Wolverine #20 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #20
“The Savage Champions”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Wolverine in action, with an image of the Adamantine behind him.
WOLVERINE:
Apparently, Wolverine’s role as “Savage Champion” involves enacting a routine narrative repeated in multiple timelines, in which he has to heroically stand alone against the Adamantine to save the world in a seemingly hopeless battle, thereby earning the right to be aided by other “Savage Champions” who have defeated the Adamantine in a previous timeline. (How did the first one beat the Adamantine? To be fair, they seem to come from different time periods, so maybe there wasn’t a “first one” in that sense.)
The other Savage Champions all appear to be vaguely alternate Wolverines, and address him as a “brother”. Wolverine reacts to them with a degree of confusion before saying that it feels like speaking to his reflection; he comes across here as unfamiliar with the idea of Wolverines from other timelines, though to be fair, these guys are not particularly close counterparts. Although the Savage Champions can assist him after this point, the narrative still requires Wolverine to deliver the “killing blow” to the Adamantine, which he does with his remaining adamantium claws. (However, Athena tells us that the Adamantine isn’t permanently dead, but merely returned to dormancy.)
When Wolverine returns to Canada, he finds only Silver Sable waiting for him, and she tells him that the New Morlocks have rejected him – they’re convinced that he’s a danger magnet. This isn’t unreasonable given that the Adamantine showed up on their doorstep solely to come after him, and Wolverine accepts the position with a degree of resignation. And that, apparently, is the end of the New Morlocks plot, at least for now.
SUPPORTING CAST:
Hercules. Somehow, Hercules is able to use the Adamantine’s own energy to restore his Adamantine Mace (which Wolverine shattered in issue #18). The Adamantine finds this an impressive feat. Unlike last issue, Hercules seems to have accepted that this is one of those mythic stories that has to play out in the preordained way, and accepts his role as being simply to buy Wolverine an opportunity to complete his arc.
The Savage Champions. Three “Savage Champions” from alternate earths appear, all of them blatantly Wolverine counterparts. They’re all new characters, as far as I can tell. Wolf With a Gun is a cowboy who throws occasional Spanish into his dialogue; his outfit is in Wolverine’s traditional brown and tan colours, with echoes of the gloves and boots. Red Hare appears to be a feudal Japanese warrior with claw weapons on his gloves; his helmet has feathers flaring out in an echo of Logan’s hairstyle. Boneclaw is a hulking neanderthal-style Wolverine (though hairier and with bone spikes growing from his forearms). He carries a club and communicates only in grunts, but he seems to understand what’s going on. Presumably they’ve experienced versions of this story before, at least in Logan’s role.
Athena shows up at the end of the fight to briefly explain the plot. As Wolverine points out, she doesn’t get involved in the fight with the Adamantine, presumably because that’s not how the story is meant to go.
Silver Sable relays the New Morlocks’ decision and bids Wolverine farewell – she evidently thinks somebody ought to stick around to tell him. She makes clear that she’ll miss him but seems to treat his departure as a disappointing turn of events rather than a heartbreak. She claims that she doesn’t think he’s a danger to the Morlocks, and says that the ones with past experience of the X-Men (Ape and Erg) didn’t either. But she hasn’t been able to talk the Morlocks out of their panic and so she doesn’t try to persuade Wolverine to stay (indeed, she doesn’t even present it as if she’s giving him a choice).
VILLAINS:
The Adamantine. This time round, the Adamantine seems a little clearer that its real objection is to adamantium, which it regards as a “screeching imitation of our perfect truth”. The idea seems to be that the Adamantine initially despised all of the adamantium users that it encountered in issues #4-6. But it was rather more impressed by Wolverine, since he managed to beat it. It then decided to go and learn a bit more about modern warfare in order to get on Wolverine’s wavelength (which is presumably why it wanted Romulus to steer it to champions in the subplots in the following issues), but the rematch has simply led it to conclude that Wolverine was no better than the others.
The Adamantine regards the modern era as “irredeemable” and sees the use of modern technological weapons as inconsistent with being a true champion. It’s possible that it also has an objection to weapons of mass destruction as being inherently incompatible with its notions of honour and valour, although it also concludes that those very weapons shoudl be used to just wipe out humanity as a failure. Even after it’s rejected him, the Adamantine continues to encourage Wolverine to go down fighting.
