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the Canadian special weapons project, Project X. There is a good clue 
out that the adamantium bonding process was stolen for Project X from 
Lord Darkwind, a Japanese nobleman who performed the same sort of 
operation on Bullseye, a nonpowered assassin and foe of Daredevil's. 
Lord Darkwind's daughter, Lady Deathstrike, has been hunting Wolverine 
for years to kill him, since him having that skeleton is an insult to 
the heritage of her father. The process was either stolen by or for 
James Hudson, head of the Alpha Flight project, which was responsible 
for the superpowered protection of the Canadian provinces and interests.

Then comes the Weapon X storyline (MCP #72-84). Wolverine, who up to 
this point is thought to just be a fast-healing mutant of indeterminate 
age, is now revealed to apparently have had some form of natural "bone 
claws" where his metal ones ended up, because when they were filling him 
full of adamantium, that's where a bunch of it pooled up (sounds more 
like a scientist was skipping on quality control, but, hey, it's 
comics).

The idea of the Weapon X project was that it would create all these
super-soldiers, and then release them back into the general public with 
no memory of who they were as "sleepers." So they wouldn't remember 
their experiences at the Weapon X facilities, they were all programmed 
with false memories. To help keep watch over this odd idea, a computer 
program named Shiva was written, who could take over one in an almost 
endless series of robots to hunt down and destroy any Weapon X soldier 
who, somehow, showed signs of remembering who he really was. Currently, 
Wolvie has fooled Shiva into thinking it killed him.

So, with that added to the muddle, we then get the unusual Fatal 
Attractions crossover, where Magneto pulled the adamantium off of 
Wolvie's bones through his skin pores (X-Men #25). So, Wolvie (aside 
from hurting real, real bad) was growing new bone claws because he 
originally had bone claws (and they got covered in adamantium), and 
Magneto removed the original ones.

The lastest addition to this saga is that the adamantium was preventing 
his mutation from expanding any further. In this case, that meant his 
turning into pure animal, with the unbearably heightened senses and 
uncontrollable instincts (Wolverine #92).

The memories problem was repaired by Epsilon Red (by the same people who
brought you Omega Red).

As of Wolverine #100, we have a new incarnation of Wolverine. To Larry
Hama's credit, Wolverine did get his adamantium back. For a few panels. 
Then Wolverine rejected it and lost what was left of his mind. The 
current version is now a mutant who can withstand almost any amount of 
physical abuse. Elektra took it upon herself (Wolverine #101) to help 
Logan return to humanity, and it mostly worked.

To make matters worse, Sabretooth had been the recipient of Wolverine's 
old adamantium. The stuff was then ripped out of Sabretooth and given
back to Wolverine by Apocalypse, who made Wolverine his horseman Death
for a short time. Wolverine #145 displayed the moment in a flashback, 
but the first appearance with the metal back was as Death in Astonishing 
X-Men Vol. 2 #1. 


--- Who was Wolverine before he was Wolverine? Does he even have a 
    real name? (+)

In 2001, a new miniseries was created by Joe Quesada, Bill Jemas, and 
Paul Jenkins, penciled by Andy Kubert and digitally painted by Richard 
Isanove.  Creatively named "Origin," the book was set in Alberta and 
British Columbia, Canada, and was supposed to tie up a lot of loose ends 
about Wolverine's origins. We'll summarize the important parts for you, 
so you don't have to spend dozens of dollars trying to buy the darned 
thing.

Issue #1 used misdirection, and convinced many readers that Dog, the 
beaten and abused son of lowlife groundskeeper Thomas Logan, was 
Wolverine. Origin #2, however, revealed that Wolverine was James Howlett, 
the weak child of an aristocrat, James Howlett, who was a gentle and soft 
man, and his wife Elizabeth, who has been sequestered in the mansion ever 
since the death of her first son, John. It's likely that Elizabeth 
Howlett had an affair with Thomas Logan, and that James is actually their 
son, since Thomas sneaks into the mansion in issue #2 to take Elizabeth 
away with him, and she doesn't protest too much. Either way, Thomas Logan 
ends up dead when James pops his claws. Something odd happened with his 
dead older brother, though--John Logan died at age twelve, apparently 
after an illness, and Mrs. Howlett says something to the effect of "ohh 
... Not *again*. Not *you*, James" in Origin #3. Apparently she's seen 
*somebody* pop claws before. It's too much for her, so she kills herself 
with a rifle. When the news is brought to Grandpa Howlett, he asks Dog 
what happened... and Dog lies and says that Rose had a gun.

