Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979

This is a big year, as the X-Men enter the 1980s with the Dark Phoenix Saga – the storyline that elevated them into A-listers. After this year, other writers will have a lot more interest in using the X-Men. But we’ve got to get there first.

X-MEN vol 1 #129 (part 1)
“God Spare the Child…”
by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Terry Austin & Bob Sharen
January 1980

After a few days recuperating on Muir Isle following their fight with Proteus, the X-Men set off home (leaving behind Banshee, who finally quits the team). Professor X is waiting for them – he’s come back because he’s worried about Phoenix losing control, though he doesn’t explain that to the team just yet.

At this point, there’s a break in the action for the X-Men to do some training. A few other appearances fit in here.

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Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977

If 1977 was something of a quiet year, 1978 is much busier. That’s not because Wolverine starts making more guest appearances – at this point, the X-Men still held little interest to writers who weren’t Chris Claremont. But this is the year when the X-Men shifted to a monthly schedule. And a lot of the continuity implant stories set in this era have to fit between the 1978 issues, simply because Claremont didn’t leave an awful lot of gaps – he tended to run one story into the next, and to keep the X-Men away from home for extended periods.

X-MEN vol 1 #109
“Home are the Heroes!”
by Chris Claremont, John Byrne & Terry Austin
February 1978

The X-Men finally return home, having been shunted directly from one storyline to the next ever since issue #98. They’re joined by Phoenix, Moira, Lilandra, and Jean’s parents John Grey and Elaine Grey.

This is a Wolverine-centred issue. For one thing, it’s got the iconic scene where Logan goes hunting in the woods, Storm is appalled, but Logan reveals that he only stalks animals without killing them. Claremont is starting to develop the hidden depths angle by this point, but at the same time, the sullen Wolverine isn’t bothering to explain himself to his teammates because he takes offence at the way they see him – even though he often talks about himself in the same way.

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975

Last time, we entered Wolverine’s early years of publication. Now, let’s travel back to a strange time before Wolverine was a breakout character, and before the creators were all that bothered about him.

And for reasons I’ll explain, we kick off 1976 with an issue from 1977…

X-MEN vol 1 #106
“Dark Shroud of the Past!”
by Bill Mantlo, Bob Brown & Tom Sutton
August 1977

The X-Men fight psychic projections of the original team, subconsciously created by Professor X’s evil side during one of his nightmares. (These nightmares are a major subplot in the first couple of years of X-Men, but they don’t directly affect Wolverine. Basically, they’re the result of a botched psychic message to Professor X, foreshadowing the introduction of the Shi’ar.)

This is a fill-in issue, which explicitly takes place shortly after Moira arrives at the X-Men Mansion – even though it didn’t see print for over a year after that point. Although it appeared with a framing sequence by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, Wolverine doesn’t appear in that bit, so we won’t be coming back to this issue again. There’s a bit of character work at the start: Cyclops accuses Wolverine of putting on a “mad killer” act, while Wolverine complains that Cyclops has been pushing the team too hard ever since Thunderbird died. Banshee chips in to agree, just so we know that the brattish Wolverine actually has a point for a change.

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Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age

After ten chapters of prehistory, last time we reached an Erik Larsen flashback story that ended with Wolverine arriving back at Department H, and being told that he was needed to fight the Hulk. Yes, we’re here at last.

Just 46 years to go!

And in this extra length episode, we’re going to cover Wolverine’s stories from 1974 and 1975. There aren’t many of them… or rather, there weren’t many of them. But a vast amount has been added around the edges over the years.

INCREDIBLE HULK vol 2 #180-182
“And the Wind Howls … Wendigo!” / “And Now … the Wolverine!” / “Between Hammer and Anvil!”
by Len Wein, Herb Trimpe & Jack Abel
October to December 1974

Wolverine is sent to face the Hulk (Bruce Banner), who is already locked in battle with the cursed Wendigo (at this point, a guy called Paul Cartier). Wolverine is given six hours to beat the Hulk, and is very keen to try and pull it off. Wolverine doesn’t know or care why the Hulk and the Wendigo are fighting – but basically, Cartier’s sister Marie is planning to cure him by magically transferring his curse to the Hulk, so she’s lured the two monsters together.