It seems to understand what’s going on when the other Champions show up, but for some reason, after they arrive, it becomes vulnerable to their attacks. Of course, in the previous issue it was impervious to Wolverine’s claws, to the point where they could inexplicably break against the Adamantine’s armour – but now it can be defeated by the same weapons. The idea seems to be that this is all part of the preordained story that Wolverine has to act out.
A less charitable reader might think this is just a fancy way of saying that the Adamantine can be beaten now because it’s time for the story to be over. In fact, arguably the problem with this whole issue is that it turns entirely on things happening because that’s how the story is meant to go in order to be story-shaped, without there being any discernible theme or point sitting behind that.
According to Athena, the Adamantine is a “force of nature” and, as such, cannot truly die. It can, however, be rendered dormant for “a long age”.
…Hopefully a very long age. As long as Romulus will stay dead, or in other words: forever.
Damn, these new-fangled X-books seem to be written on autopilot. Is anyone sure these mutant comics aren’t being written by AI? Marvel only has to pay some creators a nominal fee to put their name to the book.
This echoes Michael Moorcock’s “The King of Swords” and “The Vanishing Tower”, down to the pseudo-mystical trimmings. There, Corum meets Elric and Erekose, different aspects of the Eternal Champion. Here Ahmed brings us the Savage Champion.
It is just a guess of mine, but perhaps the alternate Champions were more effective against the Adamantine avatar because they have already achieved a measure of standing over its own counterparts in alternate continuities, while this is Wolverine’s first opportunity to do the same.
One possible reading is that this is a story driven by plot needs, as Paul points out. Another is that this is only superficially a physical confrontation, and the various aspects of the Champion require the psychological and mystical experience of standing up to Adamantine in order to face something else further ahead – presumably either allies or enemies of this Adamantine avatar.
If that turns out to be the case, we may come to see some sort of Vibranium avatar come for Wolverine later. Same for Adamantium, Uru, and presumably Mysterium. Perhaps Carbonadium too.
If during that journey he finds himself in need to protect and/or seek refuge in a city that is inherently protected from the hazards of metal weapons, I am calling dibs on pointing out the Moorcock parallels.
You’ll get the points. I doubt anyone else is going to find parallels between a Wolverine story-arc no one wants to read and one of the greatest and most literate works of fantasy literature. Why couldn’t our Wolverine, then, meet his counter-culture, bisexual avatar? Ahmed could have called that story “The Final Weapon X Programme”.
So we’re doing Wolverine-as-Moorcok-pastiche now? Okay…
Did the other Wolverines actually have any adamantium? It doesn’t sound like they could have. And if they don’t, why would The Adamantine become awakened and fight them?
It’s funny that Athena and Zeus being trapped in Asgard has caused multiple continuity errors in the X-books of all places
Even Moorcock at his pulpiest feels too highbrow a comparison. “Wolverine must team up with Cowboy Wolverine, Samurai Wolverine, and Caveman Wolverine from alternate dimensions” sounds so much like a Silver Age Superman plot that now I sorta want to see a Wolverine run done entirely as a Silver Age Superman pastiche with faux-Curt Swan art and seemingly outrageously out-of-character covers (Wolverdickery?).
Kitty: I tell you, Logan and Patch are the same person.
Logan: Poor Kitty. Until she recovers from her delusions, she’ll have to remain in an asylum.
Logan:Won’t you marry me, Mariko?
Mariko: Woo some other girl, Wolverine. I don’t carry how many Wolver-gifts you bring me, I won’t be your wife.
And this storyline -still- skips over the alternate Wolverine from the last X-Treme X-Men run who had his bones coated in adamantine as a gift from Hercules, which would have been the absolutely most logical thing to bring into a story in which alternate Wolverines help our Wolverine fight the living embodiment of adamantine.
This, only a few years after Weapon X-Men brought a whole team of alternate Wolverines together for a cross-dimensional storyline, and many years after Exiles brought together multiple teams of alternate Wolverines for a cross-dimensional storyline, proving that somehow, it’s impossible to actually make multiple alternate Wolverines all that compelling when they gather en masse.
Dude, Red Hare is Chinese, he’s literally named after Lü Bu’s famed horse from Three Kingdoms
When the last time anybody did something interesting with a Wolverine solo series? I recall enjoying Cornell’s series, but I wouldn’t call it interesting, so maybe Aaron?
@ASV,
How can you enjoy a story but not be interested by it?
