RSS Feed
May 7

Origin II

Posted on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 by Paul in x-axis

The first Wolverine Origin miniseries came out some twelve years ago, and time has not greatly altered my feelings about it.  In a nutshell, the nicest thing to be said about Origin is that it can be easily ignored, because although it ads some pointless complications to the character’s history, none of them seem to matter sufficiently to require mentioning again.  But of course, the very fact that it can be so easily ignored is testament to how ineffective it is as an origin story.

Kieron Gillen and Adam Kubert’s Origin II gestures towards keeping the tone of the earlier series, but fortunately doesn’t have to mess about with country house costume drama.  It also comes somewhat closer to functioning as an actual origin story, in as much as it takes Logan from an outcast living with wolves in the wilderness through to a status somewhat closer to the way we know him today.

And the series certainly commits to that arc, resulting in a Wolverine story where Wolverine is mute and often impassive for much of the first half.  Whether it’s the sort of material that’s likely to embed itself in the core of the character is perhaps another matter; I suspect that what’s more likely to take root from this series is its new explanation for the origin of the feud between Wolverine and Sabretooth.  Since it’s a continuity marshland, there’s much to be said for starting fresh on that one.

The story sees Logan’s woodland life disrupted by an wandering polar bear, which is actually a stray creation of Mr Sinister.  His encounter with the bear leads to Sinister taking an interest in him and trying to get hold of him for experimental purposes.  But Logan instead ends up first in a circus, and then on the run with tracker Creed and his saintly companion Clara, who serves as this book’s love interest.  That sets up a relationship triangle which ultimately leads to Creed trying to shop Logan to Sinister in order to get rid of him.  Somewhere amidst all this, Sinister has an exciting new drug to help people forget their lives and become brainwashed soldiers; that gives Logan some degree of choice as to whether he wants to come to terms with his life and take control of it, or just throw in the towel.

Gillen’s take on Sinister is familiar from Uncanny X-Men, and perhaps doesn’t get as much screen time here as he deserves, considering he’s meant to be the main villain.  Of course, he’s more of a means to an end so far as the story is concerned, but his Marauders feel like a slightly underdeveloped idea.  Even so, the book has some fun with presenting him as a sort of post-steampunk proto-supervillain.

And there are some beautiful pages in here – the white expanses of the first issue are lovely, and Logan’s descent into a berserker rage in issue #4 after he thinks he’s killed Clara is memorably presented as a series of ever-smaller, ever-redder panels as time slows to a crawl, culminating in a double page spread of pure red.

The material with Clara and Creed doesn’t quite feel as if it’s playing fair with the audience, though.  There’s a double twist here, and the story ends up contorting a bit to accommodate them both.  First, it turns out that Clara and Creed are siblings, not lovers.  But that makes a “Romeo and Juliet” reference in issue #2 look very odd.  And second, it turns out that this isn’t Sabretooth at all, but his younger brother.  Now, Creed is sufficiently out of character for Sabretooth throughout the story to fit with the idea that he’s actually someone different; that’s fair enough.  But why is his own sister calling him “Creed” throughout the story, when that’s presumably her name too?

I’m not sure this is a story that’s really going to take roots as a definitive part of Wolverine history, and Sinister’s side of the story feels like it could have done more.  But it’s certainly better than the first Origin, and rather more convincing as an early step in Logan developing his signature hang-ups.

Bring on the comments

  1. The original Matt says:

    I’ve got to get round to rereading this series, but my first reaction to finish the final issue was along the lines of “uh… Why does this exist?”

    Even more so than the first one, actually. At least origin, for all it was a crap story, finally gave a definitive Wolverine is this person from this place. And for all that it is garbage, Jason Aaron managed to get some milage out of it during his time on writing Wolverine’s various appearances.

  2. Ozwell says:

    There’s a lot to like here, particularly in the dynamic between Wolvie, Creed and Clara.
    I’d come back again to a Wolvie tri-rigin with this creative team.
    However, to spoil a little, they lost me a little when two vermillion pages (meant to indicate a Wolvie powered blood-bath)were used to fill out the penultimate book. It was a classic “Dude, where’s my comic book?” moment.

  3. ChrisKafka says:

    I felt the same way about this after I finished it as I did after reading the first one. What was the point? This is totally forgettable.

    I love Gillen’s take on Sinister, but even that felt pointless in the story.

  4. wwk5d says:

    “And second, it turns out that this isn’t Sabretooth at all, but his younger brother.”

    Oh my God this just makes the damn thing even more pointless and irrelevant.

  5. errant razor says:

    Dog didn’t turn out to be Sabretooth in Origin I. Creed didn’t end up being Sabretooth in Origin II. In 2026, I wonder what exciting, random new character introduced in Origin III will turn out not to be Sabretooth.

  6. “Kids, did I ever tell you the story of how I met your Uncle Vic?”

    chank-a-chank-a-chank-a-chanka-a-chank-a-chank-a-chank-a-chanka-

    (with Neil Flynn as Victor Creed)

    //\Oo/\\

  7. Si says:

    Marvellous. X-23 and Daken sitting there with stupefied looks on their faces listening to the story. And it turns out in the final Origins that Sabretooth is Dog all along.

