#2 Monday Morning Musings

Wolverine, the New X-Men and Character Creation

"Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan."

Who said that? I did. So did JFK. And George Washington. And loads of other idiots across time. But, who coined it?

Your guess is as good as anyone’s really.

So, who created the Marvel Comics character Wolverine?

Again, now, your guess is as good as anyone’s. Or is it?

For a long, long while now, the official creators of Wolverine, as you see the character here, were writer Len Wein, designer John Romita and artist Herb Trimpe. That’s how the credit was assigned. Wolverine was created before any creative was given royalties for when their creations would appear anywhere. If Wolverine had been created a few years later, during the Shooter era, then Len, John and Herb would have been making money. And a fair chunk of it would have come via the X-Men and Wolverine films.

Sadly, that’s not the case. So, who did create Wolverine? For years now, another voice has been heard, but not really listened to.

Roy Thomas.

Let’s explore a bit.

In 2018, my good chum, Bryan Stroud, interviewed Len Wein. The following exchange was had.

Stroud:  You bet.  You created Wolverine, in fact, isn’t that true?

LW:  I did.  I created Wolverine; I created Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Thunderbird, the Punisher’s arch-enemy Jigsaw.

Cut and dried? Nope.

Here’s another Wein quote: "When I first created Wolverine, I created him as a Canadian mutant specifically so that whoever ended up with the assignment of writing the new X-Men book, should it ever occur, would have a Canadian mutant handy if he wanted him," Wein said during an interview for the 2013 PBS documentary miniseries Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle.

Honestly, there’s countless interviews with Len talking about how he created Wolverine. Just Google ‘Len Wein Wolverine’ and knock yourself out.

So, he has a name and a basic idea of what he wants. A short, feisty, Canadian secret agent.

As an aside, Len once sent me a very abusive email when I was researching for an article. It took Marv Wolfman to bring him back to Earth. Looking back, I deserved it. Sorry Len.

John Romita designed the character. Len Wein said, on the record, that he sat next to John while he did this design, and they worked out the visuals. Nobody has ever disputed that. John has a claim, but then John designed more iconic characters and costumes for Marvel than anyone. This was just another hour or so out of a day for him.

I miss John. He was always lovely to me, and gave me some genuine scoops back in the day when I was doing interviews and dabbling in comic book journalism. Wonderful guy.

Herb Trimpe was the first artist to draw the character for publication. Herb probably got tired of people asking for Wolverine sketches, but he continued to draw them right up to the end. Herb was just too nice a guy to dispute anything really, and nobody can dispute that Herb did that story. He has a claim, even if he did just trace over John Romita’s sketch for the last panel that fully introduced Wolverine to the Marvel Universe. Herb always wanted things to be just right, and if John said that’s how it’s to look, then Herb wasn’t one to argue.

I still miss Herb. He was a great guy. Always great to talk to, and it’s a shame that he never got to draw Superman professionally. That was the one character that he really wanted to do.

And then there’s Roy Thomas. Personally, for what it’s worth, I like Roy. He’s always been amazingly kind and decent to me, so this is not a stitch up.

In 2006 the book Comics Creators On X-Men was released. The book contains interviews conducted by former Marvel Comics EiC Tom DeFalco. Tom didn’t interview Len Wein, John Romita or Herb Trimpe, but he did speak to Roy Thomas, who was the Marvel Editor in Chief at the time of Wolverine’s creation.

Roy recalled how the new X-Men came about. To summarize; Stan Lee, Al Landau (Marvel’s then publisher) and Roy had a meeting. Maybe John Verpoorten, Marvels then production manager, was there, maybe not, Roy couldn’t fully recall. Landau suggested an international X-Men, as opposed to the distinctly American superheroes running around in Marvel comics, Stan and Roy liked the idea (does that now mean Al Landau is the creator of the New X-Men?). Roy fleshed it out, he’d have Cyclops and perhaps Jean Grey, aka Marvel Girl, from the original X-Men, the rest would need to be created.

