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Adam Schulman
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Posted: 09 July 2020 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Mark -- or, more likely, it's just to sell more toys and statues. Collect all the Wolverine variants!
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Mark Haslett
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Posted: 09 July 2020 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Adam: Mark -- or, more likely, it's just to sell more toys and statues. Collect all
the Wolverine variants!

**

Surely, that's a component of why the costumes changed.

But the point I was making is that, in the case of wolverine, changing his
costume a lot contradicts who he is (or was).
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Doug Centers
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Posted: 09 July 2020 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I'm trying to remember how I felt after seeing the costume change from yellow to brown, but nothings coming up so I must have been good with it.
The rib and shoulder graphics of the yellow version did seem to refer to his claws in my head. I liked that the black line down the middle of the boot stayed, that's a cool look to me.
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Joe Zhang
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Posted: 10 July 2020 at 8:26am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Nobody really notices how mixed up Wolverine is. He's the badger-man associated more with wolves. His costume is yellow with blue tiger stripes. 

And of course it doesn't help that the sharp crests of his cowl are more reminiscent of a wolf's ears. 


Edited by Joe Zhang on 10 July 2020 at 8:57am
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 10 July 2020 at 10:35am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I don’t think costume changes are to sell toys. I’d put it more down to
artists making their mark.

Very few costume changes have been for the better iMHO, although
Wolverine’s by JB is probably @ the front of the list for those that did do
better
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Robert Bradley
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Posted: 10 July 2020 at 11:29am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Sometimes there's one redesign that gets it right - Wally Wood's Daredevil, Steve Ditko's Iron Man, Neal Adams' Angel, Dave Cockrum's Phoenix - but all-too-often the original version is the best and somebody else comes along to mess things up (Captain America, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Doctor Strange, etc.).

JB did designs for two that I didn't think needed redone (Wolverine and the Fantastic Four) but I ended up liking them because they were well-done and had no issues with them being used for extended runs.
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 10 July 2020 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Can’t argue with a word you said there Robert

Edited by James Woodcock on 10 July 2020 at 2:57pm
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Jason Scott
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Posted: 11 July 2020 at 12:54pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

To me the brown outfit is and always has been the definitive outfit for Wolverine, and not just because that's the first outfit I encountered him in.

I cannot for the life of me imagine why someone like Logan would want to wear a bright yellow and blue outfit. For a sneaky, taciturn type guy it's kind of insane. It's almost the equivalent of Batman wanting to regularly wear his 'rainbow' oufit anytime he's staking out villains in Gotham city! 
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 12 July 2020 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Jason - well, it's just another challenge for the Boy Wonder, to be sure. :)

As for myself... I HATED the original Wolverine's blue and yellow. (Signed) A true scarlet and gray lifelong Ohio State fan. GO BUCKS!
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John Byrne
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Posted: 12 July 2020 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

I know I created it, so my bias level runs high, but every time I draw the brown costume it just feels right. No small part of that coming, I suppose, from the satisfaction derived from breaking an old rule.

When I got into the biz I was told in no uncertain terms that good guys wear primary colors, bad guys wear secondary colors, and civilians wear tertiary colors. Brown is tertiary.

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Adam Schulman
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Posted: 12 July 2020 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I know Magneto's original costume has purple but much of it was red, so that kind of breaks the rule. (Yes, he dressed like a mutant Satan. But clearly there were always a very few exceptions to the rules. The Hulk, who broadly fell under "superhero" from at least 1966 onward, had green skin and purple pants.)

Or was this just an Unbreakable Jim Shooter Rule which lasted until the black-and-white Spider-Man costume?
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 12 July 2020 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Adam S. - that rule seems to have gone back to the first Fantastic Four. The FF, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, the Avengers - all blues, reds, yellows, and blacks. The villains (a brief list) - Mole Man, Skrulls, Dr. Doom, Sandman, Dr. Octopus, the Vulture, Dormammu, the Hulk*, Zemo, the Enchantress - greens and purples.

It might have been Stan creating a way to quickly remember who was a hero and who was a villain, as his memory was notable imperfect. "Who's that in the X-Men? The Vanisher? Yeah, he must be a bad guy."

Needless to say, that didn't follow so much at National/DC! I'm sure that Aquaman and Green Lantern and J'onn J'onzz might've taken exception.
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