of crumbs, admittedly--but the delivery built a puzzle that still lacked a few crucial pieces. Once enough of the puzzle was finished, though, Snake Eyes lost his mystery feel. His amazing feats and combat prowess didn't seem so amazing or supernatural, they seemed... human.
The other character who should always, always be a mystery is the Joker. Yes, there have been some solid Joker origin stories told over the years, but the fact that they're all different and contradictory helps build the mystery. No one handled this better than Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, when the Joker told different people different reasons for his scarred face. That was so incredibly gratifying because it was true to the essence of the character, the truth that Batman knows: the Joker is not a man, he's a force of nature.
I think they killed Wolverine when they gave him a past. I agree with Chris Claremont, Logan was created to be mysterious. Not to be given some weak story about how his came about. I like the explanation in my Stan Lee far better than any origin tale. " He came over in 1492 and got lost." There is more to think about. There is more to dream about. Now that Wolverine's past is told that luster about him is gone.
i like the James Howlett wolverine origin angle (however, i like the James Hudson / Jimmy Howlett Junior angle in ultimate X more). i think that for a hero to know why he does what he does, he should know who he is and where he is from. origins stick better when you have that deep seeded unforgettable 'thing' that makes them go out there and do it.
I liked Wolverine even after his past was reaveled and he remembered everything. But if the only good thing about a character is the fact that we don't know anything about them or their past, then that's not a good character and it's not worth buying a comic about them. I agree some characters should keep their past a mystery but some shouldn't. Basically as long as it isn't Dragged out and badly written. I'm pefectly fine with it.
I think characters are super cool with mysterious pasts especially wolverine. And yes i think he is less cool now ha ha. I think though it got to the point that the writers and readers wanted something new. And Wolverine knowing his past is something new to him. It was the same thing for years, its good to change it up sometimes. People hate change, and i think thats a big thing with comic fans. But the way I look at it is, we had 70 years of the same stuff, its good to change it up once in awhile.
I like when a character has some mystery and prefer when characters like the joker dont have such a definite origin. Besides little glimpses and hints to the characters overall past leaves more fun for the reader who can try to solve the mystery before it is revealed at a later time. But I don't believe the entire origin should be revealed all at once either.
I dunno...The Joker has always been cool, and there is very little known about him 'cept that he was a two-bit gimmick crook known as The Red Hood...but even that seems like a retro-fit from the late '40's-early '50's. While The Killing Joke is brilliant - it spoils the character a little. A liitle TMI. I think I like not knowing everything about a character.
I loved Wolverine Origin book, wished they would do more of it because I believe there are a ton of stories there. Red Hulk, not so much, just read some of it and it just seems bad and way too campy. The whole thing with him being someone we have known for a while, didn't really help the "mystery" or anything because it was everyone's first guess when they said "no it isn't". Just kind of stupid and bad writing and planning by Loeb.
I say it depends on the character. Take Batman and Joker for example. Batman has a strong origin that is important to his character, it actually helps us understand why he choose to be a hero and why a bat-theme. If we didn't know something would be missing and he wouldn't be that cool Batman we all enjoy.
On the other hand the Joker has no definite origin. He has many different takes and none of them can be the real origin. This is sort of fun. He is the character that people like the try to figure out, he is an interesting puzzle. This adds more to his insanity/super-sanity and puts a new layer onto his character.
I think it's the character that determines if a known past is better than the mystery of an unknown origin. Some can pull off a good origin while others are meant to remain unknown.
I think a mysterious past can help a character have depth, but I don't think it's enough to carry a character who isn't worth it
I liked Rogue alot better before the all this "Anna Marie" crap surfaced. I preferred her as Mystique's foster daughter still running from the demons in her past.
They needed to do Wolverines orgin. With everything they put in it What did we really find out that we didn't know? He's a Hudson, big deal. It's the other stuff that can be dealt with in so many ways. So many mini-series showing him Japan, WW1, WW2, Weapon X spy etc, etc, etc. He's so damn old I think it would have been even better if they made him even older. So much more to play with. With the popularity of Wolverine and his enemies you can go back with and do a mini-series his long living enemies as well. Sabertooth, Omega Red, Romulus. The Red Hulk was driven on who he is, and I still want to know where his mustache goes when he turns into the Hulk. The Joker NEEDS to be mysterious tho. You find out his history and you find out the man. I love the synapse of having a bad day changing him from "Killing Joke" The books is a classic, arguably the best batman story ever, at least the best one shot, and every time someone writes a possible background story it seems watered down and just weak. I think everyone looks at Killing Joke as Jokers orgin.
I think a mysterious character works only if there are other elements to the character that are worth caring about. Wolverine may have been more interesting when his past was a mystery, but he's still an interesting character now that we know his back story. The loyalty he has to his friends, his berserker tendencies, and his "eye for an eye" brand of justice are all things that made him interesting back in the day as well as they do right now. I could do without 100 appearances by the guy, but he's still a unique character.