Roy then assigned one of his best chums, writer Mike Freidrich to write the new comic, and Dave Cockrum, who’d recently come over from DC Comics, as the artist. According to Roy, once Len Wein replaced him as Editor in Chief, he assigned himself (Len) to the job as writer of the New X-Men, replacing Mike. Hey, these things happen. At no point did Roy mention Wolverine as a potential for the new team.

Tom DeFalco also asked Roy about the creation of Wolverine. Here’s how that exchange went.

That’s right. Roy claimed that he created Wolverine. Further to that, Roy claimed that the visuals were based on a Dave Cockrum sketch.

Well, maybe, maybe not. What they likely saw was a character sketch that Dave had done during his time on DC Comics Legion of Superheroes. While working on that book, Dave introduced a new costume for a character called Timber Wolf. Timber Wolf had been created by John Forte and Edmond Hamilton in 1964.

Timber Wolf was a bit of joke. In the book he was in, the Legion of Superheroes, he’d become besotted by a fellow Legionnaire, Light Lass. When she spurned him, he became addicted to the juice of the Lotus Fruit. He then was bombarded by radiation, mutating him into a character known as Furball.

Hey, don’t look at me. I didn’t write that shit. I didn’t even read it. Even as a kid, it was a bit too silly.

Anyway, he’s found, cured and yadda yadda yadda, Dave Cockrum redesigned his look and there we have it. A DC Comics character that looks strikingly familiar. See for yourself.

Towards the end of original X-Men run, Dave Cockrum, who was the artist on that book, had Wolverine wear a costume formerly owned by a throwaway character named Fang, who was very thinly based upon his earlier Timberwolf character. The result?

That makes Wolverine, in the Fang costume, pretty much Timberwolf with claws. It is worth bearing in mind that when Wolverine was first shown without a mask, with the now familiar hairstyle, was in an X-Men comic drawn by Dave Cockrum. As you’ll note, both Timberwolf and Wolverine have the same barber.

So, who created Wolverine?

In the past week, Marvel have reached out to Len Wein’s widow and told her that, officially, the creators will now, and forever, be known as Roy Thomas, Len Wein and John Romita. As former Marvel editor, Bobbie Chase, recounted, “Recently my friend and Len Wein’s widow, Christine Valada, got a call from Marvel executive David Bogart, informing her that in the upcoming Wolverine & Deadpool movie (coming out this July), Roy Thomas will now be credited as the co-creator with Len Wein and John Romita Sr., and David said it’s a done deal. I was standing in Christine’s kitchen this past Sunday as she told me about the phone call. Of course Christine is seriously concerned about Len’s legacy. Len was profoundly important to the comic book industry, and that legacy is being changed for the worse, six years after his death.”

Bobbie followed it up with this, “In which case, I’ll be taking credit for Danny Ketch, Ghost Rider. Once writer Howard Mackie and artist Javier Saltares are dead, of course. And maybe after my former assistant editor Christian Cooper’s death as well, for good measure.”

What’s a likely scenario?

Roy and Stan want to revive the then reprint X-Men title. They need new characters.

Mike Friedrich mentions to Roy that Dave Cockrum has a pile of characters in his sketch book. They have a peek. They take Nightcrawler, Storm and Colossus. Fully formed and realized. As they need a Beast-like character, Roy takes a fancy to Timberwolf. Dave says, nope, already taken by DC.

Roy chats to Stan and Al Landau. Al says that Marvel are doing well in Canada, so why not a Canadian character? Yay, says Roy. A Canadian Beast-like character called The Badger, later named Wolverine as The Badger is a crap name for a character. Mike Baron applauds this change around a decade later.

Roy has lunch with Len, offers him the job of relaunching the X-Men with Dave, says they need one more character, called Wolverine, from Canada. Go for it.

Len has a think about it, jots some ideas down and walks into Marvel. “Hey, legendary comic book artist John Romita, I need a design.” John Romita and Len Wein sit down, nut some things out, Len walks off with a design. He gives it to Herb Trimpe, who traces it, and they introduce the new character, Wolverine, after discarding the alternative suggestion of Trash Panda, in the pages of The Incredible Hulk 180-181 and 182.

