Wolverine Covers

Wolverine is back in the news. His team-up with Deadpool on the big screen is proving to be a success. It’s likely Hugh Jackman’s last time with the bad hair and big claws so it’s good that the movie doesn’t suck.

Related to that is editor Roy Thomas advocating for and getting a Wolverine creator credit in the movie behind Len Wein, John Romita Sr and Herb Trimpe. I’ll talk more about that later.

I sometimes get messages online that request me to show Marvel as much recolouring love as I consistently do with DC Comics. I do Marvel pieces, but not as many as DC, that is true. So I decided to do a variety of Wolverine pieces to satisfy you vocal little fuckers.

The Charlton people are quieter. They’re just happy that I remember to do the occasional piece. I really like the Charlton people.

New colour and packaging by me.

LET’S SEE THAT BIRTH CERTIFICATE, BUB

Before we get to the new cover versions, I’d like to talk about the ‘Canadian’ character that Logan is supposed to be.

Canada’s comic book publishers have long struggled to get and maintain the attention of our own citizens.

Since the beginning of the Golden Age, American comics have easily dominated. Part of that is because Canadians like American pop culture, myself included. Books, movies, music, etc. American culture travels well around the world.

Another reason is due to the numbers. Canada is big geographically, but small population wise. All of Canada’s population is about the same as the State of California. That means that all the big US publishers have to do is increase their press runs by a few per cent and they can blanket the Canadian market with their product. Our smaller publishing efforts can’t hope to overtake a popular product with good distribution.

The only time Canada’s comic book publishers dominated in our own country was during the paper products embargo of the Second World War. Canadian publishers sprang up to fill the demand for the now-missing American comics on the newsstands. When the embargo was over at the end of the war, back came American comics and our business collapsed.

The summer of 1975 was a watershed moment for Canadian comics. Our modern age began with Richard Comely’s Captain Canuck. More books would arrive as the direct distribution system grew and Canada produces some good books to this day.

A year before, Marvel’s then editor-in-chief Roy Thomas had an idea to include a Canadian character in their comics and that he should be called Wolverine. The assignment was given to writer Len Wein who worked with art director John Romita Sr to design the character. Wolverine appeared in The Incredible Hulk in a script by Wein with pencils by Herb Trimpe.

It wasn’t until the character was included in The New X-Men – created by Wein and penciller Dave Cockrum – that the legend of Wolverine really began. The book took off and reached the top of the American comic business when the art team of John Byrne and Terry Austin joined writer Chris Claremont.

Wolverine is a hugely-popular character, but – and I’m sorry to say this to his dedicated Canadian fans – he’s not a Canadian character.

He was created in a smart marketing move. A little bit of effort to draw in more Canadian readers. All his creators, though, were American. Marvel is an American company. FFS, he’s owned by Disney now.

We’ve got 50 years of Canadian kids having grown up looking south of the border for a skewed interpretation of their own culture. That’s bothered me for decades and I just wanted to get it off my chest. I don’t think I’ll get much traction with convincing others to hold Canada and Wolverine as separate concepts in their minds, though.

Wolverine v1 No. 3 Cover by Frank Miller & Josef Rubinstein

Wolverine’s popularity in X-Men grew to the point that he was given his own four-issue mini-series in 1982. Pencilled by Daredevil’s star writer-penciller Frank Miller it added to the depth of Logan’s character.

As published.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

New colour version.

Re-created trade dress added.

Spider-Man vs Wolverine Cover by Mark Bright

This one-shot from 1987 had a cover atypical for Wolverine and I really liked the horror comic vibe. It begged for the lurid and creepy cover palette. And any comic where Spider-Man is with another character should be called Marvel Team-Up.

As published.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

New colour version.

Re-created and new trade dress added.

Wolverine v2 No. 1 Back Cover by John Byrne

Kicking off Wolverine’s ongoing series in 1988 with John Buscema as the book’s main artist, it was a nice touch to have a John Byrne pin-up on the back cover.

As published.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

New colour version.

Re-created trade dress added.

Wolverine v2 No. 10 Cover by Bill Sienkiewicz

Kudos to Sienkiewicz for an elegant sparingly-drawn winter scene with birch trees in the background.

As published.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

New colour version.

Re-created trade dress added.

Wolverine v2 No. 12 Cover by Kevin Nowlan

Nowlan had come up as a spot illo artist in The Comics Journal before landing the Moon Knight assignment when Sienkiewicz left the book. He quickly carved out his own place in the business.

As published.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

New colour version.

Re-created and new trade dress added.

Wolverine v2 No. 17 Cover by John Byrne

Returning to a character that helped solidify his reputation as one of the best in comics, John Byrne put a lot of energy into this memorable piece.

As published.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

New colour version.

Re-created trade dress added.

Alternate background.

Wolverine v2 No. 27 Cover by Jim Lee.

And here come the 1990s. Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane and others were about to take over the visual look of Marvel’s most-popular titles. Some would love it. Others (like me) would be less enamoured.

