Wolverine Wednesday #65

Unfortunately I had some trouble getting all my comics on time this month to review them. On the positive, that means there will be a bumper review instalment next time round and there are some really good things to be unpack! I didn’t want to go a month without A Wolverine Wednesday so I thought I would stretch my creative muscles. It may seem a little self-indulgent, but I hope you find as fun as I did. Without further ado let’s jump into…

The Adventures of Wolverteen

Hopefully the title is self-explanatory? If not here it is in a nutshell. I can’t remember what sparked it but I got thinking about what if Wolverine when first created was a teenager like much of the Silver Age of the Marvel Universe. Many would argue Laura Kinney is an examination of if Wolverine was a teenager. But with my idea, I wanted to retcon the entire X-Men Universe as we know it. Simply de-ageing a character may not seem a big move, especially since there are original Dave Cockrum sketches of Logan as a younger man. But when I really dug into the idea there was so much potential for making this something interesting. First off by him simply being a teenager where would his entry point be? The second wave of X-Men that he was a part of was already much older when they appeared in Giant Size X-Men #1. In the following piece I will put forward a number of entry points for young Logan and within each one examine how things such as friendship, love and rivalries play out. There are two major caveats I want to mention before we dive into the different entry points. First, for every scenario the Weapon X experiment has already occurred. Just imagine how much more horrific that story reads with a teen protagonist. Then there is one long abandoned plot that I think would work really well again in every scenario and that is that Sabretooth is Wolverine’s biological father. Also, I wanted to make these changes to Wolverine without having too much of a major change in the wider X-Men universe. What Claremont, Byrne, Cockrum and everybody else created is pretty close to perfect. It doesn’t need me to deconstruct it from top to bottom.

The Original Five

This is the most obvious place to start for a possible entry for a teen Wolverine. The biggest decision was who to take out so he could replace them? At first I thought of Beast, the team wouldn’t need two members with creature features. But I wanted to think bigger and look to the future, thus settling on Angel. In doing this it allows for the Logan/Scott/Jean love triangle to remain intact. There are readers who feel this story arc is much overplayed, but surely there is a reason it keeps getting played out and having it play out here is really going to add some depth to the story. One drawback is you lose the backup story from Classic X-Men #1 where Wolverine first hit on Jean. What are the cornerstones of Wolverine being introduced into this era of X-Men? When the question “What will we do with 13 X-Men?” is posed at the end of GSXM #1 I imagine Wolverine would take leave of the team. It is nothing new for Logan in existing continuity to take leave from the team and go on his own adventures so this would be nothing new. In the years that he is absent, he would be on the trail of his missing father Sabretooth an ex-CIA agent who he idolized and wants answers as to why he is missing. Equally, there is an opening that you could do a reverse on Logan’s existing history and have him join Alpha Flight after the X-Men instead of vice-versa. The icing on the cake of Wolverine being part of the OG X-Men is that in 1986 he would return alongside his old teammates in X-Factor #1. This would in turn bring Wolverine into contact with Apocalypse who Chris Claremont always intended to be the unseen overseer of Weapon X we see Professor Thornton reporting to. Isn’t it funny how all the pieces fit together, because in the place of Angel, Wolverine would then feel the role of Death much like he did in his own series a few years later.

Side note: While on the subject of X-Factor, the series does present another entry point for a young Logan. The premise of X-Factor was the original team reforming and ‘hunting’ mutants. In reality, they were offering a safe haven to the mutants they found. Angel would return to his accepted continuity and Wolverteen would seamlessly fit in as one of the street kids, alongside Rusty, Skids and Boom Boom. In my opinion, this doesn’t offer as much longevity as some of the other ideas. If you use Rusty and Skids as an example they were fan favourites but never really amounted to much. Okay, Rusty was in Deadpool 2! Boom Boom again a fan favourite but moved around from team to team. I do however see him being a protective older brother figure to Artie and Leech. Another fun element is that by being an X-Factor kid it puts him central to the Inferno story arc. This in turn would then out him again in connection with not only Scott and Jean, but now Cable too! In Inferno Cable was just baby Christopher, before he was transported to the future. Imagine his surprise when he comes back to the present and Logan is still a teen!

