| Theories on Loeb's Wolverine: Evolution; (AKA retcons Marvel could apply) | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 29 2009, 09:24 AM (1,580 Views) | |
| Ace | Aug 29 2009, 09:24 AM Post #1 |
Samurai
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Everyone knows about Jeph Loeb's "Evolution" arc on Wolverine. It was the introduction to Romulus, the death of Sabretooth, and it had some fantastic art by Simone Bianchi. Unfortunately it also contained a continuity defying scenario in which Wolverine is part of a long lost race of ancient Lupine-Sapiens and that his flashbacks throughout the issue suggest he may very well have existed for millions/thousands of years. Directly contradicting established Wolverine history. So, what was the biggest problem with this particular story-arc? Was it the fact that Logan, Sabretooth, Romulus and others were suggested to be ancient Lupine-sapiens rather than true mutants? Actually, no, no it's not. HUHBAHWHA? You're thinking I'm completely mad now, of course. :p No, you see, that's not actually an issue. The problem is that they had Logan flashback to these lupine-related events. Where is the distinction? Why it's in the fact that Sabretooth suggesting Logan and he are lupines is nothing on its own. Sabretooth is a known liar who will say anything to mess with Logan's head. Every part of that story could have been a hoax, including the so-called "evidence". But then they had to go and give Logan memories relating to the matter, which seem to confirm the concept. Without the memories it could have been easily retconned as fraudulent information. With them however, it's more difficult. So how can one erase this terrible, terrible addition to Wolverine lore? I have two theories on the matter: 1) Memory implants. This one is by far the easiest. We know Wolverine's memory has been messed with before, and that many entirely fake scenarios have been placed in his memory. It would make perfect sense that Romulus would want to mess with Wolverine's head one last time in order to keep him away from the truth. And for all of you who are about to say "But he has his true memories back!". This is true, but having one's true memories doesn't necessarily erase the false ones. In fact, it can be said that his entire journey in Origins and in "Evolution" is about Logan confirming what is true and what isn't. Separating the real memory bits from the fake ones. It's a quick and easy fix that makes a lot of sense in the context of Wolverine's history, and the Wolverine/Sabretooth/Romulus dynamic. 2) Mutant subsets. When "Evolution" was in the early stages of its storyline, I actually quite liked the concept. I thought they were suggesting something else entirely. At the time, before we knew about this lupine nonsense, I had thought they were suggesting that there were in fact mutant "types", if you will. As an example of this, the psychic type, or those who can change shape. Or how about Angel and Icarus. Both winged Angel-esque mutations. We'd seen this before, how there seemed to be many feral types such as Beast's latest form, Wolfsbane, Feral, Thornn, Wild Child, Wolverine, Sabretooth, and so on. In fact, if I recall there was a storyline in Uncanny (or was it the Uncanny tie-in of Exiles...) in which Wolf Cub was contacted by a group of seemingly wolf-based mutants. As such, it's not far fetched to suggest that there are various specific mutant subsets. I was even behind the idea at the time. Again, this was before they suggested that lupine-sapeins were a different race entirely, not merely a specific type of mutant. The story could be retconned to say just that, that there is no race of lupine creatures, that there is merely different "types" of mutants. Psychic (Prof X, Jean, Psylocke), feral (Wolverine, Wolf Cub, Wolfsbane), changeling (Mystique, Morph), energy manipulating (Havok, Cyclops, Gambit), and so on. It's much more involved than the first idea, but I'd take that over Wolverine being a different species entirely any day. Edited by Ace, Aug 29 2009, 09:30 AM.
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| Ize19 | Aug 29 2009, 11:37 AM Post #2 |
New Mutant
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Yeah, the second option is the one that makes the most sense, to me. Loeb's arc really disappointed me, because at the beginning of issue 51, you have him having these memories that are "not mine," clearly taking place in ancient times. The fact it was of wolf people was weird, but not too bad. My first thought was, "they're finally going to do another story about his incarnations!" And then the other memories were of wolf people too. And then, came issue 53, and, instead of this being a story about Wolverine's history through the years in his different incarnations, we learn it's about him being descended from wolves
 Same issue with Guggenheims arc. You learn that everytime Wolverine dies, he can come back to life again, and instead of this being tied into his history as the Hand of God, he apparently beat the Angel of Death years ago, even though we've never seen him fight him in the afterlife in Wolverine's 30+ years of history. Honestly, Wolverine coming back from death isn't that hard. We know that he was once the Hand of God in ancient times, according to the Weapon X book, he's had multiple incarnations; what's so hard about the return of Wolverine's soul to his body giving his body the energy needed to come back from a skeleton (the marrow protected by his adamantium bones providing the genetic material necessary to regrow the rest of it?) Am I the only one who liked the Baal arc? Anyways, sorry for the tangent. Yeah, it would have been cool if Loeb had gone with the subsets of mutants direction. It's a shame he went so far into left field. |
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| Gorvar | Aug 29 2009, 04:38 PM Post #3 |
Self claimed fanfic critic.
