Wolverine In Animation - A Retrospective

[Stu]

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

 

[S.C.B]

Looking forward to reading this one, as I found the earlier ones very enjoyable indeed. I too am baffled by the choice to make Wolverine Australian. Maybe the network thought kids wouldn't understand what Canada was?

The sad thing is, that actually doesn't sound to out of the question, considering the state of cartoons back then, as you said.

 

[RAINMAN]

The 80`s were not bad for kids shows. And I like smufes.....back then of course.

 

[Arsenal]

Originally posted by Stu
annoying Australian accent returns (Sorry Crow)

I'm waiting to find out Crow's first name is Russell.

Yeah, Wolverine pre-X:TAS did not work. I don't know if there will ever be an animated Wolverine that satisfies his comic book fans. How could someone create a Saturday-morning appropriate berzerker rage?

I want a Thunderbird: Animation retrospective.

 

[The Overlord]

Yeah, forget the Australian accent, I like the internet flash cartoons where Wolverine has a over the top Canadian accent.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/218160

 

[S.C.B]

Yeah, forget the Australian accent, I like the internet flash cartoons where Wolverine has a over the top Canadian accent.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/218160

That is awesome. So very awesome.

 

[Crow]

I'll be thinking of you pair of comedians when I see X3 early Thursday evening.

 

[ifthismeansevos]

Mmm Newgrounds videos are fun.
I kbnow it's not animation but This tread will talk about the Wolverine in the video games (At least the videogames with a plot)?

 

[The Overlord]

Looking forward to reading this one, as I found the earlier ones very enjoyable indeed. I too am baffled by the choice to make Wolverine Australian. Maybe the network thought kids wouldn't understand what Canada was?

The sad thing is, that actually doesn't sound to out of the question, considering the state of cartoons back then, as you said.

I think they wanted Wolvie to sound foreign and a lot of Canadians sound like Americans. I mean Wolvie wasn't from Newfoundland, he was from Alberta so he would pretty well sound like an American, which is why they made him Australian.

 

[Stu]

Thanks for the feedback. These things are always fun to write, and Wolverine hasn't appeared as much as Spidey so it's a lot easier too!

I too am baffled by the choice to make Wolverine Australian. Maybe the network thought kids wouldn't understand what Canada was?

I'd wager that it had something to do with making him different from the rest of them - a Canadian voice isn't really that different from American (Sorry, Jim) and the accent made him stand out more.

I dunno what was going on with Pryde though - turning the most popular X-Man you have into a whiney little moaner isn't exactly the smartest thing to do. They probably assumed the tan suit would make up for it. They were right!

Yeah, Wolverine pre-X:TAS did not work. I don't know if there will ever be an animated Wolverine that satisfies his comic book fans. How could someone create a Saturday-morning appropriate berzerker rage?

Probably not. Despite his violent nature, the kiddies love him. Given how Saturday morning cartoons are frankly embrassing to watch nowadays, I'd doubt we'll ever seen Wolverine waying laste to hundreds of Hydra agents on TV.

I want a Thunderbird: Animation retrospective.

 

[Stu]

Many years passed and many networks continued to turn down The X-Men, until 1991, when Margaret Loesch, a former employee of Marvel became President of FOX KIDS and finally gave Marvel the opportunity to bring X-Men to the small screen.

With 13 episodes and a fall 1992 premiere date set, the crew went to work. Done with what appears to be a tiny, tiny budget and the cheapest, most God awful animation studio you’ve ever seen, Night Of The Sentinels made it’s debut a few months later than originally planned and featured a whole glutton of mistakes that had to be corrected for future airings.

Now, people have conflicting opinions on this show, mainly since X-Men: Evolution came along, but there is one thing that I don’t believe anyone can deny – this shows version of Wolverine is the balls. A tortured warrior without a past, this show had everything you’d expect to see from Wolverine bar violence. People often complain that he couldn’t do much with his claws due to the increasingly annoying BS and P, but I found the character too interesting to care. He once again donned with yellow and blue costume and was obviously intended to be the favourite – which made his inclusion in the love triangle between himself, Scott and Jean all the more interesting.