In the case of Wolverine, I think since the mystery lasted so long the character became a favorite, so when that huge change happened then the 'cool' stayed...
It needs to be a looong mystery for the character to stay cool after that mystery is solved.
a mysterious past does make a character interesting, but at the same time there are many other characterisitcs that make a character interesting, like weaknesses and relationships with people. to be honest though it does seem that some writers could use the fact that a character doesnt have a past to make things easier for themselves whiel writing and just make things up as they go along
it depends on the writting. everybody and their grandmother knows Batmans story and hes still the essence of cool in comics.
what doesnt make a character cool is over saturation. too much exposure i think lessens the characters appeal. Wolverine for example is in everything ,movies, cartoons, comics, books, 7-11 cups, video games, clothes. after about 30years of next to nothing. i know, so is batman, but wolverine has changed in the way hes portrayed. hes a leader?? since when?
only recently did he get an origin story and they havent stopped dissecting this character. to me, hes lost his cool, mysterious or not.
I thnk it all depends on the character.
Wolverine for example needed to be mysterious but after so many years, we readers demanded the origin, which was not bad. Now having his origin we need to see how it affected the character. The writers have to get focused with the change or the character can have a great origin but nothing left after that.
The Joker is a character that is ok without an origin, he was meant to not have one and not need one. He has so many origins told that I think I should stack them together under Joker's Origins and see how many I can find in my collection.
As for Rulk, if you look at the story it was there, it was planned so the story was driving to that point anyway. This is one of the origin stories that are defined by the current arc or story and are going to be as good as the story can be.
What do you guys think of the Ultimate Origins series?
it depends on the writting. mystery doesnt always make someoen 'cool'. a great character is interesting no matter his background.
everybody and their grandmother knows Batmans story and hes still the essence of cool in comics.
what doesnt make a character cool is oversaturation. too much exposure i think lessens the characters appeal. Wolverine for example is in everything ,movies, cartoons, comics, books, 7-11 cups, video games, clothes. after about 30years of next to nothing. i know, so is batman, but batman has been the same dark man he always was. wolverine has changed in the way hes portrayed. he isnt the same lone wolf, hes more accessable to kids which is a reflection of his popularity. hes 'sold out' in a way.
only recently did he get an origin story and they havent stopped dissecting this character.
to me, hes lost his cool, mysterious or not.
They're cooler up to a point, then they can become really annoying and you just want them to get on with it.
I preferred not knowing Wolverine's origins, although I thought the story was good it just didn't add anything to his character. Rulk was different, we knew from the beginning that he was tied to the Hulk and that needed an explanation. More generally, not having a defined origin allows writers to all add their own little piece to the mystery of a character and if there's contradictions, all the better to stir up debate among fans over what's really true.
For a mysterious past to work properly you need an interesting character that deserves it, Wolverine earn that and everything else he got from the MU, while characters like Rulk and Hitman Monkey are brought into the MU as a mystery and shoved in our face before we were given a chance to decide whether or not we like the characters.
The only thing I didn't like about Wolverine's "Origin," was that it was heralded as somehow negating "Weapon X." I think the two work fine together. Origin tells his earliest history, and Weapon X tells how he got the adamantium skeleton.
My favorite example of mystery origins though is in Savage Dragon. We didn't know for 10 years (+/-) what his origin was, and now that we do, I'm only more intrigued. All along, Dragon would basically say, "I don't know my history, so I'm looking to the future. No biggie," and that was frankly enough for me. When it was revealed though, it answered a lot of questions, and hinted at so many stories to come, if you know the series. I'm very interested to see what happens there.
Didn't follow Red Hulk, but they had to reveal who he was sooner or later. If they went too long, readers might start to assume that he was another of Bruce's colorful personalities, somehow manifested separate from green Hulk.
As for Joker, I've always preferred the Red Hood origin, but I didn't really want to know who the Red Hood was. Knowing his origin (or the one he remembers this time) didn't lessen the Joker for me. What did that was when they made him just a homicidal maniac. The Joker was originally a criminal genius - crazy as a loon, but a genius. He knew chemistry and all sorts of other stuff, and now, he's just crazy. Blah.
How much have they revealed about Mystique? I haven't followed her very closely, but they originally hinted that her and Nightcrawler might be related. I don't really know what they've said since then, but I hope they don't say too much. Otherwise, her name becomes a misnomer.
I have to say that Origin (the limited series) made me care about Wolverine in a way I haven't in years. Yes, part of the fun was the mysteriousness, but at the same time it made him very unrelatable: an issue which Origin addressed.
