Wolverine in other media

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Wolverine is the only X-Men character to be included in every media adaptation of the X-Men franchise, including film, television, computer and video games, and is the only one to have starred in his own video games.

Contents

[edit] Television

[edit] Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends

Wolverine's two costumes inX-Men: Evolution
Wolverine's two costumes in
X-Men: Evolution

[edit] Pryde of the X-Men

[edit] Marvel animated universe

[edit] X-Men: Evolution

  • In the 2000-2003 animated television series X-Men: Evolution, Wolverine, a man whose past is shrouded in mystery, provides the teenaged X-Men with battle training and creates conflict among his younger teammates. Scott McNeil provides his voice.

[edit] Robot Chicken

  • Wolverine appears in the Robot Chicken episode "Sausage Fest." He is among the featured X-Men that are killed in battle against a Sentinel.

[edit] Wolverine and the X-Men

[edit] Film casting

Many actors were considered in casting Wolverine in a film adaptation of X-Men. At one point in the 1990s, Glenn Danzig was approached to play Wolverine in ad hoc committee X-Men film, because he bore an uncanny resemblance to the character, as well as being the same height as Wolverine, and very muscular. However, he had to decline, due to the fact that the shooting for the film would force him to put a halt to touring with his band for nine months.[1]

Bryan Singer, the director of the first two X-Men movies, spoke to a number of actors about the role. He says Russell Crowe was too exhausted after playing a similar role in Gladiator; that the role didn't appeal to Edward Norton (Norton would later be cast as fellow Marvel hero Hulk for the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk); and that Fox themselves ruled out Mel Gibson as being too expensive. In 1999, SFX magazine spoke to Keanu Reeves, who told the publication he didn't feel he was right for the role.

Eventually, Dougray Scott was cast as Wolverine, but shooting on Mission: Impossible II overran. Hugh Jackman became his replacement, and went on to play Wolverine in all the X-Men films: X-Men, X2: X-Men United, and X-Men: The Last Stand. When it was first announced, it was considered a highly controversial move[citation needed], as Hugh Jackman was not only known solely for his musical theater career, but the fact that he was simply too tall for the role (Jackman being 6'3", the comic-book version of Wolverine being approximately 5'3"). Despite these divergences though, Jackman's actual performance was very well received.[2] He is also slated as Wolverine for a prequel movie revealing more on Wolverine's origins.

[edit] Movie plots

[edit] - X-Men (2000)

At the beginning of X-Men, Logan / Wolverine is introduced as a cigar-smoking hunk in Canada where he picks on persons in cage fights to make money, taking advantage of his adamantium skeleton. Later in the bar, he is confronted by a young Marie, who changes her name to Rogue (Anna Paquin) as she had put her boyfriend into coma while kissing him and hence, ran away from Mississippi. It is here that she sees Wolverine's retractable adamantium claws, when the latter engages in a fight. When he is about to leave in his truck, Rogue introduces herself to him and asks if she come along. At first, he declines, but later he accepts and takes her with him.

On their way, their truck is attacked by a mutant named Sabretooth (Tyler Mane). Wolverine tries to battle with him, but is knocked out. Before Sabretooth can do any further damage, he is stopped and chased away by two other mysterious mutants, Cyclops (James Marsden) and Storm (Halle Berry), who rescue both Wolverine and Rogue and bring them to the X-Mansion.

When Dr. Jean Grey (Famke Jannsen) tries to treat Wolverine, he comes to his senses and immediately starts exploring the place. He finds out that there are mutants like him there who were trying to control their unnatural abilities under the tutelage of Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Professor X convinces Wolverine to stay with them and become an X-Man, as he could get an opportunity to learn more about his forgotten past. Wolverine agrees and stays.

Later, Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), impersonating as Bobby Drake / Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), tells Rogue to leave the place as "she is a danger to everybody else". This was actually a trick to lure Rogue out of the X-Mansion, so that she could be used by Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen) in the success of a machine that could turn all humans into mutants. When Wolverine finds out about Rogue's absence, he along with the X-Men reach the Statue of Liberty where Magneto is operating on his plans. In the process, Wolverine encounters Mystique and stabs her, virtually killing her, but she survives. He is also challenged by Sabretooth and they both engage in a fight, but Cyclops knocks Sabretooth off the Statue and he crashes in the boat below. In the end, Wolverine frees Rogue from Magneto and machine, and takes her back to the X-Mansion. As a reward of his victory along with the X-Men, Professor X gives Wolverine a hint for the search of his past, directing him to a mysterious Alkali Lake. At the end of the film, Wolverine is seen leaving the mansion on Scott's (Cyclops) bike towards his destination.