Uncanny X-Men

Logan may be missing from the new international team as a result of him being de-aged, but that doesn’t mean there still isn’t space in the tapestry of Uncanny X-Men to be introduced as Wolverteen. Now the three following ideas are more filler than anything else. I don’t feel they other much in terms of providing a solid base for Wolverteen to come into the comics and be a mainstay. They are purely for fun but oh dear they can be viewed as very decisive! First up Wolverteen could enter in Uncanny X-Men #129 in place of fan favourite Kitty Pryde! The idea of Kitty when she first appeared was to be a POV-type character for the younger audience since the main roster was now much more mature. Yes, Logan could feel this role, but I don’t see it being as popular as Kitty. I don’t envision him going from kid brother to leader transformation like Kitty has done. I can however take great joy in picturing Wolverteen recreating the famous “Professor X is a Jerk!” panel from #168. Complete with beer and cigars for extra rebelliousness. If he did take Kitty’s place he would be the main antagonist in ‘Days of Future Past’ maybe fighting alongside an older version of himself! He would also leave the confines of the mansion to join Excalibur. There is another female character he could replace and that is Jubilee. This would of course be in #244. It would be a good dynamic for a teen boy to debut in an issue titled ‘Ladies Night’ and it also ties him directly to the popular ‘Outback era.’ Again not an option that delivers a lot of legs. He would be using sparingly, whenever one needed to utilise a younger character. Personally, I see him being a good sidekick for Psylocke, especially once she adopts the samurai persona. This would act as an entry to the samurai world for Wolverteen. Then in 1991 he would be the lead character in Generation X #1 and a teen Wolverine leading that team is very 90’s! Lastly, there is one small idea to tie together Wolverteen being part of the OG team and reappearing during the Uncanny tenure. If he was to leave the team after the events of GSXM #1 he would have met Storm ever so briefly. In Uncanny X-Men #266 it would be much more age-appropriate for him to team up with the de-aged Storm instead of Gambit. Just a fun idea but nothing that goes any further than that 1 issue really.

The New Mutants

I have saved the best till last, in my humble opinion anyway. It is the idea that offers the most longevity and the most space for him to grow as a character. On the other hand, again it could be seen as controversial. The New Mutants have a very hardcore fan base! I wouldn’t want to choose which character he would replace in the roster. Luckily I came up with a way in which the debut graphic novel of The New Mutants can remain intact. In fact, the first fifteen issues of New Mutants can remain untouched and in #16 we are introduced to the villainous teen team The Hellions. On the final page we discover that young Logan is in fact an undercover plant working on behalf of Professor X, who has promised to help him locate his father Sabretooth. A classic case of Xavier manipulation, because while Wolverine has been in the trenches he has left to live in space! A good story angle to pick up on would be the insider knowledge he has gained from being with the enemy. A good point of discussion would be The New Mutants headmaster lapse as he returns to the side of bad. The two essentially could cross paths as they swap sides. I haven’t decided the exact point he which he would reveal himself as a mole and fully join the ranks of The New Mutants. Although I would like him to be on the side of good for the 3 major events of the era Mutant Massacre, Fall of The Mutants and Inferno. The Mutant Massacre would obviously have all new implications for him as Sabretooth returns on the side of Mr. Sinister. Inferno would again bring him into the sphere of Scott, Jean and Cable. As a member of the New Mutants he would be ripe for when Cable returns and reshapes the team to X-Force. I think that is what makes this idea the strongest as it combines elements from all the ideas into one narrative. My New Mutants knowledge isn’t its strongest but I believe during some of her early appearances Psylocke was the object of Doug Ramsey’s boyhood crush. This could easily be transferred to Logan, again setting up the master and apprentice samurai angle. You could even take this further and in place of the Wolverine/Kitty Pryde mini-series it’s Psylocke/Wolverine on a swords and assassins-esque quest. A possible romantic tie for teen Wolverine in New Mutants would be Karma. She is a character who herself has spent time in Madripoor so that would bring that location into his life via her.

Ongoing Series

Now as I said none of the teen X-Men characters have had much success in solo titles. Spider-Man will always be the pin-up teen sensation of Marvel. As much as I like Wolverine and my ideas here I can’t see Wolverteen ousting Spider-Man for that crown. This would allow Marvel to fully realise Chris Claremont’s true vision for Wolverine. He never wanted to do a fully-fledged ongoing series, instead he wanted to do a series of mini series. He got two done before the inevitable happened and the ongoing became a reality. The original Wolverine mini-series could be transformed for Wolverteen, playing up the teen love story with Mariko rather than the failed samurai angle. To make it more tragic she could die by the end of the story, as there won’t be a Wolverine ongoing for her to die in years later! I have already mentioned how the second mini-series becomes Psylocke/Wolverine in place of Wolverine/Kitty Pryde. At some point, we are going to want to see the Weapon X experiment and explore his relationship with his father Sabretooth. I see him being a former CIA agent whom Logan idolized and loved hearing stories from. He was eventually captured and experimented on himself leading to his turn to the bad side in the Mutant Massacre. There is an argument to be made that a young naïve Logan volunteers for the Weapon X program to emulate his father. Despite perhaps not having the popularity to carry his own ongoing, I do feel by making Wolverine a teenager you don’t actually lose much of what makes him who he is. By having a series of mini-series it would make for more focused character development, you could really focus on one element of each mini and really drive it home. Adding something to his character each time.