There is something very, very special about mystery and a mysterious character. Honestly it's one of my favorite tropes, as I hold equal interest and fear in the unknown. There are some characters whose sheer mysteriousness makes them notable to me (the Watcher, the Mad Monk). Then there are guys who started out myserious, like Wolverine, but as time went on more and more was revealed. One could claim rightfully so, since they had already given so much away.
Then there's Red Hulk, who was complete bullshit and just a quick cash grab. It didn't matter "who it really was" because the character was poorly written in the first place, and his existence was entirely driven by the monetary gain OF the eventual reveal.
yes keep characters pasts mysterious and keep characters love lives justtttt out of reach. when everything is explained and honky dorey, it starts to get sloppy and boring.
I like wolverine now that he know about himself, and the guys lived so long its not like WE know everything he's been through. I like wolverine back in the day when he was just trying to remember but I think that was getting played out, i mean the best tributes of great characters is if they can survive Great changes and I feel wolverine is a good example of this. Though i still dont like that fact that he is in almost every marvel comic...I think thats whats killing him more than having an origion.
With. Simple as that. When they take away the mystery, it's usually with a crappy origin story that'll be rewritten several times.
I think characters are cooler when you don't know their past. That is how it works with every character in my opinion. It does not make them any less of a character but having a bit of mystery about you will always make you seem more interesting.
Gambit is mysterious to me and always has been i know he likes rogue but has the connection to mister sinister. that's part of the reason why i like him.
same thing with sabertooth he always hated wolverine and still mysterious to me because of the fact that he always trying to kill wolverine.
some characters should stay mysterious because its what's make them interesting and some should not.
I don't think we should put Wolverine, Joker, and Hulk in the same blender. Wolverine was around for years before we found out who he was. I personally like it. We now know that he's some old guy who life screwed him up, and is more reliable because of it. It makes his whole relationship with other characters more organic because we know he's not faking it. And we got Daken out of it. All is well.
Joker is suppose to be unrelatable. Sure, we all have our own theories, but that's all they are. I don't want to know who he is because then he would just be another guy. But without it, he's the Joker.
And then there's Rulk, who is such a Sue that he makes fanon characters look realistic. Knowing he's, you know, has actually made me rethink the character...kinda...Rulk is still dumb.
I would have to say that characters are much cooler with mysterious past. But we live in a society of "need to knowers" and can be bothered by "secrets". But once the secret is out than the character is no longer a big deal. For instance Wolverine and The Rulk.
I think the difference betweeb red HULK and Wolverine is we did have some idea who Wolverine was. We didn't know much about his past but we knew he was Logan and that even hee didn't know much else.
With RULK we were offered this character who was just pure mystery and nothing else.
Couple that with the fact he's possibly the laziest creation in all of comic history and that'll annoy fan's.
I can't speak for anyone else but the eventual reveal of RULK and SHE RULK's identities I think it sucks.
Marvel's character's have long had the best supporting casts in comics and recently some feckin' eejit has decided it'd be a great idea to make the mall super.
That sucks.
It depends upon the writing: are the writer(s) any good at characterization, are the writer(s) good at keeping that aura of mystery for that specific character in contrast to the other cast of characters no matter how prominent or brief their role may be in the story, and how effective are the writer(s) in baiting the reader with tid-bits of information here and there through the life of the mysterious character.
Daken was advertised as the new mysterious character when he first graced the pages of Wolverine Origins, and depending on how ya felt, you either didn't like how his character was handled or were okay with it, although in Dark Wolverine, Dark Avengers, and New Avengers other writers were able to interpret Daken's persona and give it growth.
Fantomex is another mysterious character that the readership still doesn't know next to jack beyond his basic background and some details here and there that have been revealed. Unlike Daken its true that Marvel has been sparingly using Fantomex (although that may change).
If handled right, I like the occasional mysterious character, but would a story be considered boring/watered down if all the characters in a comic had mysterious pasts?
I think it's cool when a character has a mysterious past. A character like Wolverine went how long before anyone actually knew where he came from and I'm pretty sure no readers died over it, if they did I'm sorry. I just think that today people want everything right away and when they don't get it, they piss and moan until they do. More characters need to come out where very little is known about their past and bits and pieces are slowly revealed over time. It took what 2 years for the identity of the Red-Hulk to be disclosed? That's not nearly long enough to keep dedicated readers hooked on the aura that the character had brought to the table. I guess it's just easier to get the origins crap out of the way than it is to let readers ponder it a while and come up with all kinds of crazy theories. I think the whole mysterious past thing is being wasted on readers that want instant satisfaction rather than actually sticking to what they are reading and seeing it through to wherever it may go. It's a shame that more characters can't come out and have this mysteriousness about them without it being ruined a few issues later. Let the drama build for a while so when the actual information is divulged...it is that much sweeter.
Please Log In to post.
This edit will also create new pages on Comic Vine for:
Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.Comment and Save
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Comic Vine users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.
Log in to comment