ORIGIN STORIES: Wolverine, Canucklehead – The Writing on the Wall

In light of last week’s epic undertaking, I thought I’d keep it light today. Does anyone remember the four issue stint Warren Ellis had on Wolverine in the late 90’s? No? That’s okay, allow me to educate.

Not Dead Yet is a story about revenge told in intercutting flashbacks. 10 years ago, Wolverine knew a Scotchman by the name of McLeish. McLeish was a killer for hire, so right away these guys had a lot in common. But this is a friendship one of these men would not survive. The problems start when Logan discovers that McLeish has killed his girlfriend’s father. Of course, this shit will not stand, so Logan chases McLeish down and blows him up. Guy should be dead right? Wrong… and not even close. Flash forward to the present… Logan’s just chilling in the East Village on his way home. In his apartment, he finds a dead body and a bomb. BOOM, Logan’s sent flying through the window to the streets below. Sensing his old nemesis is alive and well, Logan goes about trying to track the dead man down. Too bad he’s suddenly attacked by a bunch of randoms who play bumper cars with his body. The story continues from here, with more flashbacks and more “dead man tracking” and more bad guys with adamantium bullets. Logan eventually locates the dead man McLeish and a final confrontation is had. One of them doesn’t walk away. This isn’t a “THE END” story, so it’s easy to guess who. I’ve spoiled the ending but I don’t want to spoil the details, because that’s where the real fun is. Find this story and read it for yourself. It’s worth the effort, I promise.

The genius of this tale is Ellis’ ability to strike while the iron is hot. Sure, his involvement on the title was a direct result of the artist, Leinil Francis Yu, soliciting him about doing a Wolverine project, but that really is beside the point. This story just wouldn’t have worked if Wolverine wasn’t adamantiumless at the time. This is an Ellis trademark of late, quickly getting in and out of a mainstream superhero title, and here we see one of the first instances of this practice. Some of you may hate this. Recently, Ellis announced that he’s leaving Thunderbolts to jump onto Astonishing, and in a little over a year, he’ll probably jump off that to do something else. This is monumentally confounding for diehard fans. We want our favorite creators to remain chained to every project they undertake. But, we have to understand that these creators get bored, and what’s more, they don’t own the copyright to these characters. It would be an extremely unwise business move for a top name creator to remain on a book he can’t make royalties on. And, in the long run we the fans would suffer most. If Ellis didn’t end Nextwave, would we have his stellar Thunderbolts run? If he doesn’t leave Thunderbolts, do we get the chance for an epic Astonishing run? And does a guy like Ellis still have the time to write all his creator-owned projects? Sure, he may be writing too many right now, but that’s a subject of another rant… anyway, I’m going off-topic, let’s get back to Vs.

Moving over to design and development, the Wolverine art request was inspired by this specific image:

 

Using that image as reference, I wrote the following request. Keep in mind, the setting was altered a bit to fit the “New York” theme I’d set up for the rest of the Spider-Friends. This is a perfect example of what happens when the comic to card conversion is more of an interpretation than a direct translation. Like when a screenwriter adapts a book into a movie. They both share the same common themes, but the key differences are in the details.

Wolverine, Canucklehead
Setting: Back Alley, New York - Night
Action: Wolverine’s in the center of the image, ripping his bullet riddled street clothes off. He’s mask-less and bleeding from multiple gun shots wounds to the chest. He has an angry look on his face; the wounds have soured his mood. On the alley wall, there’s a bit of graffiti which reads, “Not Dead Yet”.
Focus: Wolverine
Keywords: Un-killable Scrapper, Savage Beast

With all the Wolverines we’ve done in the past, I was surprised that “Canucklehead” was available for versioning. Of course, we had to use it. Especially since the last time we saw him in MHG, he was the ‘Skrunucklehead”. There’s nothing we love more than parallels in flavor and in design.

In late May of 2006, Yip began design work on Marvel Team-Up. He started with Spider-Friends and jumped around from there. By early June, he shipped me his first draft. First drafts are usually only partial files. About a third of the cards have full, fleshed out designs in their text boxes. Another third have little flavor ideas, like sketches about which direction the designer is thinking of going. And the final third are usually blank. In the first file, Wolverine had the following text box:

ATK: 13 / DEF: 11
TEXT: Pay 2 DEF >>> Ready Wolverine and he cannot cause breakthrough this turn. Use this power only once per turn and only while Wolverine is attacking.

A version of this power would eventually move to the Dual Loyalty Moon Knight, Fist of KhonShu. A month later, in July…

ATK: 13 / DEF: 12
TEXT: Reservist. Wolverine can’t be stunned while attacking while you control Spider-Man.

Hey, it’s the final version of Wolverine! Not quite. A week later Yip sent this one over…

ATK: 12 / DEF: 11
TEXT: Pay 3 DEF >>> Wolverine gets +3 ATK this turn. Use this power only once per turn.

Okay, what the heck? This design was eventually discarded when the Spider Friends began taking a firmer shape. The Spider Friends would be paying ATK as a team, so paying DEF was out of the question. Paying DEF would be reserved for more aggressive teams like Sinister Syndicate. By August, Wolverine had reverted to the earlier, superior design…

ATK: 13 / DEF: 12
TEXT: Reservist. While you control Spider-Man, Wolverine can’t be stunned while attacking.

Not Dead Yet stands as one of my favorite Wolverine stories of all-time, and certainly one of the best pieces written by Warren Ellis. That said, I was incredibly happy with the way Wolverine turned out. The art we got back for it was excellent and Yip’s design was solid. He may not be game-breaking, since his ability only shines when you have the initiative, but he’s still a solid card and deadly in draft when taking the evens.

That’s it for this week’s Origin Stories, thanks for reading. If you’re looking to pick up the trade of Wolverine: Not Dead Yet, it may currently be out of print. But don’t despair, you might have more luck tracking down the single issues (Wolverine Vol. 1 #119-122) than locating the sold-out trade. Check back next Wednesday for more behind the scenes infos and maybe a spoiler or two about the next set. Or, that last part could be a lie. You’ve been warned. Also: keep checking VsSystem.com for Marvel Universe Preview updates and join me there Friday for the S.H.I.E.L.D. Team Preview.

BE SOMEBODY!!!

Tags: Marvel Comics, Versus, Warren Ellis, Wolverine