[edit] - X2: X-Men United (2003)

Continuing his search that he started at the end of X-Men, Wolverine finally discovers the Alkali Lake, but only finds an old and deserted factory, giving no clue about his forgotten past. He is disappointed and returns to the X-Mansion after a call from Professor X.

Upon returning, Wolverine is given the responsibility to look after the mutant children in the mansion in Professor X's absence, who plans to visit Magneto in his "plastic prison" with Cyclops to discover what information had he given to William Stryker (Brian Cox). Jean Grey and Storm also leave in search of Nightcrawler (Alan Cummings), who was found guilty of attacking the President of the United States. When the Professor is interrogating Magneto, he learns that Magneto had leaked all the information about the X-Mansion and the Cerebro to Stryker. Moreover, Professor X is later kidnapped along with Cyclops by Stryker's forces.

Back in the X-Mansion, at night, Wolverine has nightmares of his involvement in the mysterious Weapon X program, and decides to walk around the mansion, where he starts chatting with Bobby / Iceman. But all of a sudden, Stryker along with his military troops, invades the mansion and starts to the look for the Cerebro. Wolverine takes out many of the soldiers, and saves the mutant children. He asks Colossus / Piotr Rasputin (Daniel Cudmore), Bobby, Rogue and Pyro / John Allerdyce (Aaron Stanford) to leave. And as Wolverine is about to escape too, he is confronted by William Stryker, whose presence strikes more forgotten memories in his mind. But he shakes out of it, and leaves with the remaining X-Men in a car for Boston to Bobby's house. Meanwhile, Stryker finds the Cerebro and steals it.

When Storm and Jean, along with Nightcrawler, learn of the attack on the X-Mansion from Wolverine, they head towards Boston in the X-Jet to recruit the X-Men from Bobby's house. During the X-Men's journey, Magneto and Mystique, who helped the former to escape from his prison, offer their help to the X-Men in bringing down William Stryker, who, as revealed by Magneto, was planning to use Professor X and his handling of the Cerebro to kill all the mutants on Earth. He also reveals Stryker's base of operations to be the Alkali Lake. The X-Men agree to form the alliance.

At the Alkali Lake, Jean finds that Stryker's base was underground. Mystique, impersonating as Wolverine, infiltrates the base and tricks Stryker's troops to open a gateway for the X-Men to enter. There, Wolverine decides to explore the base all by himself and he comes across a laboratory where he sees his claws' scratch marks on the walls. Now, he starts remembering what happened to him and how he was experimented upon with the adamantium. William Stryker arrives and clears Wolverine's doubts, revealing that he had created the "animal within Wolverine". When Wolverine is about to get his hands on him, Stryker introduces another mutant with adamantium skeleton and claws, Lady Deathstrike / Yuriko Oyama (Kelly Hu), who battles Wolverine but is disabled by him. Wolverine trails Styker, when meanwhile the X-Men rescue Cyclops, Professor X and the kidnapped mutant children.

After the destruction of his base, Stryker tries to flee in his helicopter but is caught by Wolverine and interrogated. Stryker refuses to cooperate and is pinned by Wolverine, who leaves him to be drowned in the flood water. When the X-Men are about to leave, Jean sacrifices herself by protecting them from the flood. Wolverine and Cyclops mourn her death. In the end of the film, Wolverine, hiding his love for Jean, tells Cyclops that Jean had always loved him and had chosen to be with Scott.

[edit] X-Men Origins: Wolverine

20th Century Fox has set Gavin Hood to direct Hugh Jackman in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, an "X-Men" spinoff that was written by David Benioff.

The film, which begins production in November for a 2008 release, will be produced by Lauren Shuler-Donner, Jackman and his Seed Productions partner John Palermo.

Using several resources that include the Marvel Comics lore, along with the more recent Weapon X graphic novels by Frank Miller, Wolverine mixes action with an origin story about how Logan emerged from a barbaric experiment as an indestructible mutant with retractable razor-sharp claws.[3]

20th Century Fox has registered http://www.wolverineorigins.com giving belief that the Wolverine spin-off film may be called Origins: Wolverine or Wolverine Origins. There has been no official confirmation of the film title from the studio.[4]

[edit] Video games

See also: List of X-Men computer and video games

Wolverine is a playable character (often the primary or default playable character) in all X-Men video games and many Marvel video games in general. Marvel's X-Men (video game), X-Men (arcade game), X-Men (Sega), X-Men 2: Clone Wars

[edit] Solo games

[edit] Fighting games

[edit] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

[edit] Movie tie-in games

[edit] Spider-Man related games

[edit] X-Men Legends and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

[edit] Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects

[edit] X-Men: Mutant Academy and X-Men: Next Dimension

[edit] Music

The Bloodhound Gang mention Wolverine in the song "Why's Everybody Always Pickin' On Me?". In the first few lines, the song states that when the person was born, "Wolverine is less hairy than your son", referencing Wolverine's prodigious body hair.

