Character Distillation: Wolverine

Been a while since I've done one of these, and I might as well throw this one out, though it's incredibly obvious.

1. Wolverine has "animal-like" powers and temperament, and metal claws and bones.
2. Wolverine has a long, dirty history because he's old, and his memory is terrible (though terrible memory is an animal characteristic, so whatever).
   
3. Wolverine is the bestest ever. Or so Marvel's marketing department has been led to believe, and so the writers like to present him as a result.

Yes, that's the core of the character. I'm sure plenty of people would disagree with this assessment, but the first two are deeper and more central to him than any other characteristics, and the last is the most important in terms of how he gets treated.

Of course, the last part is what drives a lot of comic book fans (and Wolverine fans) nuts these days. Wolverine has to do all these really insane things and kick everyone's butts all the time, and if he ever gets his butt kicked it's not good. And thus he gets to do things that totally ruin logic as a result.

Although there was that one time when Magneto ripped the adamantium out of him, which amusingly arose (according to Peter David) from a random comment Peter David made that he didn't think it made much sense to have a big fight between the two characters, because Magneto could just pull his skeleton out. (He didn't think they should do it because Wolverine would die after that, but obviously they disagreed. And Wolverine disagreed with the dying part, of course. Because he's frikkin' Wolverine and can ignore death.)

As for the animal powers, metal bones/claws, and old man thing? I think one of my favorite things about Wolverine actually is that for all intents and purposes, he's a grouchy old man.

-Signing off.