“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy” defines Wolverine. I know it was it’s a line from Spider-Man and a lyric from one of my favourite Harvey Danger songs but whoever originally wrote it probably had Wolverine in mind, even if he hadn’t been created yet. Indeed, TAS had a very flawed character on their hands, as from when the show began, Scott and Jean were the happy couple, and Wolverine loved another man’s girl. He also didn’t care for Cyclops in the slightest, partially because of Jean, and because Logan blamed him for Morph’s death and Beast jail time. His reaction, a vicious punch to the gut that I still feel every time despite having seen it dozens of times, doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. With the exception of Jean, I don’t think he liked anyone else at the school. He was jealous of Cyclops, Gambit’s arrogance annoyed him to the point where he constantly played one-ups-man-ship with him, he rarely interacted with Storm, Rogue didn’t appear to care for him, and he was pissed at Xavier for allowing Sabertooth to receive medical attention at the school.

Having had enough, he left the mansion, only to return and save Jubilee from Sabertooth, who was working for Magneto. Proving himself right not to let Sabertooth into the mansion, he was injured in the fight and up and left as soon as he recovered, still feeling his hatred for Cyclops and his relationship with Jean.

Attempting to find peace in Canada (remember folks, Wolverine is Canadian!) he was once again stopped by Sabertooth. His rivalry with Sabertooth was handled well here, and Sabertooth really did come across as a threat. Absolutely fabulous casting helped him tremendously. Sick of all the fighting in his life, he finally admits defeat and returns back to the mansion, where he no doubt feels he can do some real good.

It feels wrong to have talked this long about the awesomeness of Wolverine without mentioning Cal Dodd, the actor who portrayed him in the show. He was absolutely perfect in the role. Kevin Conroy Batman perfect. Many fine actors have lent their voices to Wolverine since, including Scott McNeil, Mark Hamill and Steven Jay Blum but Dodd will always be Wolverine to me. If you don’t hear Dodd’s voice when you read a Wolverine comic, there’s something wrong with you.

After realising that teamwork could indeed be useful against threats, he invited Collosus to join them, probably because he liked him more than everyone else. The following episode features an amusing scene of him being arsey with everyone else and acting like a little sweetheart to Jean.

In the season finale, he established a newfound respect with Cyclops and whooped a hell of a lot of Sentinel ass, finally delivering on his promise to Morph to avenge his death.

If he only knew what awaited him in season two.

 

[Arsenal]

This post is probably the closest I've ever come to flame-bait, but...

X-Men TAS was better than Evo Wolverine. Point blank, period.

Wolverine is an anti-authoritarian. He is not a baby-sitter. (Though he does seem to have an unsettling collection of underage female apprentices... Kitty, Jubilee, X-23.) He doesn't teach kids to drive or give romantic advice. He hits on your woman and threatens to "snikt" your neck if you complain.

Wolverine's a loner. he disappears without explanation to have adventures in Japan, Canada or Madripoor. He isn't a glorified gym teacher who drills pubescents on the basics.

And, for the record, I do hear Cal Dodd's voice when I read comics.

 

[Nightwing]

This post is probably the closest I've ever come to flame-bait, but...

Nonsense! Blasphemy can come not from the holy Animated X-Men Bible! Rejoice in its splender!

I wanna keep praising XMEN TAS (despite the crummy animation from season 1) but I can't get over Wolverine's Animated life in the 80s! What a bum rap! lol. No WONDER his animated self was so grumpy in the 90s!!

Ya know what also comes to mind for me? My favorite arcade game of all time, Marvel vs. Capcom (and it's previous incarnations dating back to Marvel Super Heroes itself).

Play as Wolverine and CAL DODD will voice him for you! Golden!!

Stu, your summary had me rolling in the aisles as much as it provided me with much needed information I previously didn't have. A-quintuple- Plus.

 

[S.C.B]

I haven't seen those first season episodes in so long, it was a great blast to the past to read about them and think about all the memories. When I look at them more objectively, however, I still find this show to be one of the finest Marvel did. When I mention X-Men, chances are people will think of this Wolverine or the movie. Some people I know have said it's 'old school', which seems about right.