And power-less armor-wearing Wolverine wasnt interesting? LOL
Maybe the last interesting story was Jeph Loeb’s infamous WTFery which tried to retcon all “wildpeople / werebeast”-type mutants (in 616 at least) as being actually directly descended from humanoid wolves , even the expressly non-wolf mutants like catwomen sisters Feral &Thorne & pre-Bendis post-Morrisson tail-less ManX*catman Henry McCoy
* I’m shocked that nobody ever bothered to ask – and then realized the obvious pun —- why CatBeast had no tail like that singularly distinct breed
I liked that wolf man story but it still staggers me that there was no attempt to make links between those (Lupine) and Maximus Lobo’s clan and the Lobo brothers from Spiderman?
Also calling them the lupine was kinda weird because a lot of them were explicitly cat-like (Sanretooth most notably)
Still fun tho. Romulus was a cool design and I liked Kyle’s glow up, that dude can always use love
Thing is, this series is interesting. It has interesting set ups. It just… abandons them.
Kid Wendigo was interesting – Logan had several teenage girl sidekicks/mentees, but as far as I know not a guy (unless we count Quentin in WatXM) and not a savage kid he had to help find calm. Usually he’s teaching a weak-ish girl how to toughen up.
So where is he now? Positioned as a successor in AoR, currently MIA.
The New Morlocks weren’t interesting by themselves, but attaching Wolverine to them was an anchor that could have been the distinguishing axis of this book. So let’s wave as they disappear over the horizon.
It’s… frustrating. Unless Ahmed plans to bring Leonard back and tie everything together later. But so far – interesting set ups, no pay off.
are you not counting Quentin because you expect him to come out as nonbinary? I’m a little surprised he hasn’t
tho I’m nonbinary and lean towards Gender-Is-A-Social-Construct absolutism so I’m a little surprised everyone hasn’t come out as nonbinary xD
Wolf With a Gun is a nod to Elf With a Gun, yes?
[…] #20. (Annotations here.) So this is the end of the Adamantine arc that started back in issue #1. It also parks the New […]
I’m not sure if we should count Quentin as Wolverine’a sidekick, they had an adventure or two (I rember something about… a space casino?), but other than that the book was about Logan and the students as a group, not Logan and Quentin and the group. I think. Jason Aaron tends to lose me after some time.
I think Wolverine having to remain in a usable state for the main team books has usually (with a few exceptions, like when he “died” and got replaced by Old Man Logan) limited his solo series from doing any radical status quo-altering stories with him. Even arcs like Chuck Dixon revisiting Weapon X or Loeb’s stupid Rome-founding wolfman were more filling in Wolverine’s past than switching up what’s happening to him in the present.
(Crap, I meant Larry Hama, not Chuck Dixon. I always get them mixed up for some reason.)
Pseu-No idea. It would seem like it, but they also seemingly have no connection either thematically or as characters. Maybe Ahmed’s meta commentary is that sometimes comic story-arcs are pointless. Hence, Wolf with a Gun serves the same purpose as the Elf with a Gun did for Gerber’s philosophy of life.
Boneclaw might have been a caveman, sure. But I thought he was a Wendigo version of Logan.
@AlexxKay
But if SA intended him to be a (Marvel) Wendigo , why isnt he fully a furry ?
@yrzhe, I did a double take when you mentioned Chuck Dixon as a past Wolverine writer. I’d always thought he would’ve been a great fit for the character circa late ’90s/early 2000s. Surprised he never had a run, so you had me second-guessing myself. I completely get the comparison/confusion with Larry Hama. Like Dixon, Hama has written for Batman and the Punisher, though nowhere near as prolifically. Both generally hover around that similar orbit of militaristic and/or badass solo heroes.
I’m likewise pondering why the overwhelming majority of Wolverine books have been… well, entirely forgettable if not outright shit. Concerns of overexposure aside, he genuinely is the team member who SHOULD have the most versatility to work as a lead character in a variety of settings. Or even if we’re just leaning on established archetypes. Last Samurai/ronin figure. Clint Eastwood Western antihero. Vengeance-fueled reluctant vigilante. Though not lending themselves to a ton of originality in storytelling, these are all familiar stock characters that still hold a lot of appeal.
Instead, we end up with… a bunch of navel-gazing stories pondering Wolverine’s Wolverineness. Convoluted nonsense built on his already-convoluted past. Whether pulling on threads established in Origin or the Weapon X Project, nothing truly additive tends to come from these continuity implants. I would love a moratorium on those types of stories for at least 10 years (if not forever). And I understand that the imperative to keep him viable as a major character in the team books can be limiting. But the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor have always found ways to work around this that have kept their solo books more readable than not. From a quality control standpoint, it just feels like editorial cares less when it comes to Wolverine, and that’s a shame.
