Wolverine's origin

I was a big fan of X-Men back in High School. It was the second series I got into (The New Mutants was the first). I think my first favorite was Rachel (the two earliest ones I remember were #175 and #199). Kitty was a very cool character as well. But Wolverine quickly became my favorite. The Kitty Pryde/Wolverine miniseries was awesome, and the Wolverine mini-series was even better (once I found it).

When the movies came out, I was happy to see them. I didn't think they were great, but they definitely had their moments. Hugh Jackman definitely did a good job as Wolverine in them, and Famke Janssen was also very good.

But I wasn't able to get to see Wolverine in the theaters, unfortunately. The lousy reviews didn't exactly get me excited to see it, and timing was difficult. So I waited and bought it a while after it came out.

Three months later, I've finally managed to watch it.

To say it was weak would be a bit of an understatement. You can't fake your own death in front of Wolverine; his senses are too sharp (he'll hear your heartbeat, weak as it is, and he'll know it isn't your blood). Why did Gambit interfere and help Sabertooth get away? Not only was it out of character for Gambit (he'd be more likely to run than to pick an unnecessary fight), but it didn't make sense with his motivations (at least as expressed) either. And what was the basis for thinking that shooting Wolverine in the head was going to wipe his memories? After going through the bloodiest wars in human history, he'd have had to have been shot in the head before (firing squads would seem especially good at that) without having memory problems.

And have you ever thought about trying to make a gun that can fire an adamantium bullet? Do they have any idea why no one makes steel bullets nowadays? I'll give a hint: it has nothing to do with damage to the target.

And how about how quickly he back up to Sabertooth, capability-wise? He gets his clock cleaned, flies away for what doesn't seem like more than a couple of days to get his bones upgraded, spends perhaps a couple of weeks finding out about, and then going to, New Orleans, and that's enough for him to now be faster than Sabertooth (again, presumably)? Not even superheroes get back into shape that quickly.

And this is all ignoring him becoming American. They also lost his time as a secret agent, plus it was now a different government changing him. And the way he acted around Kayla? Way different than he's ever been in any incarnation I've seen, around women.

Of course, the director was also confused about one major thing. He said in his commentary for one of the deleted scenes that Wolverine was essentially unkillable, but that's not true either. X-Men #142 showed him being killed (hmm... back to Rachel). There might well be other comics that showed him dying, but that's the only one I can remember.

And I'm pretty sure there are bigger, structural issues with the whole story, but I'm too tired to piece them together right now. Maybe another time.

Anyway, this was a very disappointing movie for me. I initially had very high hopes for it, but they were badly dashed. About the only good thing this movie had going for it was the cute story of the wolverine howling at the moon.