The band Entombed has an album, Wolverine Blues, with Wolverine on an alternate cover. The album also had a single of the same name. The band, though, did not intend to associate the album or the song with the character - even though the music video of the title track contains many images of Wolverine.

Brazilian rock singer Nasi, of Ira! fame, because of his similarity with the character, in his first solo album, called "Onde os Anjos Não Ousam Pisar" has posed as Wolverine, with a cigar and adamantium claws. The album has also a track called "Wolverine Blues", but it has no connection with the Entombed version.

The punk band Rancid has a song called "Sidekick" which mentions Wolverine fighting police officers and government agents to protect homeless people.

The rap artist Xzibit references Wolverine in his song X (Xzibit song), with the (admittedly incorrect) line "My whole skeleton is dipped in titanium".

[edit] Action figures

Wolverine has often been rendered in plastic, either independently, or in conjunction with other media. Mattel was the first, with the 1984 Secret Wars line, supported by five points of articulation, including the neck, shoulders and hips. Among other notable figures, started a controversial trend in toys: the variant. His claws came in two different color options, one set silver, the other set black. When collectors began trying to complete their sets for Secret Wars, the silver set was readily available, while the black set was found to be rare.

While Wolverine was the first to be rendered in plastic, the other X-Men would go several years with no interest, until 1992 when Night of the Sentinels was shown in animated form. With a toy line in stores retailing at roughly five inches, they had a modest roster of seven figures. The sculpts were a cross between DC's Superpowers line and GI Joe. The points of articulation included on these figures were relatively standard, but many of the figures also include action features as well.

Out of the twenty-eight waves of the X-Men line produced by Toybiz, starting with 1991s series 1, only two series of the line did not feature a Wolverine (Counting Albert, because his package clearly states; "Robot Wolverine"...) Twenty-six figures were eventually produced, but with; repaints, two-ups (10" figures) or reissues, the total count is uncertain.

In 1998, Marvel had begun producing X-Men: Evolution in '99, and that Line of toys yielded a net of six Wolverine action figures. But at the same time of the movies release, Wolverine gave us another nine figures. X-Men: Evolution's. The toy line performed well, as Toybiz began producing figures in 6" to support the character's animated exploits. In 2003, they featured a figures with twenty-six POA. X-men:Classics were 6" and they added three Wolverines...

Marvel Legends started in 2002, releasing two solid waves with no Wolverine. Toy Biz boasted 26+ POA (points of articulation), extreme detail, and excellent paint applications. It seemed that Marvel wanted to create iconic versions of all their characters with the collector in mind. Gone were the days of colorful, childlike toy packages. They were replaced with; impenetrable clamshells that flattered the characters in general.

During Toy Biz's production of Marvel Legends, there were a total of 13 Wolverine figures produced. These included Classic costume (with unmasked variant), Brown costume, a Weapon X figure, a "Days of Future Past" Logan figure (with younger variant), an "Astonishing X-Men" costume (with unmasked variant), an "Age of Apocalypse" figure (with burnt face variant), another unmasked Classic costume model (With a different head sculpt included in an X-Men 5-pack boxset) and an original costume model included in a 2-pack with Sabretooth (a variant "raging" model was also produced). Toy Biz as well produced a short-lived X-Men Classics toy line which included two more Wolverine figures. Another X-Men line was released in 2005 which included Ninja Armor Wolverine, Stealth Wolverine and Air Strike Wolverine action figures.

In 2007, Hasbro took over production of Marvel Legends. The 2nd wave of figures produced included an "Ultimate" Wolverine figure. Also they produced a 25th Anniversity Wolverine exclusively to Toys R Us. The figure itself is just a repaint of Toybiz's Marvel Legends Series 6 Wolverine painted silver. The package comes with no BAF and features a picture of his famous solo series.

Diamond Select began a Marvel Select collectors line-up. They promised even more detail than the X-Men and Marvel Legends lines. Although they weren't in scale with the other figures, offered more Wolverines, three to date. Marvel Legends has provided 13 different figures, including variants, including deluxe scale figures and Icons.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ MTV News. June 3, 1997
  2. ^ Daily Poll: Superhero casting. IMDb. Retrieved on 2006-10-21.
  3. ^ Gavin Hood to Direct Wolverine! - Superhero Hype!
  4. ^ » ‘Origins’ Included In Titles?

[edit] References