And reading all the info here, it seems like this show should have been called Wolverine and the X-Men. Maybe the new show will go in a similar direction.

 

[Stu]

This post is probably the closest I've ever come to flame-bait, but...

X-Men TAS was better than Evo Wolverine. Point blank, period.

Definatly. But I'll come back to that later.

Ya know what also comes to mind for me? My favorite arcade game of all time, Marvel vs. Capcom (and it's previous incarnations dating back to Marvel Super Heroes itself).

Play as Wolverine and CAL DODD will voice him for you! Golden!!

He voices Wolverine in the old X-Men: Mutant Academy games as well, but does more than shout BERSERKER BARRAGE!!! over and over again. When playing those Capcom games, I was convinced he was paid by the word.

I remember when the X-Men fighting games came to the PS2, they recast. I was mortified, such a heinous crime. And not one arrest was made. For shame.

BTW Nightwing, that's a hell of an avatar. Did you actually get to play as Six Armed Spidey in the SNES version of the Spidey TAS game, or did you edit those in as only you can? I only ever played the Sega version of the game, and I understand they're completly different. Rumour has it, the SNES one is actually good.

I haven't seen those first season episodes in so long, it was a great blast to the past to read about them and think about all the memories. When I look at them more objectively, however, I still find this show to be one of the finest Marvel did. When I mention X-Men, chances are people will think of this Wolverine or the movie. Some people I know have said it's 'old school', which seems about right.

It's definatly an old school show. I highly doubt something like this could find it's way to the airwaves. We actually have production values these days. Shame about the quality of most of the shows though!

And reading all the info here, it seems like this show should have been called Wolverine and the X-Men. Maybe the new show will go in a similar direction.

We can but hope. I seriously believe if AKOM hadn't worked on this show, it would be remembered in a similar light to Batman: The Animated Series. I wonder what it would've been like if this had aired first and not Batman...

And now for part 3!

 

[Stu]

Wolverine’s season opened with more of the love triangle between him, Jean and Cyclops, as they were about to get married. Logan even admits that he needs her as she stands before him in her wedding dress, ready to marry Scott. Seconds before, he was kicking the tar out of a robot who he had dressed up as Cyclops. Yup, him and Scott still had issues. Later in the episode he discovers Morph is still alive and is looking for revenge because they left him behind. After realising how screwed up his head was, Wolverine decided it was best to leave him be and let him figure everything out on his own. I remember being a little let down with Whatever It Takes, because to be blunt, it absolutely sucked. We got a cool Deadpool cameo though (must add a cameo section to The X-Men site!) I think I’ve just found yet another excuse to delay Silver Surfer. Go Stu!

We had a lot more Wolverine episodes this season than last, and I’ve always been appreciative of a good solo Wolverine episode – I think he’s probably the only X-Man who could carry his own episode, and if done correctly, he could easily carry his own series. There’s talks of a solo Wolverine film, which I would be all over should it ever be released. The first introduces an old enemy in Omega Red who manages to come across just a little better than Sabertooth did, thanks to a great design and again, stellar casting. X-Men: The Animated Series often had casting issues, but they got an absolutely perfect voice for Omega Red, who’s voice made him all the more threatening. As a plus, we got to see Collosus again. Two Russians and a Canadian kicking the crap out of each other. What more could you ask for?

His next spotlight episode is arguably the highlight of the series. Wolverine returns to Canada at the request of the woman who helped him back on his feet after his Weapon X mind wipe and learns that it was all a trap to get him to return to Department H so Alpha Flight, his old team, could discover the secrets of his adamantium skeleton and how he managed to survive the procedure. The other X-Men barely appear which was great – this was the closest film we’ve ever had to Wolverine: The Animated Series and it was utterly brilliant.

How much cooler would that have been if he was wearing his tan suit?

After saving all mutant kind by creating anti-bodies to a lethal virus (all in a days work), Wolverine made some new enemies in The Friends of Humanity. In a rather bizarre yet perfectly expectable fashion, Beast went to town to kick their heads in whilst Wolverine concocted a plan to disgrace their leader in hopes of splitting them up. Beauty And The Beast ranks as another strong contender for the series best episode, and features my personal favourite Marvel romance, which shockingly didn’t make it into Arsenal’s top 10 Marvel romances. Diabolical, I say. I bet it would have made the list if Carly was a redhead.