Len then goes to Dave Cockrum, they introduce the new, mysterious, one dimensional character into Giant-Size X-Men #1, and the rest is history.

Along the way others, notably Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Frank Miller, flesh the character’’s backstory and history out. Dave draws Wolverine out of costume, gives him Timberwolf’s haircut and, unlike Timberwolf’s Little Orphan Annie eyes, gives him eyeballs. Chris gives him a name - Logan.

Chris also introduces the adamantium skeleton and claws that come from his body (in an early issue of the relaunched X-Men, Wolverine pops his claws out the back of his hands to the amazement of fellow X-Man Banshee who says that he thought that the claws were part of the costume, which they were at the start. “Jesus Murphy! There’s a lot you don’t know about me, eh, ya hoser,” replies the Canadian Wolverine, “and it’ll take several decades and all kinds of writers and artists and editors to write all kinds of crap before you do, and even then Hugh Jackman will come in and throw a lot of that out the window. Now where’s me back bacon, pal, ya keener? “Begorra!” says Banshee, who was from oul Ireland, “That sounds like a lot of feckin’ shite, if you ask me, bejaysus, to be sure. It sounds all arseways. I’m knackered thinkin’ aboot it. I’m off for a bag of tayto and a pint of the black stuff with me oul fella.” An approximation of how American comic book writers wrote Irish and Canadian characters). Chris also introduces a mutant healing factor that has now been enhanced to the point where the dude simply cannot die. Chris introduced a lot, John Byrne introduced even more and Frank Miller went even further by expanding out the Japanese Ronin/Samurai aspects. The panel you see below is pure Byrne and did more than anything to help define the character.

And so on, and so on and there you have it. Or not.

Why the fuss now? Why, after fifty years, change the credits from Len Wein and John Romita to Roy Thomas, Len Wein and John Romita? Why has Roy’s manager, John Cimino, made this claim now?

Because Roy is the last man standing.

Len Wein died Sept 10, 2017. Herb Trimpe died April 13, 2015. Stan Lee died November 12, 2018 and John Romita Sr. died June 12, 2023.

Cimino has been pushing the claim, starting a few months after Len, who could dispute it, died. And he’s been making a case for Roy to Marvel since then as well. A very, very strong case, which really gathered speed when John Romita died and the new Deadpool & Wolverine movie was announced.

Everyone who was in the room is now dead, even Al Landau and John Verpoorten (who might have been there, might not, who knows). Mike Friedrich is still alive though (thanks to Mark Waid for telling me that).

Everyone except for Roy.

This isn’t a new strategy. Carmine Infantino waited until Julius Schwartz, Bob Kanigher, Gardner Fox, John Broome and Joe Kubert had all died before he laid claim to Batgirl and the modern Flash. DC settled that one. Joe Simon waited until both Jack and Ros Kirby were buried before he published his books claiming that he, alone, created Captain America and Jack was merely an artist he hired to draw the first story. Stan Lee wasn’t at Marvel at the time, so he had no idea.

As creators pass on, more and more of the last men standing will come out and lay claim on creations. And there’s not a lot anyone can do, other than the following: get your stories down, on the record, and when someone pokes their heads up above the parapets, shoot them down, loudly and publicly. And keep doing it. Your heirs will thank you.

As for who created the Wolverine you see in the movies, well, that’s a different kettle of fish. We’ll leave that for another day.

As Mike Marts, himself a long standing comic book editor says, “As a comics editor of 30 years, I can say without a doubt, that our job is to never take credit for the creations that take place under our watch. Our job is to coach, suggest and shepherd. Credit for creation of characters lies with the creators alone.”

In the meantime, I’ll leave the last word to Mark Waid, who knows more about comic books, creation of characters and what goes with it than anyone of us will ever know.

Happy Monday!

Danny (who is sure his parents created him)