Wolverine is the best there is at what he does and what he does is inspire copycat characters. Wolvie is a character who, himself, had many fathers and mothers, so it’s not a shock that he would inspire others. He was brought onto the X-Men to act as the man of mystery, the mouthy loner with the heart of gold, bringing some entertaining drama to the team. These tropes helped the character appeal to readers and he soon became the most popular hero on the team (and arguably the Marvel Universe). Comics are a business of nostalgia and homages; whenever a character gets popular, you’re going to see a million copycats. Logan was no different. Sure, for a while he was a mostly unique character but as his popularity skyrocketed, everyone else wanted in on the game.
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Since 1974, the comic industry has been making Wolverine copycats. Sometimes, they’re as barebones as can be – the rise of Image saw Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, and Rob Liefeld all introduce their own simplistic versions of the hero (Liefeld did several in Youngblood alone) – and other times they are complex. These latter rip-offs have been able to escape the stigma of being a copy and become beloved, interesting characters that use the ideas at the core of Wolverine in intriguing ways. These are the five best Wolverine copycats in comics, heroes and villains who have taken the gift of Logan and used it brilliantly.
5) Omega Red
Wolverine faces off against deadly enemies and there are few of them as challenging as Omega Red. Arkady Rossovich was born with a mutant death factor. His body created various germs and diseases that he could release in an aura that would weaken and kill anyone around; in fact, the more they suffered, the stronger he got, their pain and anguish fueling him. He was brought into the Soviet equivalent of Weapon X, given carbonadium tentacles because the USSR didn’t have access to adamantium. He was the Soviet Wolverine, a mutant made into a monstrous killer by his government. Their powers were complimentary and they both had weapons made from a nearly unbreakable metal. Red first appeared in the early ’90s and has since become one of Logan’s most well-known enemies. He was even able to take out the entire X-Men Blue Team, showing just how tough he really is. In recent years, he’s even had a bit of a redemption, cementing his Wolverine parallels.
4) Marrow
Marrow was first introduced in the mid ’90s, after the end of “Age of Apocalypse”. She was a Morlock, who had been taken to another dimension by Mikhail Rasputin, returning to Earth to start the Gene Nation, a group of mutant terrorists whose powers made them unable to join polite society. She ended up battling the X-Men and Generation X, forcing Storm into a duel for leadership. She lost – Storm tore her heart out – but she would return in 1997 and join the X-Men as one of three new members in the wake of “Operation: Zero Tolerance”. Her powers caused her bones to grow uncontrollably, allowing her to use them as weapons (and she had two hearts), giving her the requisite bladed weapons that Wolverine copies need. She was mouthy loner with a terrible past, more Logan hallmarks. She loved to fight and would eventually start to warm up towards her teammates. She was slotted into the Wolverine spot on the team and she fit rather well; teen me loved her and I’ve always wished she had caught on.
3) Lobo
Lobo has become a beloved DC character, all thanks to how much he owes Wolverine. He was one of the earliest Wolverine copycats (there are people who will try to tell you that the Legion of Superheroes’ Lone Wolf is a Logan rip-off, but he first appeared ten years before Wolvie popped up; in fact, the hairy Mr. Howlett was almost certainly a Lone Wolf copy), first appearing in Omega Men #3 in 1983. He was a cigar-smoking, motorcycle-riding (although his was a space motobicicleta), rude, crude dude and fans loved him right away. Co-creator Keith Giffen played him as an over-the-top copy of Wolvie and he caught on with fans, starring in some of the coolest series of the ’80s and ’90s (the Giffen/Simon Bisley miniseries are especially good). Unlike Logan, Lobo has never softened up very much; he’ll always be the loner bastiche who loves to fight and that’s exactly what fans want from him.
2) Daken
Akihiro’s life was supposed to be very different. He is the child of Logan and Itsu, a Japanese woman he married after World War II who would be killed by the Winter Soldier. She was pregnant at the time and Romulus, who was always watching Wolvie, cut the baby out of her belly and had him raised to hate his father (he took up the name Daken because the Japanese would call him that; it means “mongrel”, a name they gave him because he was half-Japanese). He became Romulus’s secret weapon, doing his best to kill his father, the two of them having some bloody battles before Logan killed his son. He’s since been resurrected and has become an ally of his father, working with X-Factor and X-Force, now with all-new Spirit of Vengeance powers. Daken has the same powers as his father, with his claws being a different configuration and added pheromone powers, and his origin is different but he’s undoubtedly just another version of Wolverine. You can even look at his upbringing in Japan being his equivalent to Logan’s time in Weapon X. He’s not as popular as his father, but the building blocks are there.
1) Laura Kinney
Wolverine has had numerous successors, but the most successful has been Laura Kinney, the second Wolverine. She was introduced in the early ’00s and was basically the Wolverine for a new generation (if Wolverine had a slightly creepy origin about being a child prostitute; ’00s Marvel was… something). She was created in a lab using Logan and Sarah Kinney’s DNA, a scientist working on the program to create clones of Weapon X, with the doctor trying her best to give Laura a semblance of a normal life. She was trained to be a killer, sent after numerous targets, but escaped and has since had the exact same arc as her father, dealing with the horrors of her past, trying to learn how to get close to other people, seeing herself as more than a weapon, and becoming a superhero. She’s the Wolverine of her generation and the fact that she’s been so successful, helming multiple solo series’, joining the X-Men, and garnering legions of fans, shows that Wolvie’s success was no fluke. She still has some haters, but we all know that she deserves her spot.
Who’s your favorite Wolverine copycat? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
