If you hadn’t heard, Wolverine is back. You know Wolverine, knives in his hands, can’t die, drinks beer, and says bub. He suffered from a bad case of getting covered in molten metal while his healing factor was down, but now he is roaming around like nobodies business. The problem is, we are over a year into Wolverine being alive and I have no idea what in the world is going on.
It doesn’t help that there is a seemingly conflicting narrative going on here. When Logan first returned in MAVEL LEGACY #1 there was some excitement. He was driving a beer truck, beating up frost giants, and chilling with an Infinity Stone. His metal tomb had been broken and he was set free. As far as teasers go, it was a pretty good one. It left the obvious question of “how is he alive”, while adding in ones like “how does he have an Infinity Stone”. It may not have been the most conventional approach, but it got people excited.
That’s when things went down hill.
Wolverine started popping up all over the place in the “Where is Wolverine?” promotion. He appeared on the last page of several Marvel books. These “post-credit scenes” were completely toothless, adding nothing to their the comic they were in, or the larger Wolverine story. They were tiny vignettes of Wolverine just missing the actual plot of the book. Even worse, they were telegraphed and promoted, ruining any of the surprise from the moments. It was like 2008’s Iron Man opening with a note that Nick Fury was going to show up and talk about the Avengers at the end. This completely deflating promotion only accomplished one thing, fatiguing fans of the canucklehead.
Fans thought Wolverine would be a massive player in Gerry Duggan’s INFINITY COUNTDOWN and INFINITY WARS events, but would be sorely disappointed. After using him in the promotional image for the book and featuring him on the cover of the first issue, Wolverine was promptly written out of the event. He hid his infinity stone in a toilet and left Black Widow instructions to find it. Fans looking forward to seeing a favorite after so long were left feeling manipulated. His return brought back memories of the 90s, with Wolverine appearing on the cover of comics to move copies, not to support the story.
Many fans started to see the return as a cash grab, bleeding readers dry $3.99 at a time. It only got worse with the announcement of THE HUNT FOR WOLVERINE. Charles Soule, the man who killed Wolverine in the first place, would return to spearhead an event about the Marvel Universe looking for Wolverine. Between a quartet of four issue minis and two book end issues all we learned was that a mysterious organization called Soteira lead by a woman named Persephone had captured Logan. And that is pretty much it. Eighteen issues and $73.82 later and we got two names that have no relevance to fans.
This all led to the current RETURN OF WOLVERINE series from Charles Soule. It promised two things, answers and hot claws. That’s right, Wolverine now has a new power. Sometimes, when he is deep in the heart of a battle, Wolverine’s claws, weapons that can already cut through anything, get red hot. Soule has said if he was going to bring Wolverine back, he wanted there to be an important change. Three issues in, the hot claws are anything but. They have been a superficial addition that does nothing to further the character. It feels closer to the feral, noseless Wolverine of the mid-nineties than anything else.
It hasn’t helped that the book has not provided anything close to answers about the return of Wolverine. We have an amnesiac Logan breaking out of a secret facility, meeting a generic woman in need, and getting into fights. It hasn’t been told in an engaging fashion, and with two issues left, it would be a herculean effort to wrap this up satisfactorily. Additionally, original artist Steve McNiven had to drop out of the middle three issues of the book, leaving Declan Shalvey to rush pages out far below his normal quality. Even with this change the book has been delayed.
Adding to the frustration is the fact that Wolverine seems to be all over the Marvel Universe, with no consistency between his appearances. Veteran writer Jason Aaron introduced a Phoenix powered future version of Wolverine in his THOR book, and had that character travel back to the past in his AVENGERS. A Wolverine has shown up in Dan Slott’s FANTASTIC FOUR, one who refuses to comment on who he is or why he isn’t dead. Wolverine promises to be a major character in Matthew Rosenberg’s UNCANNY X-MEN. Soule is following up his RETURN OF WOLVERINE with a decades spanning tale of Logan’s past in MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS. Greg Pak is dragging him into his Weapon H finale with HULKVERINES. Gerry Duggan has announced the mini-series WOLVERINE: INFINITY WATCH which promises to bridge the gap between Wolverine’s first appearance with the Infinity Stone and his exit from the INFINITY COUNTDOWN series. All of these convoluted and seemingly contradictory stories have left fans scratching their heads, and apathetic to the future of Wolverine.
And that’s the major problem with how this whole return has been handled, apathy. Fans no longer trust that they are going to get a satisfying story. Waiting over a year to get resolution without any sign that it is actually coming has gotten people to stop caring about the character or his return, and that is a big deal. This is Wolverine, arguably the most popular character in the Marvel Universe, his return should be a massive event. It should galvanize sales and fan engagement. Instead, its’ biggest contribution has been everyone on Twitter making jokes about #hotclaws. Is that the reaction Marvel wanted? I doubt it. Fans want to be excited about Wolverine, but Marvel has made that nearly impossible. They want this to make some sort of sense, but unfortunately, it seems as if Wolverine’s return will just be remembered as another in a long line of bungled events with the X-Men.
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