As it stands, what are the best Wolverine stories outside the core team books?
-Claremont/Miller OG miniseries
-BWS “Weapon X” (which almost feels like cheating since Logan is barely a functioning character)
-Hama’s non-Weapon X stuff
-Ellis’s “Not Dead Yet”
-Skroce’s “Blood Debt”
-2003 Greg Rucka run (19 issues)
-Millar’s “Enemy of the State”
-Guggenheim’s “Logan Dies” ?
-Aaron run? (25 issues)
-Cornell run? (2 volumes, 25 issues total)
…And are any of the above even THAT great?
But the common denominator is that the best Wolverine stories tend to come from creators who get in and get out. There are few memorable long runs, and no one’s really done their most definitive or beloved work on the character. (And again, in contrast to another in-demand character like Captain America, who has long runs by the likes of DeMatteis, Gruenwald, Waid, Brubaker, etc. that are spoken of fondly.) It’s just really odd, considering there’s been at least one ongoing Wolverine publication since 1988.
And even Enemy of the State could have been done with any other character. There’s nothing really Wolverineish about it.
Jason Aaron wrote Wolverine for longer than 20 issues though. Marvel kept renaming the series when Aaron was writing it. He was on Wolverine for close to five years straight, I believe. He’s probably the second longest writer on a Wolverine solo book after Hama. Well, I guess Percy would be close to Aaron, even though Percy’s run was terrible while Aaron wrote one of the very top Wolverine eras (one of the few times a Logan comic seemed to have a reason for existing).
I think the issue is that Wolverine is popular enough (or was usually popular enough, maybe not always) to simply warrant publishing a Wolverine comic book. Marvel didn’t have to put a lot of effort into making a Wolverine comic book sell.
On the other hand, barring a few times when the characters truly caught on (say, when they had a movie), Cap, Thor, and Iron Man have often struggled to remain popular enough to warrant having their own comic book, so Marvel has had to work harder keeping strong creative teams on those titles which can keep reader interest.
Which is also unlike Wolverine, where most writers find it difficult to think of interesting plots for Wolverine. He’s either incredibly overpowered, or he’s in plots like the Greg Rucka run (which I think is the best use of Logan, but I don’t think all fans agree). Even the Hama run (the longest) featured a lot of stories playing bait and switch with all the hints about Logan’s back-story. The mysterious past feint is well worn out by this point. It was getting old by the time Hama let that direction dominate his stories, if you ask me.
I purposely stepped over Wolverine & the X-Men as a team book, but completely forgot the minor controversy of Wolverine’s lead solo book being cancelled and relaunched as Aaron’s Wolverine: Weapon X, while Wolverine: Origins continued as the secondary title.
The latter of which I didn’t purposely exclude, just found uniformly terrible. What I am now reminded of is that it lasted 50 issues. Which kind of furthers my point, I suppose.
I can definitely buy that Wolverine tends to suck due based on the logic that he doesn’t need as much help. There was a period in the ’90s after the speculator bust when Uncanny, Adjectiveless, and Wolverine were reliably the 1, 2, and 3 sellers month after month (with Spawn sometimes sneaking in to break up the flow).
@thekelvingreen, agreed regarding Enemy of the State. Even at that, I remember thinking at the time that it sounded like an unused Claremont plot being repurposed. Although I guess the premise really is generic enough that Millar could have come up with the same concept independently.
Oh, I must have purposely forgotten about Wolverine: Origins. The absolute worst (where’s that comic, DC?) Wolverine book. Yeah, Way would have the second longest run as writer on the character. Which certainly shows something about solo Wolverine comics.
Wolverine’s inextricably linked to the team books in a way most heroes carrying solo titles aren’t. Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor weren’t created for the Avengers, Superman and Batman weren’t created for JLA. Technically Wolverine wasn’t created to be part of the X-Men, but virtually all the developments that made him popular enough to carry his own title came from X-Men.
Even when they’re well-written, Wolverine’s solo books rarely ever shake the feeling that they’re side stories about a character whose main arc is always going to be in X-Men.
In part I think it’s that even when he’s written right Wolverine stories tend to be weightless. The archetypes that work for Wolverine– the old West gunslinger or the wandering ronin– don’t typically go through long-term character development or have recurring supporting casts. They show up in a new town where trouble’s brewing, resolve it with cathartic violence, and move on.
