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Nathan Greno
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| Posted: 29 October 2014 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | 1
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The latest Back Issue magazine examines the creation and development of Marvel's most popular mutant.
Roy Thomas is quoted: "I consider that I, Len Wein, John Romita, and Herb Trimpe are all the co-creators of the Wolverine, in that chronological order -- no one else was involved, unless you want to count the colorist."
Back Issue also lists "the creators that further developed the character into a legend in the Marvel mythos --
Gil Kane: Accidentally changed Wolverine's mask on the cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975) from the original design that John Romita came up with and gave him that cool "Batman" look.
Dave Cockrum: Came up with the idea of the claws being part of Wolverine's body and was the first to draw the mutant unmasked with his funky hairstyle and hairy chest (!).
John Byrne: Modernized Wolverine and gave him the iconic look and feel that has become the standard for other artists.
And last but certainly not least, Chris Claremont: Wrote and developed the heart and soul of Wolverine. He fleshed out and streamlined the past, present, and future of the character and gave him his Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry/Outlaw Josie Wales attitude/personality/speech that comics fans adorned. Claremont's work is the foundation and the benchmark for who Wolverine is, and all writers just expand on the concepts that he already laid out (he isn't called "the father of the X-Men" for nothing). Claremont's also the guy who gave Wolvie his real name: "Logan" (and that's a great name, bub)."
The article then goes on to explore the idea that the concept of Wolverine may have originated from a contest in FOOM magazine.
Thoughts?
Has anyone else read the article?
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Matt Hawes
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| Posted: 29 October 2014 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | 2
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I haven't read the article, but I am familiar with the history.
Wolverine, probably more than any other comic character, was the result of all those guys mentioned above (except that fan from the "FOOM" magazine, who has as much a legitimate claim as Stan Lee Media does to Marvel's characters).
BUT... I feel with Wolverine only two of these people deserve the credit for making Wolverine POPULAR: John Byrne and Chris Claremont.
It is a fact, based on what JB has said, and what Claremont and Cockrum have also acknowledged in interviews, that Wolverine would have been written out of the "Uncanny X-Men" title, but for JB protesting the removal of the only Canadian character on the team. Wolverine was not a favorite of Dave Cockrum (I even recall him saying as much to me in person at a convention).
If that hadn't happened, and Wolverine had been pushed out, I doubt he would have became anything big. The character would likely have become one of those oddball 1970s' characters that faded away, popping up only occasionally.
And certainly Chris Claremont continued to expand on what he and JB developed of Wolverine's past and personality after JB left the title. For well over a decade (nearly two decades, actually), Claremont was the person who guided the character.
So, yes, technically there wouldn't be a "Wolverine" without the work of Thomas, Wein, Romita, and Trimpe, but it was the work of JB and Chris Claremont that put him on the map and made people care about the character.
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Steve De Young
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| Posted: 29 October 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | 3
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So, with Thomas, Wein, Romita, Trimpe, Kane, Cockrum, Byrne, and Claremont all involved, whose descendants are the ones who deserve millions of dollars as their 'fair share' of Marvel's earnings off of the character?
This is a perfect example of why that particular 'creator's rights' perspective just doesn't work with serialized characters like this developed over decades. The character that's selling the comics, movies, tv shows, t-shirts, posters, etc. today is often far removed from the glimmer of an idea in the person who first put pen to paper, and that character, and its popularity, is the product of the work of many subsequent hands.
Hell, at this point, Hugh Jackman has probably contributed more to the popularity of the Wolverine character with the general public than half of the people on the list above.
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Doug Centers
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| Posted: 29 October 2014 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | 4
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I have to agree with you Matt.I started reading X-Men from that iconic Giant Size X-Men #1 and to tell you the truth I gravitated to Colossus as a favorite nobody else really stood out other than Cyclops as the leader. Not until Claremont and Byrne took over did you get that now famous Wolverine attitude, the dialogue and great facial expressions just forced him to be my favorite X-Man.
