What Marvel's Wolverine Should Learn From Chris Claremont’s Wolverine

As the character of Wolverine was created as someone to fight the Hulk by Roy Thomas, Len Wein, John Romita, and Herb Trimpe, it can’t be argued that most of the character’s identity comes from writer Chris Claremont. Claremont was the main writer for Marvel’s mutant comic books for a whole bunch of years in the 1980s, and a lot of those comics featured the diminutive berserker Logan himself.

I’ve actually been reading my way through old X-Men comics and figured that, since Claremont introduced pretty much every iconic thing in Logan’s life, it was worth Insomniac looking at those issues. So, here are some of the lessons that I hope appear in Marvel's Wolverine.

Enemies Care For Their Wounded

While in Madripoor under the pseudonym “Patch”, he didn’t kill everyone he faced off against. Because he knew that if you left a corpse, your other enemies would look once and move on — but an injured comrade will receive treatment. That meant fewer eyes and guns aimed in your direction. So, Insomniac Wolverine should be able to incapacitate as well as kill.

Honourable Men Deserve Honourable Combat

When challenged to one-on-one combat, Logan remembers his samurai training and will step up to the challenge, not using his adamantium claws. While it can be awesome to just unleash some berserker rage, there’s something to be said about proving yourself against a single opponent of equal (or greater) ability. Hopefully, it won’t all be cannon fodder and epic QTEs.

Defeat is Never The End

You can take Wolverine down; he falls like any other human, but thanks to his unbreakable bones and healing factor the trick is getting him to stay down. However, even without his powers, it’s hard to keep Logan from getting back up as once he’s set his mind to something the only way to stop him from doing it is to convince him that there’s another option. This being a videogame, there has to be a “fail” state — but surely not a permanent one.

No Man is an Island

Wolverine works best alone — he’s the best there is at what he does, and what he does isn’t very nice. But when his enemies come after his friends, he inevitably has to make the choice between ensuring their safety and preventing future attacks. Luckily, with how personable he can be, Logan usually enlists the help of other friends to help him out. If no friends are available, he’s not above just threatening someone into doing it, but he’s the kind of guy who will brawl with you one minute, and let you buy him a beer the next. So, let’s have some companions who can hold their own, and not rely on Wolvie running to and fro.

Morality is a Grey Spectrum

There are a number of superheroes who vow to never kill, even in self-defence. Well, Wolverine has a mountain range of bodies behind him, because when you have razor-sharp claws that can just appear from between your knuckles, every problem becomes one that you can stab. However, he isn’t like the Punisher, because he will actually let enemies live if he thinks it is for the better. If someone has to be an island crime boss, then a person who won’t allow slavery is better than someone who will. Punisher would just kill them both, then come back when someone else takes the crown. Perhaps some enemies could turn friendly in Marvel’s Wolverine?

Hopefully, Insomniac loves Wolverine as much as they loved Spider-Man for those two games, and took the right lessons from the comics.