Wolverine didn’t do a lot for the rest of this season, so we’ll skip to his guest appearance on Spider-Man. Spider-Man was in the opening stages of a rather ballsy arc in which he learned that the spider-bite, which originally gave him his powers, wasn’t a one time process, his powers were evolving into something that wouldn’t be human. Desperately seeking a cure Spidey turns up at Xavier’s mansion, and after a quick tussle with The X-Men, pleads for a cure from Professor Xavier. Spidey and Wolverine are instantly placed at odds with one-another, as Spidey believes that his mutation turned into a freak, which greatly offends Wolverine, who is proud to be a mutant. Feeling dissed, Spider-Man leaves and is offered advice from Beast, who once tried to cure himself of his mutation and sympathises with Spidey as it’s not a natural mutation – Beast believed Spidey had a right to seek a cure.

After Beast was kidnapped, Spidey and Wolverine had a throwdown. Given that this was Spider-Man, which had even more ridiculously harsh censorship rules than X-Men, they didn’t have much of a fight, but there is certainly a thrill to be had watching 2 of your favourite characters get together for the first time, especially when they got to team up in part 2. The ending is particularly excellent as Wolverine remind Spider-Man that he does have friends, and he should go to them when he’s in trouble. Coming from Wolverine, it was great to see, especially as he’s never been too chummy with any of his own teammates. The episodes stand as one of Spidey’s best team ups, which was no small feet I assure you.

Up next: Season Three. Maybe even season four. The suspense!

 

[The Overlord]

I'd wager that it had something to do with making him different from the rest of them - a Canadian voice isn't really that different from American (Sorry, Jim) and the accent made him stand out more.

That's only half true, Canada like most other counties has a lot of regional accents. Most of the people from Ontario and Western provinces sound American, but most people from Quebec and the Maritime provinces do not sound like Americans at all. However it is correct that most Canadians sound like Americans and since Wolvie is from Alberta he is likely to have Central/Western accent, which sounds American.

 

[S.C.B]

I would have loved to see the Wolverine/Spider-Man angle revisited. To think we could have gotten that instead of another 'Mary Jane is gone! Woe is me!' episode.

According to Hugh Jackman, the Wolverine movie is officially a go, and is a prequel. Personally, I've got my fingers crossed for some Japan stuff. I'd love to see Silver Samurai in the flesh.

Ah, the Omega Red episode. It was the first episode I ever taped. Thank God for Live & Kicking.

"I can, you stinkin' octopus. Just like last time."

Still think Wolvy looked stupid wearing his cowl with no shirt, though.

The Alpha Flight episode is one of Cal Dodd's shining moments. When Logan breaks down in front of Heather, it still gets me whenever I see it. Even on my horribly fuzzy and blurry tape.

 

[Arsenal]

Originally posted by Stu
Two Russians and a Canadian kicking the crap out of each other. What more could you ask for?

How about an Australian flinging a cell phone?

Stu too
my personal favourite Marvel romance, which shockingly didn’t make it into Arsenal’s top 10 Marvel romances. Diabolical, I say. I bet it would have made the list if Carly was a redhead.

Or if Beast had an orange crusty exterior instead of a blue furry one.

 

[Stu]

I would have loved to see the Wolverine/Spider-Man angle revisited. To think we could have gotten that instead of another 'Mary Jane is gone! Woe is me!' episode.

It would've been cool to see Wolverine again on Spidey. Shame it never happened, but I'm pretty happy with what we got in those 65 episodes.

The Alpha Flight episode is one of Cal Dodd's shining moments. When Logan breaks down in front of Heather, it still gets me whenever I see it. Even on my horribly fuzzy and blurry tape.

Dude, that episode is on DVD for dirt cheap now. With X3 hitting this week, look for Wolverine's Story in the bargain bin Wollies, I bet you could grab it for less than a fiver.

Or if Beast had an orange crusty exterior instead of a blue furry one.

I bet it would've been on the list if Beast bought her a pet elephant.