A Step-By-Step Guide To How Wolverine Became Wolverine As You Know Him

Many of the core concepts behind Wolverine were in place before the character himself was even invented. Marvel editor Roy Thomas, who was a well-known comics writer in his own regard, knew that he wanted a Canadian character created so that sales north of the border could be boosted—or, as he put it, he “detected a need to exploit the Canadian market.”

Thomas researched Canadian wildlife and settled on the wolverine, a small but ferocious predator, as the ideal inspiration for the new Canuck hero. He passed the project on to Len Wein, who was writing The Incredible Hulk. Wein came up with a few further details before passing the task of design off to the artists. Wein fit Wolverine into an upcoming storyline in which the Hulk would be fighting the Wendigo, a type of northern mythological creature.

In terms of aesthetic design, Wolverine has two main creators. When Roy Thomas first conceived of the character, he wanted the costume done right, so he turned to respected artist John Romita Sr. Romita mocked up a look that contained all the basic attributes that Wolverine is now famous for; his claws, his pointed mask, and his blue-and-yellow color scheme. From the beginning, Wolverine’s surly attitude was meant to be reflected in his design, despite the bright colors. Years later, Romita still took pride in his contributions. After Wolverine made his Hollywood debut, he said, “The first time he retracts his claws, I nearly jumped out of my chair. I got the biggest rush when I realized something I created was being used on-screen.”

In his comic debut, however, Wolverine would be drawn by a different artist, Herb Trimpe. Trimpe was the first to draw Wolverine in action and helped determine that, despite his ferociousness, Wolverine was not the biggest character in the Marvel universe, and certainly not compared to the Hulk.

Wolverine would go on to become a great superhero and a member of several major teams, but he began his publication history as an antagonist of the Hulk. This was actually a fairly common trick that Marvel used to pull back in the day, as they used a confrontation with a popular character as a “backdoor pilot” for a new character. The Punisher got his start as a Spider-Man villain in a very similar fashion. Wolverine’s first appearance, in The Incredible Hulk #180, consisted of a dramatic reveal on the final page, before he actually got into the action in #181.

This debut did not establish very much about the character at all, save for the fact that he had claws of some sort and worked for the Canadian government. These two factoids would soon spiral into one of the most complex and convoluted character backstories in comic history. For the record, the first battle between Wolverine and the Hulk ended in a bit of a draw.

Wolverine arrived in comics at the perfect time. The X-Men, who had gotten their start back in the '60s, had been effectively canceled for a number of years, with only reprints of their adventures being published. The original team of five had proven boring and Marvel was looking to rebrand with a completely new team of mutants. This led to Giant-Size X-Men #1 in 1975. Writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum sought out a multinational group of heroes to add a little diversity to the Marvel lineup and, while they had to invent most of their roster, the already-created Wolverine seemed like a perfect fit. Wolverine’s gruff attitude made him the perfect “team loner,” although his character would not be developed too far beyond that quite yet. For the time being, Wolverine was just one interesting member on a very interesting and successful new superhero team.

Chris Claremont really wanted to keep his X-Men roster fresh. He killed off one hero, Thunderbird, very early in the series, and was actually considering dumping Wolverine, too. He very well might have, had Dave Cockrum not been replaced as series artist by John Byrne. Byrne, a proud Canadian, was not about to let Claremont cut his fellow Canuck, and so he fought to keep Wolverine around. It was “the only instance of ever wrapping myself in the Canadian flag in the 22 years I lived in that country,” Byrne recalled. He said to Claremont, “We are not getting rid of the only Canadian in the book!”

Byrne also went to work developing the character further in order to justify his continued existence. It was during this time that Claremont and Byrne collaboratively started to add now-integral aspects to Wolverine’s character, like his healing factor and his enhanced senses. There were still many questions left unanswered about Wolverine, but the creators managed to make this air of mystery a central part of his identity, which only served to make him more popular.

Claremont and Byrne really tried to stretch out their reveals of the various mysteries surrounding Wolverine. In fact, the two would be on the X-Men title for quite some time before they even depicted Wolverine without a mask. Nobody really knew what Wolverine looked like—or how old he was—until Byrne decided for them. Others had envisioned Wolverine as young, or at least youthful-looking, but Byrne had other ideas. He modeled Wolverine on Tim “Dr. Hook” McCracken, a character from the cult favorite hockey film Slap Shot, as portrayed by Paul D’Amato. Dr. Hook’s personality certainly matched Wolverine’s, and his wild hair also happened to match the pre-established shape of Wolverine’s mask pretty perfectly. Wolverine was a new kind of hero, gruff and gritty, not like those pretty boys over at DC Comics.