| Posted: 25 May 2013 at 10:50am | IP Logged | 1
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It's a road I have traveled down before. A speculation, based on that moment, shortly after I was assigned as penciler on (not yet UNCANNY) X-MEN. Chris Claremont and I were chatting on the phone, and he said "Dave and I could never really figure out what to do with Wolverine, so we were planning to write him out of the book. I think I'll still do that."In the only instance of ever wrapping myself in the Canadian flag in the 22 years I lived in that country, I rose up on my hind legs and said "We are NOT getting rid of the only Canadian in the book!" "But we could never think of anything to really DO with him!" said Chris. "Leave that to me," said I. And thus began the shift of focus. People had been joking around the office for quite some time that the book had become NIGHTCRAWLER - Co-starring the X-Men, and since I couldn't really think of anything to do with Nightcrawler, I devoted my energies to Wolverine. And the whole industry suffered for it. Seriously. It's really not towering ego to say that was a "lightning in a bottle" moment. The conjunction of Chris, Terry, me, those characters, that time -- there's really been nothing like it since. And, sure, there was more going on than just "The Adventures of Wolverine" -- Dark Phoenix. Heard of her? -- but I have found that when fans talk about the "cool stuff" in my run with Chris, they go inevitably to the same flashpoints. Wolverine in the sewer. Wolverine killing the guard in the Savage Land. Old Logan in the Future (and his death). Wolverine lifting Heather Hudson off her feet at the moment of their "reunion". None of the other characters racked up an equivalent list. Wolverine -- especially after I left the book -- BECAME the X-MEN. But supposed I'd agreed with Chris, to write him out? Likely he would have been picked up by some other creative team/book. Maybe he'd have landed in the Defenders. Not likely he'd have become an Avenger. The Champions were already gone. There was really nowhere that we might have expected that "lightning" to kindle -- it was a one time/one place moment. Wolverine would probably have faded into the background, remembered fondly by fans but otherwise on the shelf with Howard the Duck, or Man-Thing, or Nova. Occasional attempts at resurrection, with varying degrees of success, but nothing like what we've seen. (Consider that the X-Men movies, despite being made decades later, were squarely anchored on the foundations Chris and I laid.) Would there have been someone else? Maybe, but history doesn't do much to support this idea. The Vision had been hugely popular in THE AVENGERS, but he'd not been able to spin off into his own little empire. Spider-Man seemed already at the top of his game. The Thing, the "original Wolverine", if you will, had not started the same kind of groundswell. There had been nothing like Wolverine, really, in the whole history of comics. Maybe the Hulk comes within hailing distance -- an unsuccessful, barely noticed character at first, who gained new life with a "second chance". But the Hulk didn't become the axle* upon which Marvel rotated. Without Wolverine, and the success he undeniably brought to the X-Men, and what was then built upon that (often at the expense of other books), what would the industry be like today? Very different, I think. And a lot healthier. ____ * Feels almost as if a "no pun intended" is necessary right there. . .
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