Cover Story - Top 8 Wolverine Covers

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And so the celebration of Wolverine’s latest film adaptation comes to a close in the only way it could: a dive into the comic book covers that have made him such an icon over the past 40 years or so.  

Curiously, however, despite being one of the handful of characters who could keep Marvel Comics afloat all by himself Wolverine’s cover offerings are a little less than robust.  

There are certainly some excellent entries and iconic additions but for the most part, Wolverine comics tend to filter through the same handful of shouting and stabbing poses ad nauseam.  Given that, this is going to be a shorter list but one with a greater eye towards history and iconography.  

After all, Wolverine is one the biggest characters in all of the comics, a franchise unto himself with a visual language steeped in a long history of unique genres and definitive visuals and we’re going to check out 8 of them right here. 

Panel Vision - Old Man Logan

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So, by now Logan is looking to be on track to be the biggest superhero hit of the season and the latest genuine home run for Fox’s X-Men franchise since last year’s Deadpool.  That makes sense- the film looks incredibly well conceived with a lot of excellent elements, and it’s basically just the most recent iteration of the trend of Mark Millar comics getting amazing adaptations.  

If you’re not aware of him, Mark Millar is a Scottish comics author whose been a major staple of the comic scene for the better part of the 2000s.  Millar’s one of the co-creators of Marvel’s very successful Ultimate Universe, which helped inspire the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and wrote the comics that gave us Wanted, Kick-Ass 1 & 2, Kingsmen: The Secret Service, and Captain America: Civil War. 

The one wrinkle about this success is that virtually all of those films changed a ton from the source material because the original comics aren’t really that great.  I already dedicated a whole article to how bad the original Civil War books are, and I could easily do the same for the rest.  You can already see that with Logan as it’s clearly shed nearly everything from Old Man Logan save for the old Wolverine concept.  However, this case is a bit of an exception because Old Man Logan is a great comic. 

Logan News Update

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With about a month left till the premiere of Logan AKA Wolverine 3, now is probably a good time to look over everything we’ve learned about the latest entry in the X-Men franchise.  I’ve made no secret of the fact I don’t really care for Fox’s X-Men film series.  

I was never as into the X-Men and X-Men United as much as others in my age bracket, and I flat out hated Days of Future Past, and while Deadpool and First Class were good, they feel like exceptions rather than rules. 

However, all of my hesitation has gone right out the damn window in the lead up to Logan, which promises the most dark, grounded, and patently human entry in the entire X-Men film canon, possibly the whole canon overall if we're honest.  

It looks like a small, dirty, complicated R-rated flick that’s drawing the best elements from across the franchise’s history to create something entirely new and exciting while also paving the way for future possibilities. 

Panel Vision - Guide to the X-Men Multiverse

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One of the interesting things about the X-Men franchise at this moment in time is how much it’s ended up eschewing the shared universe format promoted by Marvel.  Instead, X-Men has adopted a sort of multi-continuity approach, in a manner that’s only growing more extreme.  Both Deadpool and the upcoming Logan take place in no other continuity than their own and, so far, it seems the TV show Legion is a unique continuity all its own as well.  

This is actually fairly common for the X-Men comics as the X-Men are major players in the realm of altered timelines and parallel universes.  So far only a couple have filtered into the movies but, given everything we’ve seen, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if things like Mojoworld or Age of X were on the horizon for the X-franchise.  So, if you don’t know what either of those things are here’s your guide to the X-Men multiverse. 

Logan Trailer Analysis

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I’ve made no secret of the fact I don’t like the X-Men films.  What’s more, I’ve also made it pretty clear that even though I enjoy the original Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Dave Cockrum, Louise Simonson, and Jackson Guice comics I’ve had a lot of problems with the core metaphor and overall quality of the X-Men comic mythos.  In the midst of all that bile I haven’t really address the big angry elephant in the room that is Wolverine.  I’m hard pressed to think of a character that looms larger in the realms of Marvel history than Wolverine. 

He’s been on nearly every superhero team, had countless solo comics, and spawned a media merchandising empire that, for a time, was a rival of the Batman’s.  Personally, I’ve never actually seen the allure.  Don't get me wrong, I like Wolverine as part of the X-Team dynamic, but his solo series have never seemed as interesting or mature as they’re often meant to be, and his movies always come off as squandered potential…until Logan, because this film looks amazing. 

Wolverine 3 News Update

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s the Internet has pointed out on several occasions, it’s something of a minor miracle that Hugh Jackman remains the only live action Wolverine.  Part of that obviously has to do with technology- before the advent of CGI, it wouldn’t have been practical to do Wolverine’s claws, so the idea of adapting him was out of the question for about three decades after his inception.  

Even then, the fact that Hugh Jackman has consistently returned to the role for 16 years appearing in every X-Men film except for Deadpool.  He’s seen the franchise through its initial success, it’s tragic lows, its shocking return, and it’s current situation of running in place while waiting for Marvel to make Fox a shared custody deal.  However, after 16 years Jackman looks to finally be pulling the plug on his role as Wolverine with this next and final outing in 2017’s Logan.

X-Men: Apocalypse Post-Credits Scene Explained

Edited by Robert Beach 

X-Men: Apocalypse has topped the box office for Memorial Day weekend as our third big superhero team movie of the year and 4th comic book movie overall. Ideally, I’ll have a more in-depth review of the film later on, but as we wait on that, we can talk about is the post-credits scene.  Post-credits scenes (stingers) have become the staple of superhero movies nowadays. To the point audiences have been so trained to expect stingers, it’d be weird if a superhero film didn’t have one (that was a Batman v. Superman slam.) 

The entire idea of post-credits superhero teasers originates in the X-Men franchise, first popping up with X3: The Last Stand’s ending clip of Professor Xavier mind-warping into a comatose patient to escape death. Since then, we’ve had big reveals like Nick Fury in Iron Man, funny shoutouts like Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy, and direct sequel set-up like the Apocalypse teaser in Days of Future Past. What type of scene does X-Men: Apocalypse sport? And what does it mean for the X-Men films going forward?  Let’s find out. Spoilers ahead.

Book of the Dead: The Fall of Bloodshot Review

I take a look at Valiant's amazing tie-in to their new event comic with Book of the Dead: The Fall of Bloodshot, short version- it's a masterpiece, check out the full review on Front Towards Gamer: http://ftg.operationsupplydrop.org/2015/07/25/the-fall-of-bloodshot-review-comics/