Okay, this is coming out of left field, I know, but Wolverine is an important character for Marvel, and I’m not convinced that they have even the faintest clue why he’s important, nor do I think that they have the foggiest notion how to use him.

 I picture Marvel’s stance on Wolverine something like this: “Hey, the hairy little monster is a fan favorite. People love the violent runt. Let’s throw him in sixteen books this month, have him get stabbed eight-some-odd times, make vaguely creepy advances on women who are ‘out of his league’ and get into a bunch of fights. But, he’ll have to get his butt handed to him a lot so we can show off how awesome his healing power is. Oh, and make sure he drinks a bunch, maybe smokes- how is smoking looking right now? Throw in a line or two about his mysterious past, and call it a day, folks.”

Marvel seems content to use Wolverine as golden tank- any book he’s in will probably sell better because fans love the hairy Canadian, and Wolverine is certainly the best there is at what he does, if what he does is take ridiculous amounts of punishment for no apparent reason.

I don’t know exactly when this happened. Maybe it’s always been this way, and I’m washing over it? Maybe I’m waxing nostalgic for a time that never was? If so, that’s a shame, because I can remember a time when Wolverine was a great character. You can still see traces of it, on occasion, but for the most part, he’s terribly written, now.

I think that the problem is that a lot of writers don’t know what to do with Wolverine. They see a short, angry character with powers that make him hard to beat. What do you do with a character who can heal from injury and has unbreakable bones and claws? Well, if you’re unimaginative,  you stick him in dangerous situations of an escalating nature.

Okay, you had Sabertooth gut him, and he lived? Next time have someone stab him in the heart. He’s up and walking? Have someone shoot him in the face. Next time have him burned alive. Next time have someone run him over with a freakin’ steamroller.

What’s the point, though? None of the readers are falling for it. We already know Wolverine can’t die. We’ve known that for over a decade. Characters that popular don’t die. I know Batman isn’t going to die, unless it’s an elseworld story. I know that Spiderman isn’t going to die. I know that Wolverine, arguable the most popular character that Marvel has, isn’t going to die.

So, what’s my point?

Wolverine is being wasted. At worst, they write him like a either a maniac who’s as prone to attack his team as his foes (thankfully, they seem to have moved away from that unfortunate direction) or he’s someone who’s supposed to be one of the greatest combatants on the planet but still gets his ass beat to Canada and back every time he gets in a fight (in order to show his totally awesome healing powers). At best, though, he could be so much more.

The best Wolverine stories are the ones that take advantage of what an interesting and well designed character he is. When you focus on the powers, you miss the point, and I think that’s the problem. Wolverine wasn’t interesting because he had healing powers- the powers, as I argued in this post, don’t make the hero, his actions do. Wolverine is a hero, and he needs to be written like one. If you’re writing Wolverine like the Punisher with claws, you’re doing it wrong. Wolverine is a classic hero character- albeit a tragic one- and he’s most interesting when he’s written like one.

What do I mean?

Let’s start, like all good heroes, with an origin.

I’m not talking about his first appearence, but rather with the origin of the character as we know him. Wolverine is (until recently) a man without a past. What little he knows of his past is shrowded in mist and intrigue. He was the product of an experiment. He was tortured and mutilated, and was granted inhuman powers by a group that saw him as an animal to be tested on.

That’s important, because it sets up a lot of what we know about the character, and explains why he is who he is. Wolverine’s tragic flaw is, essentially, his temper. It’s always been that. There’s a reason that Sabertooth is his arch enemy- they’re two sides of one coin. They’ve got similar powers, they’ve got similar backgrounds. The difference is how they react. Sabertooth was treated like an animal and embraced it- he’s savage and ruthless and kills with no remorse. Wolverine was treated as bad or worse than Sabertooth, but he struggles to overcome his weakness and regain his humanity. That’s his struggle.

It’s the struggle against odds to be human. Wolverine is, as always, a hero by choice. He chooses to do good, even when it’s hard, and even when it hurts him. And it should hurt him. The tragic hero suffers.

One of the few things that Marvel seems to get right about Wolverine, but that most readers get wrong: Wolverine is not a loner. A loner is a person who wants or enjoys being alone. Wolverine neither wants nor enjoys being alone. Wolverine is, in fact, extremely social. What he wants is the one thing he’s been denied almost his entire life- a home. Wolverine, ultimately, wants a family. He wants roots, and he wants to belong. That’s why he becomes sort of surrogate father to the likes of Jubilee and Kitty Pryde. That’s why he seeks the company of other outcasts like Nightcrawler and Colossus. He wants to belong. He was alone because of fear, but his goal should be to be part of a family.

