Iron Fist versus Wolverine by Lee Weeks

They first met in Iron Fist #15 in 1977 and their first skirmish was a brief one.  We never got to see the K'un L'un kid unleash his weapon on Wolverine.

A brilliant commission by Lee Weeks.  Nuff Said!

John Romita Sr Promotional Pieces: Marvel Superheroes, Wolverine, Spider-Man Birthday

Here's a trio of promotional pieces by the great John Romita Sr...

Marvel Super-Heroes Are Here!  Romita designed this for drugstores and mom and pop shops selling comics? The way the figures are depicted, and their choices (Namor, Black Bolt, Silver Surfer alongside the Avengers, Hulk, Spider-Man, etc) make me think this was done in the early 1970s.  Or perhaps the late 1960s--I see that Captain Marvel is wearing the original white and green costume designed by Gene Colan.

Wolverine in action! Circa 1985, this was a pinup or a poster piece.

Spider-Man Birthday card!  No coincidence, today is also my birthday. This was an illustration Romita made for Diamond Distributors on their 10th anniversary. Pretty good to get a hand drawn card from the master, eh? Nuff Said!

Two Amazing Heroes covers by Todd McFarlane

It has been such a long time, I had even forgotten that Todd McFarlane ever drew mainstream Marvel characters!  But he was all the rage in the late 1980s, and this cover for Amazing Heroes #170 shows that McFarlane could draw the big characters quite well.  I really liked these Preview specials that AH would produce.  This idea of Wolverine, Human Torch, Captain America and Spider-Man bursting out of the interior pages was a good one.

In 1990, McFarlane produced the cover for AH #179, to promote his brand spanking new adjective-less Spider-Man series that broke all sales records.  I never thought of their being a Bob Kane influence on McFarlane’s work…but now I can see it a bit.  Nuff Said!

John Byrne's re-interpretation of a classic Wolverine moment from X-Men 132

Surely all fans of the Claremont/Byrne X-Men run remember this panel from the very last page of Uncanny X-Men #132 (1980)!

After being dumped in the sewers, Wolverine vowed to open up a can of whup-ass on the Hellfire Club, which he did in the next issue.  It was an exciting image, with the shadows of the sewer grate above shining down on Wolvy's costume.

John Byrne re-interpreted this moment for an illustration that appeared in his X-Men portfolio in 1993.  This version features a lot more muck and sewer gunk that surrounds Wolverine--a truly awful place to be!

Here's the pen & ink version of this illustration.  I imagine that some art collectors have commissioned similar pieces?  If so, please share them in the comments below.  Nuff Said!

Marvel Ads: Beast's Shampoo, Wolverine's Speed Stick

The best thing from the Marvel Swimsuit issues were the faux advertisements.  Take these two, from Marvel Swimsuit 1991:



The Beast, drawn by George Perez, selling Ultra-X shampoo!  Seeing this reminds me that I prefer the Beast in his blue and furry form.  After reading Dark Avengers #7, do you think it’s possible Marvel will revert him back?

If you’ve ever given a dog a bath, you’ll know how much hair comes out—it can clog your drain if you do it in the bathroom.  The amount of hair the Beast would shed…OMG.  Probably there would be hair all over his bedroom and lab as well.



Wolverine, drawn by Mike Zeck, selling Macho speed stick deodorant!  Notice that it’s misspelled “deoderant”.  Never thought about superhero sweat until reading this ad.  The Marvel Universe must be a very stinky place indeed.  Nuff said.

Memo to Fox: Read Marvel Comics for the next Wolverine movie!

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was precisely the movie I expected to see.  It was executed by Fox in the same manner as Ghost Rider or Fantastic Four—with little regard to the original source material.

The positives:  Hugh Jackman’s performance, he still brings a lot to this character.  Lynn Collins as Silverfox was beautiful—she reminded me of Evangeline Lilly on Lost.  It was fun seeing Gambit and the cameo at the end by Xavier was cool.  The action scenes, though highly implausible, were well executed.

