With the release of X-Men 3 and X-Men: Evolution Season Three on DVD next week, I thought it'd be fun to do a few retrospective threads on characters in the upcoming movie, and I'll be starting with Wolverine because he's my favourite. As always, the images in this thread appear courtesy of Marvel Animation Age. Enjoy!
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Originally envisioned as an enemy to The Incredible Hulk in the 1970’s, Wolverine made his debut in the title as a villain to ol’ Jade Jaws but quickly found himself answering a plea for help from Professor Xavier after finding out that his X-Men were missing and needed rescuing. So, in Giant Sized X-Men #1, a slightly revamped Wolverine joined The X-Men and their popularity soared onto legendary levels a few short months afterwards as Chris Claremont took over the book and began a run that helped turn The X-Men from B stringers into the most popular superhero team in comics.
Due to their ever-increasing popularity, Marvel hoped The X-Men would become as popular on Saturday mornings as they were in comic stores and made a few attempts to get them on TV by having them as guest stars on Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends. Surprisingly, considering his popularity, Wolverine was not amongst those shown in their first animated appearance in the 80’s, as it was reserved strictly for the original members of the team, complete with Jack Kirby jumpsuits. Indeed, as Arsenal pointed out in The X-Men retrospective, even Toad was on the small screen before the most popular X-Man ever. It seems odd, but considering Logan’s debut later on in the show in A Firestar Is born, it becomes clear as to why this was.
The episode in question sees Firestar and Iceman return to Xavier’s Institute for a reunion and they met the new members, including Cyclops, Angel, Storm, Xavier and at long last, Wolverine. Wolverine dons the traditional yellow and blue costume and oddly enough, is apparently Australian. The episode is probably best known for completely and utterly embarrassing Wolverine, making the most bad ass X-Man ever into a complete jobber for Juggernaut. After fighting Juggy for all of 5 seconds, Wolverine gets his claws stuck in the wall and spends the rest of the episode watching Spider-Man defeat Juggernaut. For shame…
It appears that the 1980’s weren’t quite sure what to do with Wolverine, as his claws were no doubt too violent for the intense standards of BS and P, who believed fighting, violence and fisticuffs had no place in action cartoons. Were I to actually finish my Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends site before I started this, you could have read Arsenal’s humorous review of the episode, but I…am running out of excuses as to why it’s not completed. Check back next week. Or the week after (I’ve to sit through yet another Video Man episode)
Back on topic, The X-Men later appeared in another backdoor pilot for their own show on Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends, dubbed The X-Men Adventure. Wolverine wasn’t present, but Thunderbird made the cut. No one was impressed after the episode aired.
Tired of pleading to networks how good an X-Men cartoon could be, Marvel decided to bite the bullet and produced a full pilot episode, which they funded themselves. Practically unheard of then and even rarer now, Pryde Of The X-Men featured a completely different X-Men cast and was worlds apart from their previous appearances. The roster included Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Collosus, Dazzler (?!), newbie Kitty and of course, our beloved Logan.
The pilot is typical 80’s cheese despite it’s breathtaking animation, and the less said about this version of Wolverine, the better. Once again, the annoying Australian accent returns (Sorry Crow) and he spends most of the episode complaining about how annoying Kitty was, whilst the audience agreed with his every word, completely unaware that they would share the same grievances about Jubilee years later. Undoubtedly the best thing about this version of Wolverine is his costume. The tan suit makes its only animation appearance here and thanks to the high quality of the animation, it looks fantastic. In short, sounds bad, looks great. The series was never picked up, but made a killing on VHS.
Looking back, it appears the only people who didn’t want The X-Men on TV was the networks. As with the spectacular Incredible Hulk cartoon of the time, it didn’t appeal to the executives who firmly believed that The Smurfs were the future of animation. Horrifyingly enough, the same mentality that ran networks in the 80’s seems to be returning to modern children’s networks, meaning we’ll soon have a line up of children’s TV which will be as awful as it was back in the day. Yes folks, the 80’s were a bad time for children’s TV. Except The A Team, that was awesome.