After Grandpa Howlett forces Rose and James to leave the Howlett home, 
Rose takes James by train to British Columbia to work in a quarry. Since 
James is in a daze from the appearance of his claws, and they need to 
hide their identities due to James' killing of Thomas Logan, Rose gives 
the foreman the name of "Logan" for James. (The foreman, Smitty, is 
where Logan picks up his characteristic use of "bub.") After working 
lower-class jobs for a long while, Logan becomes stronger, following an 
internal "urge" to learn how to track animals. As of issue #4, he 
prefers the name "Logan" instead of James. He doesn't know what happened 
in Alberta (apparently his mind is blocking the memories), and though 
Rose wants to talk with him about it, he won't listen. She writes an 
account of it in her narrative diary, hoping that he'll learn the truth 
from the diary someday. Logan still seems to remember his claws, though, 
and after two years at the camp, he pops them out again.

In Origin #5, Rose becomes interested in Smitty. Smitty ends up giving 
Logan a book about Japanese Samurai fighters, presumably leading to his 
interest in that culture. At the end of the issue, Grandpa Howlett talks 
of letting "the fear of what happened to his brother" cloud his 
judgement, and sends a messenger to find James and Rose--except that the 
messenger is Dog, Thomas Logan's son from issue #1. In issue #6, there's 
a cage match in which Logan is called "the Wolverine." He throws a fight 
against Smitty, who was in the cage matches to earn money so that he and 
fiancee Rose could leave the quarry. When Dog appears and fights Logan, 
Logan remembers that Dog is actually the one who killed his father, not 
him. Rose tries to stop them; popping his claws, Logan accidentally 
kills Rose. He then runs off into the Canadian wilderness, leaving Dog 
and Smitty behind.

Apparently it's all true, because Xavier's freaky sister Cassandra Nova 
called Wolverine both "Mr. Logan" and "James" in NXM #126.

At the WizardWorld 2002 Comicon Quesada spoke for a while about Origin. 
The story didn't tell much about Wolverine's origin, they said, because 
the people at Marvel have planned a sequel. "Bill [Jemas] wants to do it 
tomorrow," said Quesada, "but I want to let 'Origin' sit a while." So 
who knows when we'll find out the details of how Wolverine went from 
teenage quarry worker to Weapon X agent.

And, just to clear things up: Dog is not Sabretooth. Really.


--- Wolverine can regularly regenerate himself from a drop of blood,
    right?

Only if you only reread one annual.

In Uncanny X-Men Annual #11, the X-Men get involved in this very 
symbolic quest to determine the worthiness of the entire human race, and 
all that other light afternoon sort of entertainment. In the end, only 
Wolverine is left to strive for the goal, this immensely powerful alien 
god-gem gadget thingee. Unfortunately for Wolverine, the alien Horde is 
right behind him, and slaughters the poor mutant--but not before a 
single drop of Wolvie's blood lands on the immensely powerful alien god-
gem which super-cosmically charges the superpowers of that blood to 
regrow an entire Wolverine, adamantium bones and all. In short, don't 
try this at home, kids, at least not without an immensely powerful alien 
god-gem of your own.

The simplest evidence against Wolverine having this amount of 
regenerative ability, however, is that in the numerous issues with no 
alien god-gems in sight that Wolverine gets pounded in, none of the 
blood he's leaked so copiously over everything has ever grown into 
another Wolverine.



*** Continued in Part 7 ***


   Compilation Copyright 2000-2003 by Katharine E. Hahn
   SEND ADDITIONS / CHANGES / DEAD LINKS / MOVED LINKS / UPDATES TO:  
   Kate the Short,  racmx@yahoo.com  (mailto:racmx@yahoo.com)


-- 
Kate the Short * http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/

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