I think that’s what makes Wolverine such an important character for Marvel. Like their other great heroes, he’s an attractive but sympathetic character. He’s got awesome abilities and he wants to do the right thing, but he’s got a terrible history and lives in pain. Lose either of those things, and you ruin the character. I suppose he may still sell well, but I think it’s a disservice to the character, and to the potential of the character.

One of the best things that Marvel did was write stories about Wolverine just going around interacting with normal people. In one story arc, he meets a girl, and befriends her. When she’s murdered, he sets out to find out why. That’s a perfect story for Wolverine. It doesn’t rely on his fighting insane super villains or vast conspiracies. At the core, it’s a story about Wolverine doing what he actually does best- being a hero. It’s him doing the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do. You get the fight scenes that people want, too (you can’t have Wolverine without fights, that’s true), but ideally, you’ve got Wolverine acting like he should. You’ve got him sneaking around, trying to learn what happened, and trying to avoid wading through the “bad guys” regardless of what they do to him. He’s human, and he wants to be human. He shouldn’t like getting shot. He shouldn’t like getting stabbed. It shouldn’t necessarily stop him if it comes to that, but he shouldn’t ignore the dangers, either.

Then, consider a bad Wolverine story. Most of them are the same, and there are tons of them. Wolverine, either alone or as part of the team, finds out that there are “bad guys” in, say, a warehouse. Wolverine, against all good judgement, and against orders, barges in looking for a fight, regardless of what the bad guys have. He might pretend to use stealth at first, but the first bad guy he sees, he’s yelling and on them like an animal, unleashing his claws and ready to kill at the drop of a hat. The bad guys start shooting him, which Wolverine essentially ignores unless the plot otherwise dictates. He takes the bullets/knives/etc like they don’t matter, pointing out that he has healing powers. He takes some down until the Big Bad shows up, at which point Wolverine is taken down. You see no evidence that:
1. he experiences pain.
2. he has any training as a soldier/assassin/secret agent/hero.
3. he has any compunction against unleashing his animal nature.

For fun, and because I’m a nerd- Look at the traits of a tragic hero:(pardon my referencing wiki- it’s convenient in this case)
He must be noble in nature, but imperfect - Right. Wolverine is a samurai by training. He’s almost a lone ranger type character. He spends his “off time” with the X-Men going out and helping people who need help. He’s aggresive and angry and unpleasent, but he’s “got a good heart.”
He must (obviously) have a tragic flaw or have made a tragic mistake - For Wolverine, this comes from his beserker rage. This rage is central to the character. It’s why he must always be on guard. It’s why he fears getting close to people. It’s why he must struggle to do good.
He must experience a reversal of fortune because of the tragic flaw - Here we have an interesting inversion. In most tragedy, the characters go from a state of excess to a state of poverty as a result of their flaws. Wolverine is a bit different in that aspect. His flaw is part of the reason that Professor X invites him to the mansion. It’s why he’s part of the X-Men. On the other hand, it leads to his being forced to kill the woman he loves. So, this, it would seem, can go either way.
He suffers more than he deserves - I take this to be a given in Wolverine’s case.
He is doomed from the start, but bears little/no responsibility for possessing his flaw (that is, the flaw isn’t a choice he makes, it’s something beyond his control) - Again, this is true of Wolverine. Wolverine’s rages are not something he chooses. In fact, when he’s written well, he’s constantly struggling against them, just as Hercules struggled with his own jealousy and temper.
He must discover his “fate” by his own actions, not by things happening to him - Right again. Wolverine wasn’t handed his fate. He chooses it. He chooses it every time he “does the right thing.” He chose it by joining the X-Men. He chose it by rejecting the “training” done to him by Project X. Unfortunately for him, this also means that some of the terrible things in his life are from his choices, as well. The death of Mariko, for example.
He must see and understand his doom, as well as the fact that his fate was discovered by his own actions - This one is trickier, since we don’t know the real end of Wolverine’s story, but, in the short term, this holds up too. Wolverine knows that his actions have consequences, and he knows that trouble follows him, and that his presense can be a threat to those he loves. His choice to be a hero, and his choice to fight against the animal nature has made him enemies, and they strike those he loves. He’s also potentially a threat to those he cares about, because his beserker rage blinds him.
His story should arouse fear and empathy - A well written Wolverine does both. He’s a scary character. He’s dangerous, and no story should ever forget that. The man is one of the most highly trained killers on the planet, and he’s got some serious mental and emotional baggage that he needs to work through. People should be afraid of him. But, to make him great, they need to empathize, too. Wolverine isn’t bad. You should feel bad for him. He had his past stolen from him. He was tortured. The people he allows himself to love tend to turn up dead. For decades, he lived in exile, because he was afraid to let himself get close to people. That’s sad.
He must be physically or spiritually wounded by his experiences - Um. Check.
 

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 4th, 2007 at 3:07 pm and is filed under comics, pop culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.