Up Next: X-Men: The Animated Series
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Originally envisioned as an enemy to The Incredible Hulk in the 1970’s, Wolverine made his debut in the title as a villain to ol’ Jade Jaws but quickly found himself answering a plea for help from Professor Xavier after finding out that his X-Men were missing and needed rescuing. So, in Giant Sized X-Men #1, a slightly revamped Wolverine joined The X-Men and their popularity soared onto legendary levels a few short months afterwards as Chris Claremont took over the book and began a run that helped turn The X-Men from B stringers into the most popular superhero team in comics.
Due to their ever-increasing popularity, Marvel hoped The X-Men would become as popular on Saturday mornings as they were in comic stores and made a few attempts to get them on TV by having them as guest stars on Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends. Surprisingly, considering his popularity, Wolverine was not amongst those shown in their first animated appearance in the 80’s, as it was reserved strictly for the original members of the team, complete with Jack Kirby jumpsuits. Indeed, as Arsenal pointed out in The X-Men retrospective, even Toad was on the small screen before the most popular X-Man ever. It seems odd, but considering Logan’s debut later on in the show in A Firestar Is born, it becomes clear as to why this was.
![10.jpg](http://marvel.toonzone.net/spideyfriends/episode/firestarborn/10.jpg)
The episode in question sees Firestar and Iceman return to Xavier’s Institute for a reunion and they met the new members, including Cyclops, Angel, Storm, Xavier and at long last, Wolverine. Wolverine dons the traditional yellow and blue costume and oddly enough, is apparently Australian. The episode is probably best known for completely and utterly embarrassing Wolverine, making the most bad ass X-Man ever into a complete jobber for Juggernaut. After fighting Juggy for all of 5 seconds, Wolverine gets his claws stuck in the wall and spends the rest of the episode watching Spider-Man defeat Juggernaut. For shame…
It appears that the 1980’s weren’t quite sure what to do with Wolverine, as his claws were no doubt too violent for the intense standards of BS and P, who believed fighting, violence and fisticuffs had no place in action cartoons. Were I to actually finish my Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends site before I started this, you could have read Arsenal’s humorous review of the episode, but I…am running out of excuses as to why it’s not completed. Check back next week. Or the week after (I’ve to sit through yet another Video Man episode)
Back on topic, The X-Men later appeared in another backdoor pilot for their own show on Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends, dubbed The X-Men Adventure. Wolverine wasn’t present, but Thunderbird made the cut. No one was impressed after the episode aired.
Tired of pleading to networks how good an X-Men cartoon could be, Marvel decided to bite the bullet and produced a full pilot episode, which they funded themselves. Practically unheard of then and even rarer now, Pryde Of The X-Men featured a completely different X-Men cast and was worlds apart from their previous appearances. The roster included Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Collosus, Dazzler (?!), newbie Kitty and of course, our beloved Logan.
![51.jpg](http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/pryde/51.jpg)
The pilot is typical 80’s cheese despite it’s breathtaking animation, and the less said about this version of Wolverine, the better. Once again, the annoying Australian accent returns (Sorry Crow) and he spends most of the episode complaining about how annoying Kitty was, whilst the audience agreed with his every word, completely unaware that they would share the same grievances about Jubilee years later. Undoubtedly the best thing about this version of Wolverine is his costume. The tan suit makes its only animation appearance here and thanks to the high quality of the animation, it looks fantastic. In short, sounds bad, looks great. The series was never picked up, but made a killing on VHS.
Looking back, it appears the only people who didn’t want The X-Men on TV was the networks. As with the spectacular Incredible Hulk cartoon of the time, it didn’t appeal to the executives who firmly believed that The Smurfs were the future of animation. Horrifyingly enough, the same mentality that ran networks in the 80’s seems to be returning to modern children’s networks, meaning we’ll soon have a line up of children’s TV which will be as awful as it was back in the day. Yes folks, the 80’s were a bad time for children’s TV. Except The A Team, that was awesome.
Up Next: X-Men: The Animated Series
![11.jpg](http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/bios/heroes/wolverine/11.jpg)