@Chris V- if it was simply a question of Wolverine being so popular that a Wolverine comic book always sells, then what about Spider-Man? Superman and Batman have had periods where they get outsold by relatively low-selling books like Power Man and Iron Fist. (For example, the later years of Julius Schwartz’s stint as editor for Superman and Len Wein’s stint as editor for Batman.) But Spider-Man has never had a period where his sales were that bad. I think yrzhe is right in that a large part of the problem is that he’s linked to the X-Men in a way that most solo heroes aren’t to their teams.
Well, to be fair, there have been a lot of terrible or uninspired Spider-Man stories too. Such as Marvel launching Web of Spider-Man as the third Spidey solo ongoing with no plans for the title. Eventually just turning the book over to Terry Kavanaugh to write terrible story after terrible story. The same thing happening to (adjectiveless) Spider-Man after McFarlane took off, deciding that Howard Mackie would be good enough to continue writing it. They even let Mackie continue writing the title after they relaunches it as Peter Parker: Spider-Man.
I actually just finished reading all of Web and I was enjoying
The setup of Peter and Joy flying all over the world on assignments for Now Magazine
And then it stopped suddenly and I didn’t know why so I looked it up and it had to do with some controversy and bomb threats to the writer from the IRA
still had some good stories after that but I would have liked more of that story
“They show up in a new town where trouble’s brewing, resolve it with cathartic violence, and move on.”
That’s actually not a bad description of Ahmed’s New Morlocks storyline.
@Michael, is that partially owed to the relative sales of Marvel vs. DC at the time? Power Man and Iron Fist outselling Batman sounds outrageous, but how was Batman selling against other DC books? (Genuinely asking; I have no idea.) If this was contemporaneous to Jim Shooter putting together that proposal to outright license DC’s most high-profile characters, then it may come down to DC’s sales being abysmal across the board.
Meanwhile, Spider-Man always enjoying healthy sales may further the point. Because I’d argue there are FAR more low effort if not outright bad Spider-Man comics than good. Not to the extent of Wolverine, but when you consider historically the industry’s top talent and the books they worked on… Spider-Man tended to not be on that list. I feel like putting JMS and JRjr on Amazing Spider-Man in 2001 was the first major corrective action from a talent standpoint since the book’s inception. And it was necessary because years of poor output and loss of goodwill finally meant that sales for the once-bulletproof IP were no longer creator-indifferent. (The shake-up should’ve happened with the 1998 relaunch but they said, “Just get Mackie to write both books.” Which evidently still managed to be good enough for a couple of years.)
@Chris V, I didn’t realize I basically made the same comment before hitting submit. But it really is remarkable how there was NO effort at quality control after McFarlane left. The office lucked into this new(ish) creator becoming an absolute superstar, had the good sense to give him his own spotlight, then went, “Umm that’ll do” after they lost him. I mentioned the 1998 relaunch, but this really seems to sum up editorial’s mentality towards managing the character for decades. I guess it’s hard to fault them, considering how long they got away with it.
Cyke-I’m going to guess that the Power Man & Iron Fist thing was based on Marvel vs. DC sales in the early-1980s because American Flagg was outselling Batman and Superman when it started too. Which, sure it deserved to sell so well, but it was published by First Comics.
I think during that same period, Teen Titans was the only DC book outselling Batman and Detective.
@Chris V- Yeah, it was the early 80s. During the early 80s. Superman was DC’s top seller except for Teen Titans and Legion of SuperHeroes. But it was still being outsold by most Marvel books. Batman was outsold by Superman but at various points it was also outsold by JLA and Warlord.
But there’s several periods after the 80s when Superman and Batman were relatively low selling. Just before the decision to kill Superman, Superman’s sales were very low- the Superman books struggled to make the top 50. And in the late 90s Batman and Superman were often being outsold by most of Marvel’s top books. Batman and Superman have sometimes had to struggle to sell well despite being two of the most famous superheroes in the world.
@Chris V- Web was a replacement for Marvel Team-Up. During the 80s Marvel and DC got rid of their team-up books and replaced them with non-team-up books. The Brave and the Bold became Batman and the Outsiders. Marvel Two-in-One was replaced by the Thing. Marvel Team-Up was replaced with Web. The weird one was DC Comics Presents. DC got rid of it and then Action Comics was basically turned into a team-up book for a year, albeit one written by John Byrne, who also wrote the main Superman title.