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 30 October 2014 at 2:23am | IP Logged | 5
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Hell, at this point, Hugh Jackman has probably contributed more to the popularity of the Wolverine character with the general public than half of the people on the list above.••• Try ALL the people on that list. Civilians had next to no idea who Wolverine was before the first movie. One of the many reasons I cry in the wilderness for fidelity to source.
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Geoffrey Langford
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| Posted: 30 October 2014 at 6:09am | IP Logged | 6
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I draw little parallel to the movie xmen and the comic versions -- Hugh Jackman plays an interesting interpretation of a comic book character, but it's not a version I care for.
As to Chris Claremont's contribution -- he is both creator AND destroyer of the character in my eyes.
I very much enjoyed getting snap shots of a mysterious past, hints that Wolverine was much more three dimensional than the psycho killing machine he was known as - it gave his reasons to stay with the x-men some sort of deeper purpose known only to him.
-- but then he became a ninja, or whatever he was in that crap Claremont/Miller mini-series --- and the house of cards began to be built...
I don't mind Wolverine being very very old. It makes sense. But he's the sort of character that, in my opinion, worked best when he was a broken human being - not only because he couldn't relate to others, but because he couldn't remember where he came from, because he was a killer who was doing his best to only kill bad people, not some noble hero samurai. Wolverine was a broken person trying to be unbroken -- and this was why he stuck around with Xavier and the X-Men. He was like an alcoholic at an AA meeting for me - he had a drinking problem but WHY he had that problem was unimportant - he was attending meetings and sharing and that was enough to keep him mostly sober.
BUT -- he's been around about 40 years now -- so for writers NOT to try and tell interesting stories about him and build some sort of past, etc -- well -- would he still be in comics or would he just be another neat character of Marvel's sitting in a file cabinet somewhere like 3DMan or Omega The Unknown.
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Peter Martin
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| Posted: 30 October 2014 at 7:11am | IP Logged | 7
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The samurai Wolverine was unwise and lessens the character from the bar-room scrapper with a largely unknown past, but I don't think it destroyed him.
The later changes of an insanely powerful healing factor along with the 'James Howlett' complete fleshing out of his past is what removed everything that was interesting from the character. Just to complete the job, Marvel then put him in the Avengers.
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Kevin Brown
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| Posted: 30 October 2014 at 8:07am | IP Logged | 8
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I always knew that he was created by Len Wein and John Romita Sr. I know Herb Trimpe drew his first appearance, but JRS was the one who designed Wolverine since he was the art director of Marvel at the time.
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Brian J Nelson
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| Posted: 30 October 2014 at 9:52am | IP Logged | 9
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Interesting question Nathan. Maybe we should ask when creation begins?
All of these wonderful characters have changed over time with ideas growing and things shaken off the branch. Some things get molded and manipulated to be something else. Finally what may be amazing to so many, may not have been part of the original intent or could go completely against the intent when pencil was first matched to paper and the line drawn.
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Don Zomberg
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| Posted: 30 October 2014 at 10:15am | IP Logged | 10
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I always knew
Always, Kevin?
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Eric Ladd
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| Posted: 30 October 2014 at 10:20am | IP Logged | 11
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We still attribute Superman's creation to the same people even though his original incarnation does not resemble his current one. Most of us have our personal version of the characters we love and as we age the characters usually drift farther and farther from the one that we love. However, there are some basic elements that should not change. For me, Wolverine should be Canadian, short, hairy, a scrapper and have a James Dean/Evel Kneivel/Steve McQueen like no nonsense disdain for authority. Lastly, on rare occasions he should prove to be dependable when it isn't "cool" to be the good guy. The list of things I dislike about what the character has become is too long.
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 30 October 2014 at 10:20am | IP Logged | 12
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We go back, of course, to the joke I have made many times about how I created Venom. What I did was knock over the first of many dominoes -- and mine wasn't even in a published comic!
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Topic Closed)
