AskMen.com knows what’s on men’s minds: Wolverine, apparently.
So, the “men’s portal” assembles “five of the most obscure tidbits” about the Canadian X-Man, ranging from the character’s “sickly childhood” to his creation:
Given that Wolverine shares few common traits with the animal that he is named after, one could be forgiven for wondering just why the character’s creators (Len Wein and John Romita Sr.) picked that particular moniker. As it turns out, Len Wein originally planned for Logan’s origins to be decidedly animalistic in nature, as the invulnerable figure was conceived as a mutated wolverine that forcefully evolved into humanoid form. A brilliant geneticist named High Evolutionary would have been behind this change, and Logan’s retractable claws would not have been a part of his body (rather, they would have been built into his gloves).
It was not until famed Marvel publisher Stan Lee got wind of a similar story regarding Spider-Woman that the whole thing was scrapped; Lee was adamant that readers would not willingly accept the notion of a woman mutated from a spider and insisted that her backstory be changed to something more conventional and easy to swallow. Once artist Dave Cockrum and writer Chris Claremont learned Lee’s reaction to Spider-Woman, they changed their approach.
It’s interesting to note that artist John Byrne came up with a proposed face for Wolverine at around the same time as Romita, although — because the decision had already been made to go with Romita’s concept — Byrne wound up using his creation as the visage for fellow mutant Sabretooth.
So far, commenters aren’t impressed: “Origin sucked,” writes one reader. “Just wanted to get that off my chest.”
Another questions the timing of the article: “Shouldn’t this article have come a few years ago? I’m a huge wolverine fan, but this doesn’t seem to apply to anybody but the comic nerd.”