I liked PAD’s and Gerry Conway’s Web stories. Web introduced Tombstone, albeit in a cameo.
I know it was a replacement for Marvel Team-Up, but it was still Marvel publishing a third solo Spider-Man title when they really didn’t have any reason for publishing another solo Spider-Man title other than the fact that Spider-Man was really popular. Simonson was brought over from Team-Up but only stayed for three issues that showed no direction for Web to separate it from Amazing or Spectacular. At one point, Owsley wanted to turn Web into a more realistic crime Spider-book, but that only lasted a few issues before it was dropped. There was a number of really terrible fill-in stories. The 25th issue read like very early Silver Age nonsense.
Sure, anything David wrote for a Spider-Man comic was enjoyable (well, except for the rapists/arsonists are just boys being boys misfire…which was in one of David’s Web issues), but his work on Web was sporadic. It wasn’t a sustained run giving the book an identity like on his Spectacular.
The problem with solo Wolverine comics include a lack of a supporting cast, uninteresting villains, and a need to stay somewhat gritty. Wolverine doesn’t have a Lois Lane or J. Jonah Jameson. Half his villains are guys with claws and/or soldier-types. Batman, Spider-Man, and other long-running solo characters can be reinvented to fit the times. Between the claws and healing factor, Wolverine stories carry an expectation of visceral violence. I think the core audience for solo Wolverine expects grittiness, and might stop reading if the comics stray too far from the expected. See also: the Punisher (unless it’s Garth Ennis being funny).
I think that was Claremont’s impetus behind creating Madripoor when Wolverine’s first ongoing series started, to give him his own signature setting and supporting cast independent of the X-Men. It never really stuck, though, and no one’s made a similar effort in a long time.
@yrzhe- The Madripoor setting was a matter of necessity. Claremont opposed Wolverine getting his own book because he thought too many books would dilute the X-brand. Shooter backed him on this even though the higher-ups wanted a Wolverine book. in 1987, Shooter approved a storyline where several X-Men, including Wolverine, would be believed dead. Then Shooter got fired and replaced by DeFalco. DeFalco, wanting to keep his job, ordered a Wolverine series created. However, DeFalco kept the “Wolverine is believed dead by most of the world ” story. So Claremont came up with the idea to do a “Terry and the Pirates” type story that focused more on high adventure than super heroics. Hence the Madripoor setting and supporting cast. But a lot of readers and writers wanted to see Wolverine in traditional superhero adventures, so the Madripoor setting proved unpopular and was done away with by Larry Hama as soon as the world learned that Wolverine was alive.
Really, that pretty much sums up the problems with the Wolverine series- the nigher ups wanted a Wolverine series because it sold well regardless of whether it made sense given Wolverine’s current status quo.
Jason Aaron and Greg Rucka both created supporting casts for Logan. Those are my two of my three favourite Wolverine series (along with Claremont writing the Wolverine ongoing when it started). That’s where I think Wolverine solo stories shine, when they remove him from the mutants (he already does that in X-Men) and the more overt superhero world and give him a bit of normality. I think Wolverine works well in that world more than any other X-Man character, which is probably the appeal of him always having his own solo series.
I don’t think the typical Wolverine fan is interested in that aspect of Logan though. The Rucka run wasn’t very popular. The Aaron run did seem to be more popular. Mike Loughlin is probably right about the typical Wolverine fan wanting Logan in Punisher-style stories but with all the mysterious past/Weapon X trappings. Most Wolverine comics read like they’re simply publishing a Wolverine comic because he’s popular. The writers don’t put any effort in to giving Logan his own life, similar to how most writers on Punisher when he was so popular in the ‘90s kept churning out formulaic Punisher stories because the comics sold (Punisher finds a criminal, goes after criminal, kills criminal). Wolverine is usually doing the same things as he would be doing in X-Men but in a separate comic book.
I feel like Wolverine is a victim of his own popularity and Marvel’s risk-averse publishing practices. It’s like they want to jam him in everything they possibly can (devaluing him and his relationships) while not doing anything to upset the apple cart, character-wise.
So he kinda just stays flat, never learning anything and never really changing or even being challenged. He’ll be the universe’s most prolific mentor and murderer at the same time, with the protégés often being forgotten and the people he kills returning. He’s a loner despite being on every team and doing teamups every day (and having centuries of friends.)
I’m not a huge fan of his books for these reasons. I think there’s tons of potential that will likely remain unrealised. Going off Ultimate Wolverine, Marvel seems to think we want the hits played on repeat.