As published.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

New colour version.

Re-created trade dress added.

Wolverine v2 No. 75 Cover by Adam Kubert & Mark Farmer

1993. We’re deep in the foil-hologram, double-bag, must-have era of Marvel Comics. Needlessly over-detailed art is called ‘sick,’ and speculators are buying multiple copies thinking they’ll rake in the dough in the coming years. Ultra-violence and dark storylines are called mature but are some of the most-immature acts of fanboy service ever done in American comics.

I loathe this era.

That said, Adam Kubert and Mark Farmer are very talented guys. They did good work before this and after. In doing a cover like this one they were only making sure they remained employable. And that’s the reality of any business. You have to be of service the way the employer and the market wants it.

In re-colouring this cover I only did it as a challenge. How could I tackle this mess of linework and sparse blacks and bring some focus to it that the published version didn’t?

The most-tedious part – but the most visually-satisfying part of it in the end – was doing all the pointy, bloody bones sticking out of Logan. Try getting that past the Code back then.

As published.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

New colour version.

Re-created trade dress added.

Re-created trade dress with foil hologram added.

ABOUT THAT ROY THOMAS CREATOR CREDIT

I put this last so you can click away if you don’t want to read some more venting by me.

But if you’re still here, I got my background info from this article on Bleeding Cool. I’ll be using short quotes from it here.

Okay, as I said above, Roy Thomas was the Editor-in-Chief at Marvel in 1974 and he came up with the name Wolverine and that he’d be a Canadian character. He tasked writer Len Wein to create the character, and Wein worked with Marvel Art Director John Romita Sr to develop the visual look. Wolverine debuted in The Incredible Hulk drawn by Herb Trimpe and later became one of the most-popular characters in The New X-Men.

Shift forward to our modern dystopia. Thomas and his business manager lobbied Marvel for a number of years to have Thomas included as a Wolverine creator on movie credits. Thomas even went as far to believe he should be first in that credit. However, Marvel added only “and Roy Thomas” to the credit at the end of Deadpool & Wolverine.

People close to the situation are upset, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Disney corporate has said it’s a done deal and irrevocable.

However, the opinion of people in the business is in opposition to this:

“A rule in comics: Staff editors don’t get to claim a co-creator credit on characters their writers and artists create for them. Throwing out suggestions and brainstorming is part of the editor’s job. Change my mind. I’m kidding. You’ll never change my mind on this.”

Mark Waid
Writer/Editor

“This is absolutely correct… Creators get the credit, editors get the blame. That is the compact of the job, and those who cannot abide by it do dishonor to our profession. Don Draper had the right of it: “That’s what the money is for!”

Tom Brevoort
Executive Editor
Senior Vice President of Publishing
Marvel Comics

Point of clarification: The Thomas decision was made at the Disney corporate level, not in the Marvel offices.

A point to be made is that this has been pushed through after the deaths of Wein, Romita and Trimpe. No one that was involved can push back now.

And that leads into how and why this thing happens over and over in the intersection of the business world and the creative arts.

People want to be attached to the creation of a property because that’s how you get ongoing revenue when that creation is used. Royalties on products, residuals on video, and so on. Thomas has said he didn’t do it for the money. He thought it was a moral right. Maybe so, but it does have ramifications for the real creators’ legacies.

As an employee, your work product is owned by the company you work for. Staffers like Thomas were well paid to do their jobs with perks to compensate for their work situation. Yes, he created some characters, but Wolverine wasn’t one of them as Waid and Brevoort outlined what is normal practice.

For most artists and writers, you’re a freelancer. Copyright law says you own your creative product, unless of course you sign away those rights in a work-for-hire agreement which is standard for most comics from Marvel and DC. You may get royalties, but those come and go depending on the state of the industry.

Most artists spend their time at a drawing table or computer day and night to meet deadlines. Be reliable, nice, polite, accommodating, economical and stay in style and you’ll have work. Start deviating or be labelled difficult and you’ll be replaced. Because you’re only a supplier and not in that office controlling the money and making decisions about the business. John Byrne was right all those years ago, he was a cog. And cogs can wear out or be replaced when you upgrade your machine. Hot this year, looking for a storyboarding or art department job next year.

It’s an exercise in power and the freelancer has very little. Very few can say that they are so needed that they can command their own terms and fees.

Thomas shows the marks of having been in a position of power for virtually his entire career. His sense of entitlement here is plain. He’s an old man with an ego that is used to being massaged, and he learned it from his mentor and master, Stan Lee. Of course he’s going to want credit and royalties. No one’s going to stop him. He’s not even aware he’s being an abuser.

My only hope is that Disney realises how weak this old man is and only did it to shut him up. He still has a voice in the comics community and the movie business isn’t as robust as it was a few years back. They don’t need the hassle. Thomas is elderly. Give him his faux laurel because he’ll be six feet under soon enough. That’s how petty this whole situation is.