Wolverine has had quite a history over his 51 year existence. The ol’ Canucklehead became one of the most popular superheroes of all time, which helped make the X-Men the most popular team in the industry. Logan helped revolutionized the antihero in comics, making the concept more popular than ever, and was able to become one of the top heroes in the Marvel Universe. He gained the respect of his fellow heroes, battled some of the greatest villains of all time, and has been through some amazing battles have changed the character, keeping him fresh and vital with new ideas and status quos.
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One of the biggest changes to the character came in the ’90s, when Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton was removed. This led to a whole new era of the hero, one that saw him weaker than ever, and it led to some amazing places for the character. The bone claw years are one of Wolverine’s best eras, but they don’t get the credit they deserve because of one of the strangest decisions over made with the character: the feral mutation, that is often mocked for being the noseless Wolverine years. This period didn’t actually last all that long, and that’s because Marvel completely dropped the ball with what could have been a great idea.
Feral Wolverine Could Have Pushed the Character to New Levels
Wolverine comics in the ’90s were some of the best quality books of the decade. He was basically the equivalent of Batman nowadays — a popular character who most creators had a story for — so many of the greatest creators around gave readers Wolverine stories. Wolverine (Vol. 2) was especially good because of writer Larry Hama; the scribe had been doing an amazing job since he joined the book, and the bone claw years were the perfect reset for his run.
Wolverine (Vol. 2) #75-90 is a fantastic run of stories that built Wolverine back up after losing his adamantium. “Age of Apocalypse” would pause things and Hama dropped a bombshell on readers in issue #91: that Wolverine’s adamantium had blocked him from mutating into a more animalistic mutant and with it gone, he was doomed to becoming a beast. Hama built this idea perfectly in issues #91-99, and many readers (me, I’m many readers) expected Logan to his adamantium back in issue #100, with Cable’s son Genesis trying to put the metal back on Wolverine’s bones in order to control him. However, the opposite happened; the hero ejected the adamantium from his body to save Cannonball and became the beast he had feared.
Wolverine fighting against the animal inside was nothing new, but this development meant the animal would be ascendant. There was a physical change as well, as the hero got furrier, his face changed (he didn’t lose his nose, like many say, it just flattened out), and his claws became more jagged and dangerous looking. The character barely spoke for a short time, and was more of an animal in every way (even licking Cannonball’s wounds). It was an interesting idea that had a lot of mileage.
Hama brought in Elektra to help him learn control again, and readers were looking forward to seeing the hero rebuild himself. Instead, a few issues in, he was almost completely back to normal and started using an image inducer to look like he used to. Marvel undid the entire idea almost immediately; instead of exploring this new idea, they went back to a classic Wolverine status quo. Things were back to normal after less than a year and all of the places Hama could have taken the hero were skipped over. Hama would leave the book with issue #118.
Marvel sold fans a new era of Wolverine, but got cold feet almost immediately. It sort of makes sense; Wolverine was hugely popular and fans were coming to the comics because of X-Men: The Animated Series. Those new readers coming in and seeing a completely different Wolverine might turn them off, so the publisher pulled the plug on the whole thing. Many fans of the character were looking forward to Logan and Elektra working together, but none of that was in the cards. Marvel could have taken the hero in a new direction, but instead they bowed to adaptation (sound familiar?) and robbed readers of a new version of the character.
What do you think about Wolverine’s feral years? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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Image courtesy of Marvel Studios.