The negatives: Barry Smith’s Weapon X origin was discarded in favor of having General Stryker being the one responsible for Wolvy’s adamantium skeleton.  Deadpool appears in character at the beginning of the movie—but it seems like we only get 10 minutes of Ryan Reynolds.  Then Deadpool is transformed into a mega mutant…who can’t speak?  That was really stupid.  I kind of expected these mistakes from the previews.  The really big missed opportunity was the scenes of Wolverine and Sabretooth in all the various wars throughout history.  Those seemed more promising than the rest of the film.  The ending was terrible and a real downer—too many depressing superhero movies lately.  I thought of a better one right away: what if Lynn Collins’ character is alive but thinks Wolverine is dead?  Lovers are tragically separated, but with a chance to get reunited one day.

Basically, I went in knowing it was a very flawed movie, but just enjoyed it for mindless escapism.

But here’s one thing that’s always bothered me.  Why spend a lot of time and effort coming up with a failed movie script, done by committee, when you have the perfect source material for a film?

I’ve always thought the original Wolverine mini-series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller was practically begging for a cinematic adaption.  It’s self contained, it’s got a classic three act story structure, and it has that man vs animal conflict that’s always tortured Logan.

This mini-series blew the entire legion of fans away when it was published in 1982.  Claremont and Miller were at the top of their abilities when they collaborated on the story—supposedly during a car trip after a comics convention.  The first issue features an opening scene made for one of those panoramic helicopter shots where Wolverine is tracking down a wild bear in the Canadian Rockies.  Ok, if you want to punch that up, make it a Wendigo for the movie—we haven’t seen one of those before.  Logan flies off to Japan in search of his lady friend, Mariko, who it turns out is the daughter of a Japanese Yakuza crime-lord, Shingen.  Shingen gives Logan a bushwacking with a samurai sword, and cast out into Tokyo like a bum.

If that’s not enough action, here’s how issue two starts off…

An arms of ninjas chasing Logan across the rooftops of Tokyo.  Tons of arrows embedded all over Wolverine’s body, but he keeps fighting and slashing.  Zack Snyder, are you interested in filming this?

There’s one problem with making this as a movie: you’ve got to try and make the action scenes more realistic.  The sword fight between Shingen and Wolverine has to be painful for Logan.  Yes, Logan has a healing factor, but he should feel a frackin’ load of pain when a sword pierces his belly or shoulder.  And he doesn’t heal in nanoseconds.  When Liev Schreiber dumps a truckload full of giant logs on top of Logan in the movie, it should have taken Logan at least a few minutes to recover.  Wolverine’s so freakin’ invulnerable in X-Men Origins, he’s almost like Superman.

I predict that if Fox were to adapt this story, more or less as a faithful adaption, they would make twice the profit of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Hire a well known Asian actor for Shingen.  Get Asian (or Asian-American) actresses to play Yukio (Maggie Q would be a good choice, although not of Japanese ancestry) and Mariko, actually shoot part of the production in an Asian country, and you’ve got a big international mega-hit on your hands.

Second choice for a Wolverine adaption?  I’m tempted to say Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s Enemy of the State.  But that’s too frackin’ big.  And Fox wouldn’t have the rights to all the other superhero characters in the story.

I think a good second choice would be Jason Aaron and Ron Garney’s Get Mystique story.  Wolverine takes a helluva lot of punishment in this story.  Imagine if you got Rebecca Romijn back as Mystique.  Do the flashback scenes in the old west and put her in one of the western-madam costumes.  Have Hugh Jackman chase Romijn throughout the middle east in the present day, sniffing out her various disguises.  That’s highly cinematic and after seeing Romijn outwit all kinds of men in Brian DePalma’s Femme Fatale, this is a slam dunk.   

Fox executives, you’ve got plenty of options for good Wolverine stories.  Pick one of them and run with it.  Don’t feel the need to throw in random mutants—have confidence, you own the rights to one of the most popular characters in the history of comics!  Nuff said.