Reviews - Wolverine: Origin

142 reviews for:

Well, if I have to be unable to sleep in on a Saturday, at least I get to read cool stuff like this. I wasn't a huge fan of the art, and I found the first few pages quite confusing, but then I was in and I was hooked. I really felt for Logan in this one. A lot of the comics I've read lately have been OK, but not very emotionally affecting, but this one really worked for me. With so much great material out there for Logan, it's really hard not to read more and more about him.

cajonist's review against another edition

1.0

This comic isn't objectively bad. It's got decent art; the dialogue is good; the pacing is grand. It's just the ideas in the story that let it down so badly. This is Marvel lifting the lid on the origin story on what is probably its most precious commodity. Wolverine is THE Marvel hero and that's pretty much the bottom line. To spend so many years not telling anyone where he came from or how he got the way he is only to muck it up badly when you do is pretty unforgivable.

carduelia_carduelis's review against another edition

3.0

The art-style and color palette are excellent: muted earthy tones, a sketchy ink that often feels more akin to a pencil drawing than ink.
That being said.. I didn't like this. I don't know how the larger community feels about this part of his backstory (which my partner is convinced was in the Origins movie.. I only remember the Weapon-X stuff, guess I'm due a rewatch?) but I didn't really like it.

When you get down to it the plot is very thin on the ground and the twist, when it comes, didn't do much for me. So Logan, our Logan, was the one that witnessed the abuse, not the one that experienced it? So he came from a life of privilege, broken though it was? I didn't care for it, and I cared for it even less at the mining camp which felt like a rip-off of Jack London's work.

This was fine.. but it felt like a letdown after the fresh narrative of X-statix.

==========
Why X-Men, why now?
I was really into X-Men during my teens.
It's such a classic story about acceptance and finding your place in the world that it feels catered to teens. Plus there's enough diversity in the cast's backgrounds and personalities to keep it interesting.
And look at the epic storylines back then: the dark Phoenix saga, Age of Apocalypse, House of M, Civil War - so much great stuff!
I grew tired of them at some point and moved on to other pastures (Runaways, then mostly Image) mostly because the big Marvel collections were huge, a long time coming, and they were so expensive! I didn't have a way to get single issues (this was pre-digital comics) so I ordered them from the USA.

But recently.. someone talked about how great the Hickman run is... And I wanted to get back in. Because let's face it: when Marvel is done well it's like being a kid again.

So with the help of comicbook herald I put together a little reading list. Books so far:
New X-Men, Volume 1 by Grant Morrison
New X-Men by Grant Morrison: Ultimate Collection, Book 2
New X-Men by Grant Morrison: Ultimate Collection, Book 3
X-Statix: The Complete Collection Vol. 1
X-Statix: The Complete Collection Vol. 2
X-Statix, Volume 4: X-Statix vs. the Avengers

crookedtreehouse's review against another edition

2.0

There are certain backstories in comics and literature that are alluded to, that should probably never be told. Coming up with an intriguing origin story for a character who spent about forty years not knowing his past is very risky. And, in this case, it didn't pay off.

Less an origin story, and more a ticking-of-boxes to explain things we already know about the character, Wolverine Origin is...boring. Told from the perspective of a young girl sent to be a companion to a constantly ill child, James Howlett, the future Logan, nothing about rings true. It's got all the classic tropes of a nineteenth century class struggle: a sickly rich boy, a violent lower class employee, child abuse, generational conflict centered around an angry old men who, on his deathbed, finally regrets all of his lifechoices. It reads less than a superhero origin, and more like a story Mark Twain wrote on a napkin, and had the common sense to throw away.

Let Wolverine's origin remain a mystery, and avoid this retcon.

crookedtreehouse's review against another edition

3.0

I do not argue that this is a classic Wolverine story. It's his adult origin (his childhood will be revealed much later), and it contains some foundational parts of Wolverine's character. The only reason it doesn't make Headcanon is that, on its own, it's not terribly exciting. It's almost torture porn as two sadists, a team of doctors, and one of the sadist's assistants turn Logan the mutant with claws and a healing factor into Wolverine the killing machine with adamantium claws. It's appropriately graphic, and Windsor-Smith is a fantastic artist and solid writer. The story just feels like it goes on too long. Maybe because some of the scenes are used in flashbacks dozens of times after this. Honestly, seeing the story in brief flashbacks as opposed to the entire narrative is more satisfying, as you need a break from the constant torture, as the violence seems less horrifying as the story goes on. You get used to it, which shouldn't be the story's effect.

If you're a huge Wolverine fan, this is almost definitely a 5 star book for you. If you love X-Men lore, this is probably a five star book for you. On its own merit without the context of readers wanting to know Wolverine's origin, this is pretty boring.

Wolverine is unconscious for most of it, so this is mainly the story of two terrible people who don't communicate well but who are forced to work together to torture a man into becoming a monster. That could also be an interesting premise even devoid of the Wolverine context but it just doesn't ever really go anywhere, and I don't care about either character.