  8. ZZZ says:

    Origin III reveals that deep down we’re all Sabretooth. Then the last page twist is that, no, we’re not, it’s another guy.

    It’s really going to piss off all the loyal “How I Met My Archenemy” readers when the series finally introduces Sabretooth just to kill him off and have X-23 and Daken encourage Wolverine to go back to fighting Dog.

  9. Neon Shinobi says:

    As child, I loved Wolverine.
    As an adult, I am utterly irritated by him.
    That leaves me to ponder: Was he a poor character all along? Or has editorial over the last two decades drove him to a point of irrelevance?
    I lean to the latter…
    Having to entertain the former could as well be a testament to the egregiousness of the latter…

  10. Brian says:

    It turns out that Wolverine is actually Sabertooth.

    Funny thing about the interaction of Logan’s dissociation, his self-loathing, his healing factor, and adamantium poisoning…

  11. The original Matt says:

    I’d wager you’re irritated by over exposure and flat out contradictory use of the character. The same man who once walked away from the killing blow on Lady Deathstrike, telling her to “earn it” is now wheeled out in every major story with “this is Pym’s fault, I’ll go kill him.”

    No inner conflict. No rationalising between man and beast. I’m irritated by poor writing. Remember when Sabretooth had to engage Logan in psychological warfare in order to push him to the brink and jam a claw in his brain?

    Even Remender got mileage out of those beats during Uncanny X-Force.

    I think we can blame Bendis.

  12. ChrisKafka says:

    I think it’s just over-saturation, pure and simple. I think, even had Logan been written well all this time, it’d still lead to those feelings. No character can appear in so many stories for so many years without people getting sick of him. Of course, having so many writers writing the character, due to that sheer over use, is a sure-fire way to end up with a character lacking what made him interesting.

    Originally, Claremont and Wein (for two stories) were the only writers to have ever written Wolverine.
    Now, he’s in every X-book, every Avengers book, two books of his own….

    Frankly, I’m surprised Dead pool is in any way still popular. I’ve always found him annoying, unlike Wolverine, who cqn be complex. He’s an over-bearing character to use in an ongoing title (it’s possible, but he usually drowns out every other character). He’s getting to the point of over use at a Wolverine-type level.

  13. Thomas says:

    Deadpool is certainly not as interesting as Wolverine to me, but I do think he’s the kind of character who can survive overexposure, because he really represents a style of storytelling instead of a personality. Deadpool on a cover these days means “This book is fun! It is going to try as hard as it can to entertain you, 14 year old boy.” Who knows what kind of story a Wolverine guest appearance promises these days?

  14. Dasklein83 says:

    I really enjoyed this story. In the Further Adventures of Cyclops and Pheonix, Apocalypse removes Sinister’s capacity to feel guilt. I assumed that the potion Sinister had was based on what Apocalypse did to him. I figured that Creed was Sabertooth and that he would take the potion thus becoming the savage asshole we all know and love. I really loved the twist at the end, and the series doesn’t contradict any continuity between that godforsaken First X-Men, which I don’t think anyone treats as continuity anyway. Speaking of which, is Wolverine Origins still considered continuity?

  15. Dasklein83 says:

    *besides First X-Men, not between

  16. moose n squirrel says:

    I found everything about this comic baffling, from the Sabretooth fake-out to the use of Mr. Sinister (I mean, really, Mr. Sinister? can’t we just throw up our hands and admit he’s a good design attached to a terrible concept – or lack thereof – and call it a day?) to the basic fact of its existence. How many origin stories does Wolverine need, anyway? He started out without any at all; then he ended up with a stone-cold classic in Weapon X; since then he’s gotten an endless parade of shittier and shittier origins attempting to explain every facet and idiosyncrasy of his character. I can’t wait for the mini-series that explains the origin of his sideburns!

    The larger problem, of course, is that Wolverine as a character has been done to death. There are only so many stories you can tell with him, and most of the good ones have already been done multiple times by now. This is actually the case with most of these characters, of course, but it’s particularly obvious in Logan’s case given how wildly overexposed the character is – and this is complicated by the bizarre way in which his character has morphed over the last few decades from tortured-but-loyal super-grunt with a heart of gold to omnipresent indestructible superstar murder-hero.

  17. “the origin of his sideburns!”

    If you went from Betty Brant to Brian Blessed over the course of a butty, needing to shave three times a day or give up yoghurt forever, what’s the bare minimum you would remove, given that you have razors coming out your fists and don’t have to worry about cutting yourself shaving?

    Snikt-zoop-Snakt-Mm, Danone.

    //\Oo/\\

  18. M. Carver says:

    “That leaves me to ponder: Was he a poor character all along? Or has editorial over the last two decades drove him to a point of irrelevance?

    I think it was definitely the latter. As Moose N Squirrel points out, his character has shifted greatly. For me, one of the worst aspects of his this change was turning him from a grunt to the leader (blame for this can lie at the movies). One of the many reasons I hated AvX was that Professor X choosing Wolverine, of all people, as the guy to carry the dream forward made zero sense.

  19. The original Matt says:

    That made sense in AvX because the Logan school was already running. It was during Schism it made no sense. It was like cyclops going from Boy Scout to zealot. I like where both characters are now ( because at least it’s somewhere new for them) but the shifts getting them there were awkward.

Leave a Reply