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i only accept Sabretooth died by Logan's hand in revenge for Feral, that's it. |
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| jrpbsp | Aug 29 2009, 05:01 PM Post #4 |
Undisputed Ruler of Comicdom
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I wonder how Loeb still gets work. I mean everything he touches turns to crap. It's kind of uncanny when you think about it. This story seemed to be stolen from Universe X where Wolverine was a Moonchild not a mutant and Powers with the immortal pair battling through the centuries. As for me I was going with option 1. Wolverine does state that having all his memories back just means he remembers both real and false memories. That includes all of the false memories he once had that were removed or paved over. This could easily be one of those. Something that was done to either control Logan or put him and Sabretooth at odds but dropped when they got into Team X or something. |
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| Ace | Aug 29 2009, 06:41 PM Post #5 |
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Samurai
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There's a third option, that being a combination of both. If a writer so chose, they could retcon it to suggest that the memories are indeed implants, but that they were based on legitimate mutation-based research. Rather than the ludicrous "Ancient wolf people" explanation we were originally given. :pI will generally say the same, but I will always give him the proper respect for certain works. Those works being his Batman stuff (Long Halloween, Dark Victory, and the rest), and his Marvel color series. Spider-Man: Blue, Daredevil: Yellow, Hulk: Grey, and impending Captain America: White. All of those were excellent. I also liked Fallen Son, though it's not nearly good as the aforementioned titles. My theory is that he only truly sucks when doing ongoing work. |
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| jrpbsp | Aug 29 2009, 09:49 PM Post #6 |
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Undisputed Ruler of Comicdom
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Never read any of those so I can take your word for it. Everything I have read of his has just been awful. |
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| Ace | Aug 30 2009, 07:22 AM Post #7 |
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Samurai
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I'm not sure how much of a Batman fan you are, but Batman: The Long Halloween, and Batman: Dark Victory are considered two of the greatest Batman stories ever told. Right alongside Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, Killing Joke, and so on. As for the Marvel color series, you really must read them if you get the chance, they are absolutely wonderful. They're all retrospectives taking place from present day (except in the case of Captain America: White, which takes place before Steve died, and before he knew Bucky was alive) looking at certain period in the hero's life. The key, I think, is that all of those works were done alongside the art of Tim Sale. Perhaps that is what makes the difference. |
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| jrpbsp | Aug 30 2009, 09:29 AM Post #8 |
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Undisputed Ruler of Comicdom
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I really don't read anything from DC, I gave up right around the first Crisis hit a long time ago. Since I don't really pay much attention to the rest of Marvel either I tend to skip their one shots. I've been pretty self-contained in the X-verse for what 15 years? Still I might try and track them down and have a look. Now I do pick up the Avengers titles mostly because they added Wolverine to New and I get the big events but really I have so many Marvel titles each month I am trying not to add much more. With 20+ X-titles and three or four Avengers titles (depends if I can dump Dark without missing the key stuff) that is a lot. |
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| Ace | Aug 30 2009, 01:04 PM Post #9 |
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Samurai
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In terms of DC, it's finally coming around again, if you can believe it. Green Lantern has been continuously good for the last several years, and the Superman and Batman books have actually become quite interesting under their new status quos. And good reads, in addition. But without getting into all of that new continuity business, if you're really ever interested in a good Batman story, the best of the bunch are Batman: Year One, Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman: Dark Victory, Batman: The Man Who Laughs (One-Shot), Batman: The Killing Joke (One-Shot), and if you're interested in a possible future scenario, The Dark Knight Returns and the Dark Knight Strikes Again are always fun. The former more so than the latter. Once you read those, you're pretty much set for life on Batman material. They don't get any better than those particular stories. And the best part is that the majority of them (except Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, and The Dark Knight Strikes Again) are set during Batman's early years, so you don't have to deal with any of the more modern DC aspects you may not care for. |
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| flightmarco | Aug 31 2009, 01:28 AM Post #10 |
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New Avenger
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this is officially my first post here..i have a similar yet different idea about the explanation of those dreams wolverine had..how about saying that romulus, like cyber (i think), has a little psychic ability or maybe he has the ability to control the unconscious of others. That he made wolverine dream about the lupines to confuse him even more while giving him clues as to what he actually is..i think by doing that, they would be able to make romulus even stronger..what do you guys think? |
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