When writer Len Wein, artist Herb Trimpe, and editor Roy Thomas first introduced Wolverine in 1974’s Incredible Hulk #180 – 181, he was just a Canadian operative with a bad attitude and metal claws on his gloves. He didn’t get too much more development in the couple of appearances that followed, nor when Wein brought Wolverine onto the X-Men in 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1, drawn by Dave Cockrum. Wein had imagined Wolverine as a smooth-faced teenager, who wore claws on his gloves to accentuate his heightened mutant senses. But since Wolverine goes unmasked in those issues, he never had a chance to write that description into the script.
After Giant-Size X-Men, Chris Claremont took over from Wein as writer of the X-Men, but Cockrum came on and began further developing Wolverine. Cockrum first extended the wings on Wolverine’s mask, making the small points from Trimpe’s design more exaggerated. When Wolverine took off his mask for the first time in Uncanny X-Men #98 (1976), he gave Wolvie his distinctive hairdo, with plunging mutton-chops and swoops that matched his mask. In that same issue, a shirtless Wolverine pops his claws, revealing for the first time that the claws are in his skin and not attached to his costume.
While the changes came as a surprise to Wein, they shouldn’t have shocked anyone following Cockrum’s work closely. Before coming to Uncanny X-Men, Cockrum redesigned several members of DC Comics‘ Legion of Super-Heroes, including Brin Londo aka Timber Wolf. Cockrum imagined Timber Wolf as a feral, animalistic warrior, and gave him longer sideburns and pointy hair — the exact same look he would bring to Wolverine.
Around the same time, in 1972, Cockrum started to pitch a Legion spinoff series to DC called the Outsiders, a team of futuristic heroes who battled the Devastators. With the exception of the warlord Tyr, none of the Devastators made it to print. But one is worth noting, a wolf-man type villain with sharp teeth, a bad attitude, with a distinct widow’s peak and long sideburns. The name of this character? Wolverine.
Photo: Marvel Comics.
Wolverine was hardly the only connection Cockrum made between the X-Men and the Legion of Super-Heroes. There are, of course, the Shi’ar Imperial Guard that Cockrum made with Chris Claremont for Uncanny X-Men #107 (1977), which directly copy the Legion (Gladiator = Superboy, Oracle = Saturn Girl, Smasher = Ultra Boy). But the more important contributions involve characters Cockrum never got to realize at DC.
Among the Outsiders was a character originally called the Intruder, a demon-like creature who could teleport anywhere he wanted. By the time he appeared in the Outsiders pitch, Cockrum had kept the look, but imagined him as more heroic, giving him the name “Nightcrawler.” Even with that change, DC editorial deemed Nightcrawler too weird, and rejected the character.
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