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H

We’ve reached the Silver Age. Not that Wolverine’s going to interact all that closely with the major tropes – he spends this period in Department H, and few writers have felt tempted to send Wolverine to mess around with mainstream Silver Age stories. But there are exceptions.

FURY vol 1 #1
by Barry Dutter & M C Wyman
May 1994

Take this one-shot about the origins of SHIELD. The Silver Age heroes are active by this point. Logan guest stars in one chapter, teaming with CIA Colonel Rick Stoner to recover James Hudson’s stolen prototype armour from HYDRA. The incident prompts the formation of SHIELD, with Stoner as its short-lived initial Director, but Logan’s not involved in any of that.

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Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X

When we left Logan, he’d just escaped from Weapon X and was blankly stumbling naked through a blizzard. Things can only go up from here!

WOLVERINE #900
“Hunger” by Karl Bollers & Stephen Segovia
May 2010

This anthology entry is the only full story to take place in the post-“Weapon X” wilderness period, though it’s still little more than a vignette. Still trailing wires, the befuddled Logan struggles to catch food. He stumbles upon a happy family in a log cabin and steps in to save them from a pack of wolves. Understandably, the family are terrified, and Logan leaves in silence. There’s a strong implication that Logan toys with eating the kid, but thinks better of it.

There are a few more flashbacks in this period:

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Part 1: Origin to Origin II
Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939
Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era
Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X

Well, we’ve reached the big one. It’s just one story… but a lot has been nailed on to it.

When Barry Windsor-Smith’s “Weapon X” first came out, I found it vaguely annoying. It’s thirteen parts long, and it doesn’t really answer any of the mysteries about how Logan got his adamantium skeleton. It just depicts what had always been fairly obvious – that he was given it against his will by villains. What it doesn’t do is identify those villains. It personifies the organisation through the characters of the Professor, Cornelius and Hines, but it makes very clear that the Professor answers to somebody else, and never explains who that is. So the big mystery about Wolverine’s adamantium remained unresolved – and on top of that, the main character spends most of the story either comatose or zoned out.

But read with the knowledge that it doesn’t actually explain anything, it’s much more enjoyable. For our purposes it’s worth bearing in mind that there’s some heavy unreliable-narrator material, especially towards the end of the story. Even so, the general thrust of “Weapon X” has been confirmed in plenty of other stories, so it seems that most of it happened more or less as depicted.

MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS vol 1 #72
“Weapon X, part 1” by Barry Windsor-Smith
Early March 1991

Logan’s performance as an agent has been deteriorating due to alcohol abuse and an increasing obsession with the mutant issue (something that broadly tallies with the First X-Men miniseries and the Shadow Society one-shot, both covered in the previous chapter). Fired from his job, he’s living at the Prophecy, a home for “fallen Christians” – he’s an atheist, but he says he lied about his religion in order to get in. Logan is planning to catch a train to the Yukon, as he said he would at the end of Logan: Shadow Society. In the meantime, he’s plagued by dreams of his claws, which at this point in time he doesn’t know about.

Part 1: Origin to Origin II
Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939
Part 4: World War II

We’ve reached the postwar era. We’re not quite at Team X just yet, but we’re certainly getting back into some better known parts of Wolverine’s back story.

According to Logan: Path of the Warlord – and we’ll get to that story shortly – after World War II, Logan returns to Madripoor in search of easy money. There, he gets involved with the mysterious firm of Landau, Luckman & Lake, who specialise in “all kinds of shady stuff”. As one of their agents, he visits Japan again and fights Kimora, an alien warlord who’s been brought to Earth through a portal opened by a Dr Carling. Why Logan’s fighting alien warlords, even vaguely samurai-ish ones, at this stage of his career… well, he just is. But more of Kimora in a bit.

Landau, Luckman & Lake were introduced by Chris Claremont in Wolverine vol 2 #5, which shows a photograph of Logan with his LLL contact Chang. That photo is described as a 19th century tintype, which might have been intended to imply that Logan was an adult in the 1800s – if so, that obviously can’t survive Origin. But the same story shows that Chang is around in the present day, and LLL are generally hinted to be a bit weird right from the off, so it’s equally possible that Claremont was thinking of time travel or dimension hopping.

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