The 2010s were a time of big change for Marvel. The publisher decided that the best way to drive reader interest was to replace its icons with new versions, giving readers a chance to jump into the Marvel Universe with a new starting points. To say this was a popular tactic is untrue. While we did get some cool stories and characters, we also got a lot of dross. Every big name character went away at some point between 2012 and 2020, including a hero that everyone thought was immortal: Wolverine. The ol’Canucklehead died in 2014’s Death of Wolverine, replaced by his daughter Laura, while Old Man Logan came to the past to make sure readers who only wanted Logan would have something to read.
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Wolverine is the best there is at what he does, and his fans felt his absence acutely over those years. We waited patiently for the announcement of his return, which wouldn’t come until 2018 with the release of Return of Wolverine (the majority of the series dropped in 2019 thanks to delays). You probably haven’t heard much about the book, and there’s a reason for that — it’s a legitimately terrible comic book. The clawed mutant is one of Marvel’s most popular heroes, and it’s mystifying that the publisher would put out such a mediocre return for him.
Return of Wolverine Was a Huge Mistake
To understand why Return of Wolverine is so bad, one has to go back to Death of Wolverine. That story was the most basic way to kill Wolverine ever, acting as something of a travelogue through the character’s history. It dealt with his past as a supersoldier, took him to Madripoor and Japan, and ended with him dealing with the tainted fruits of Weapon X. All of these factors have led to great Wolverine stories, but Death of Wolverine used them in the most obvious ways, resulting in a perfect fine but unspectacular comic. It was written by Charles Soule, with gorgeous art by Steve McNiven, and that was a part or the mistake.
Soule was making a name for himself at DC Comics, and Marvel was able to get him in an exclusive deal. They gave him Wolverine immediately, and he told the most serviceable story ever starring the character (in the back of Death of Wolverine #1, Wolverine co-creator Len Wein revealed that Marvel had tried to get Grant Morrison to do the book, which would have been amazing). He went on to write The Logan Legacy and Wolverines, two more stories that aren’t beloved, and would later put out Hunt for Wolverine #1, which kicked off four miniseries — Weapon Lost, Claws of a Killer, Dead Ends, and The Adamantium Agenda — with Soule writing Weapon Lost. None of these are all that good, either.
Return of Wolverine has amazing art from McNiven and Declan Shalvey, with McNiven doing the first and last issue and Shalvey doing the middle issues. McNiven channeled “Weapon X” artist Barry Windsor-Smith for his issues, and they look fantastic, while Shalvey brought his kinetic, detailed style to the rest. Return of Wolverine is the kind of book that will wow you with its art, and honestly, the best way to experience it is to thumb through the pages and marvel at the art. The story is the problem.
Soule’s script saw a mysterious evil organization called Soteira resurrecting Wolverine and using him as a weapon, taking away his memories and trying to fool him into helping them create an army of the dead controlled by the mutant powers of Persephone, Soteira’s leader. It used common Wolverine tropes to tell its story, but it used them in the most boring obvious ways ever. The only new thing the book brought were the “hot claws”. Basically, Wolverine could superheat his claws, putting him into a berserker rage and taking away his healing factor. This was mystifying addition to the character, since his claws already could cut through anything.
Return of Wolverine ignores all of the clues about that Marvel had built up about the character’s fate between 2014 and 2018 to have him resurrected in the worst way imaginable. This is one of the publisher’s most popular characters, and it feels like they barely even cared about giving readers a good story, depending on his fans buying the book out of rote. The story was maligned right away, and every writer who’s written the character in the years since has ignored everything about it; only Wolverine and the Infinite Watch used the hot claws, and by the time he was appearing in Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 5), the events of the story were completely memory holed.
Wolverine Fans Deserved Better
Seemingly immortal heroes die all the time, and readers have seen Wolverine’s death more than once over his 50 year existence. However, Marvel sold his death and return as major events, and neither of them are talked about at all. I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason they killed him was because the publisher was about to marginalize the X-Men, replacing them with the Inhumans in the Marvel Universe (which was also maligned and helmed by Soule as well), and didn’t want them to have their most popular character, one of the most popular superheroes, because that would make the books sell better, dooming the Inhumans push.
As a Wolverine superfan, I’ve always felt insulted by Return of Wolverine. He’s one of the most beloved heroes ever, and his return should have been amazing. It should have had the best creators Marvel could get (Soule has gotten way better, but he’s a better Star Wars writer than superhero writer). Instead, we got a book that misused everything about the character fans have loved over the decades. The publisher milked the situation, making it seem important, and ended up giving us something that no one liked, even back then.
All of the greatest superheroes have died. The deaths of characters like Superman, Captain America, Spider-Man, and more all are beloved tales capped off by wonderful returns. Wolverine is at that level of those heroes, and yet it honestly seems like Marvel couldn’t be bothered to give fans something worthwhile. It was a huge missed opportunity. His return could have been something amazing, but instead, we got a story that made no one happy.
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