It’s true of many comics characters, especially ones that are fifty years or more older, that much of what we think of them is an amalgamation of many creators’ hands.

Len Wein, Herb Trimpe, and John Romita’s Wolverine was recognizable, but still quite different from who he is today. The costume got refined to a more familiar appearance by Dave Cockrum. Then overhauled to the brown costume that we know and love by John Byrne.

The personality, the history, the fragments of memory, aspects of his appearance were developed by luminaries like Larry Hama, Barry Windsor-Smith, Marc Silvestri, and more. With a large contribution by long-time Uncanny X-Men scribe, Chris Claremont.

Wolverine (1982)

I’m the best there is at what I do. But what I do isn’t very nice.”

Wolverine (1982) by Claremont, Frank Miller, Josef Rubinstein, Glynis Wein, Lynn Varley, and Tom Orzechowski was Logan’s first solo mini-series. It brought back his love from Japan, Mariko, her conflict with her recently returned father, an arranged marriage to an abusive husband, a whole lot of ninjas, an underworld conflict, and threw in another femme fatale for fun.

I know these days Chris Claremont’s modern work can be divisive. That’s really true of any writers who come from different eras of comics. Styles and writing techniques change. What’s popular in one, like thought balloons, might be anathema in another. Claremont himself can be quite verbose, to the point where some of his scripts might seem overwritten, even during his most popular runs. That’s not really the case here.

This is one of my favourite Claremont-penned tales. It does have a lot of narration, but it’s more like a noir voiceover. Logan’s inner thoughts are expanding on his emotional reaction to Mariko marrying someone else, his struggles with his more bestial, berserker nature, elaborating on different customs and cultural touchstones, and adding some hard-boiled atmosphere. It’s a fascinating incorporation of a western crime trope with eastern setting and themes.

And it gives Tom Orzechowski an opportunity to use negative space for an interesting design element. While maintaining the look to word balloons and lettering that he developed through his run on Uncanny X-Men.

No longer. The garden has been wrecked, its pattern broken. Order turned to chaos. The story of my life.”

Wolverine cast as a ronin, fighting ninjas and a seedy criminally underbelly in Japan, was right up Frank Miller’s alley. Gorgeous dynamic action sequences abound in this story. This coming out only a year before he did his creator-owned Ronin series for DC. His art here starting to show the shift that would come in that series, bearing more influence from artists like Goseki Kojima. There’s a change in face shapes, an increase in multiple hatching lines for shading and texture, an economy of shape for character’s bodies, that carries through Dark Knight Returns.

There’s still an interesting smoothness to the lines here that is like to Josef Rubinstein’s inks/finishes. If you look at how Miller inks himself on Ronin or Klaus Janson in Dark Knight Returns, you can see the contrast. It’s a balance between Miller and Rubinstein that reflects the manga influence to fit a story set in Japan, but keeps it familiar enough to western superhero readers.

The colour work from Glynis Wein and Lynn Varley (who came aboard on the fourth issue) is good. I prefer how it looks in the original comics, even if it’s a bit faded on that paper, but it still delivers a great mood to the piece. There’s a purple shift to the red in the reproductions that I don’t know if it’s intentional or a byproduct of different paper/digital screens.

I do nothing.”

Wolverine (1982) by Claremont, Miller, Rubinstein, Wein, Varley, and Orzechowski adds depth to Logan’s character. It expands upon his relationship with Mariko and delivers a compelling, action-filled crime story filled with love, honour, regret, and ninjas. We even get an early iteration of Muramasa blades, different version of which will reappear during Wolverine’s career ultimately into X of Swords. There’s a theme of duelling natures that runs through the story that’s also mirrored in the blend of eastern and western approaches to art and storytelling.

Wolverine (1982)

Classic Comic Compendium: WOLVERINE (1982)

Wolverine
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciller: Frank Miller
Finisher: Josef Rubinstein
Colourists: Glynis Wein & Lynn Varley
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release Date: February 1 2022 (deluxe edition) | June 1 – August 31 1982 (original issues)
Available collected in Wolverine by Claremont & Miller – Deluxe Edition, The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus – Volume 3, and Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men – Volume 9


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