Wolverine Before ‘Deadpool’
Some notes on a failed attempt to understand the movie superhero of the century.
First, a confession. This summer, I planned to write a weekly series about all ten movies featuring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I failed.
In the 24 years since an unknown Australian actor starred in X-Men, there have been three Batmen, three Supermen, three Hellboys, countless Spider-Men. In the Superhero Age of Blockbusters, Jackman is the Constant. But in writing the essays, I found the subject hard to pin down. Jackman and Wolverine are shapechangers. A character with many names: Logan, James, Weapon X. An actor with clashing personas: The action hero song-and-dance nice-guy Friend-of-Ivanka Broadway beefcake. They are human multiverses, in a franchise so shambly I honestly don’t know how many Wolverines Jackman has played. Eight, maybe, between clones and timelines? Deadpool & Wolverine surely multiplies that. (I’m seeing it tonight.)
Jackman-as-Wolverine has been young, ancient, a wanderer, a soldier. Something missing in the muchness, though. There’s a vacancy in a lot of Jackman’s performances, no matter how much he shows his work. He joined X-Men after the first-choice actor dropped out. From a comic book perspective, he’s still miscast. On the page, Wolverine is a Canadian runt, so small his signature move is getting thrown by Colossus. Jackman is a colossus, tall and slim — until his Wolverine regimen demanded veiny muscle mass.
When actors get swole, they can seem sexless onscreen. Like they’re staring at themselves, not their co-stars. Has Jackman ever had a great movie romance? The fun in Kate & Leopold depends on his dashing dandy being Perfect Boyfriendhood incarnate. But there’s a reason his best role is The Prestige, where his rakish glamour obscures eerie ambition and self-destructive narcissism. (The Prestige makes him a multiverse, too.)
There are ways the X-movies work around him. In X2, the most thrilling setpiece belongs to Nightcrawler, Iceman has the best dramatic moment, and Wolverine gets shot in the head. Strangely, he was often the ensemble’s comic relief, a snarky dude snikting through mutant intrigue, extending a middle claw to authority. X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine gave him prominence, passion, leadership. In those films, Jackman is bland and terrible, and seems to barely understand the character.
In fairness, I’m not sure I do, either. And I’ve been reading, playing, or watching Wolverine my whole life. I never knew the John Byrne version, faintly acrobatic in bright yellow duds. My primal Wolverine image is apex ‘90s: No mask, flannel shirt, jeans, claws absurdly long. He had no backstory or too much. A mutant born with one ability (super-healing) was also a Frankenstein with experimental augmentation (metal skeleton). One kid told me he heard Wolverine was an actual wolverine scienced into manhood.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Draftland Scene to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.