An Insiders View of Wolverine Origins

As someone who been puttering around the comics industry since 1989 and been following Wolverine since Uncanny X-Men #98, (circa 1975), I wanted to share my thoughts on the latest X-Men franchise movie, Origins: Wolverine.

I went into the theatre with a bit of trepidation due to the two disappointing reviews I read in the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle. The thing was, I really understood what the reviewers were bothered by and based upon the trailers I saw I could understand how what they thought could indeed be true (not enough character development, story paper thin and with little explanation, special effects lacking).

But I'm here to say that even though I walked into the theater looking for these flaws, I did not agree with them. Now that may be because I'm pretty versed on Wolverine's (and X-Men) history, but my daughter who watched it with me is not...and she had no problem following the storyline or making sense of the characters and their abilities.

Hugh Jackman's Wolverine was sufficiently agonized, gruff and when circumstances called for it...a bit sarcastic and funny. It wasn't necessary for him to carry most scenes because there were so many other interesting characters with very diverse personalities. This allowed Jackman to maintain Wolvies penchant for being a bit brooding and moody.

Liev Schreiber was sufficiently dark and blood thirsty for Sabertooth, though I would have liked to see someone with a more massive body style, ala the size of Sabertooth from the first X-Men movie. I thought his habit of falling back to charging someone on all fours, like a wild animal, was a nice touch to establish the feral nature of his character.

Ryan Reynolds was at his wise cracking best as Wade (Deadpool), reminiscent of his character in the Blade Trinity movie. The only problem was, there wasn't enough of him! (spoiler warning) I thought Wolvie's explanation of why he wasn't talking late in the movie was very clever, but I would have rather had them trade some witty repartee! (end spoiler warning).

Though I thought the scene with the Blob (played by: Kevin Durand) a bit gratuitous and out of pace with the rest of the movie, I still enjoyed it non the less because of the accurate way they portrayed the character and his abilities.

And last but not least, Gambit was a joy. Watching Taylor Kitsch (Friday night lights) playing him, I couldn't help but picture Johnny Depp in that role! But Kitsch did a good job illustrating gambits attitude and abilities (which never have translated well in print, in my opinion), even though they spent almost no time establishing his background. One of the strongest battle scenes of the movie involved the Gambit, Wolvie and Sabertooth in kind of a free for all.

The negatives?

I thought the prediction of Wolverine's pending memory loss was a bit hokey (what experience or data did Styker have to possibly make that kind of hypothesis)? Just dropping that whole line of dialog and letting it happen naturally would have had much better shock value, where as this way they telegraphed it from a country mile for the audience.

I am a purist where my comic book based movies are concerned. For decades comic book movies basically bombed for one simple reason. Hollywood refused to follow the successful character designs and story lines of the comics and chose to "hollywood-ize" them. With the release of the first X-Men movie, a trend began of not only some incredibly successful movies, but also some of the most loyal to the source material. These type of movies were now being created by directors and producers who were familiar and respected the source material and it showed in the quality and the bottom line. The characters as written have been loved for years (in some cased decades)...so don't mess with what works!

I read a quote by the director (Gavin Hood) for Wolverine, who said that the first writer working on the screenplay wrote a script till the point where he was unwilling to do any further revisions. (paraphrasing) "The difference between that movie and the one we made, was that I didn't want to make the comic book into a movie." He stated he had no problem if his vision differed from the history of the character, as long as it made "his movie" work better. (Spoiler warning) Thus you get things like Wolvie and Sabertooth being brothers and the powers of Deadpool (End Spoiler Warning).

And finally, I would have liked a bit more of Logan/James' formative years (you know, the story we've come to know as Wolverine: Origins...the comic mini-series). As it was you get about 3 minutes of it and then they move on.

But when it's all said and done, the story was very enjoyable. The action sequences with the exception of one were all very thrilling and easy to follow. Special effects...top notch. The movie does nothing to diminish this franchise, nor the career of Hugh Jackman and I'm already to watch it a second time just thinking about it...always a good sign.

I rate it a B+...but it could be too of intense for kids under 12.

R.J. Luedke

www.headpress.info

The Making of Watchmen: Part 3

Comic Buyers Guide (CBG) in their issue #1652, just did a wonderful job of spotlighting Watchmen, the original series and the upcoming movie, by Warner Bros. As part of their treatment, Andrew Smith (contributing editor) does a very informative Q & A about Watchmen the making of the original comic series (yes, it was a 12 issue comic before it became a graphic novel phenomena).

For the benefit of those of you who may not have access to the periodical, I'll share some of the more interesting information in the form of multiple choice questions/ which I'll then answer...leading up to the movie's release.

QUESTION:

What awards has Watchmen won?

a. A people's choice award

b. A Hugo

c. An Eisner

d. both B & C

ANSWER:

d. Watchmen won an Eisner Award in 1988 for best limited series and a Hugo award, also in 1988, in the "Other Forms" catagory.

The The Hugo Awards, given annually since 1955, are science fiction’s most prestigious award. The Hugos are voted on by the thousands of members of the current Worldcon which is also responsible for administering them.

The Making of Watchmen, Part Two

Comic Buyers Guide (CBG) in their issue #1652, just did a wonderful job of spotlighting Watchmen, the original series and the upcoming movie, by Warner Bros. As part of their treatment, Andrew Smith (contributing editor) does a very informative Q & A about Watchmen the making of the original comic series (yes, it was a 12 issue comic before it became a graphic novel phenomena).

For the benefit of those of you who may not have access to the periodical, I'll share some of the more interesting information in the form of multiple choice questions/ which I'll then answer...leading up to the movie's release.

QUESTION:

Why has the Watchmen creator/writer and industry icon, Alan Moore, requested his name not be included in the movies credits, nor is he doing anything to promote it?

A. Because he wanted to also write the screenplay

B. Because of ownership rights disputes with DC-Time/Warner

C. Because he insisted that Guy Richie be the director

D. Because he basically refuses to have anything to do with Hollywood.

ANSWER:

B. Moore has a long and well documented history of disputes with both Marvel and DC, over his properties, ownership rights, censorship and licensing of his stories to Hollywood...and Watchmen is no exception. In fact, Moore has gone as far as to say in interviews that Watchmen was stolen from him!

The original contact he and artist Dave Gibbons had signed with DC stated, that the rights to the story would revert to them when the graphic novel went out of print (the series was published in 1986, with the original collected trade paperback edition coming in 1987). The problem lies with the fact, that Watchemen has NEVER went out of print...and at this point it would appear they will never allow it to go out of print (since it's won a Hugo Award and named as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century by Time Magazine). According to a New York Times article cited by the CBG article, Moore stated, "You have managed to successfully swindle me, so I will never work for you again."

This situation has resulted in Moore standing in the way of several product licensing deals DC has tried to develop on ancillary products and Moore basically declaring he wants his name taken off any and all books we worked on which he does not own.

This situation is basically why you will also not find Moore's name in the credits for some of his other stories turned into movies (V for Vendetta and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

The Making of Watchmen, Part One

Comic Buyers Guide in their issues #1652 (CBG), just did a wonderful job of spotlighting Watchmen, the original series and the upcoming movie, by Warner Bros.

(Plug: if you love the medium of comics and graphic novels, CBG magazine is a must-read to keep up on what's going on in the industry, plus reading monthly columns by the movers and shakers...not quite as PR oriented as a Wizard...more meat and potatoes, especially for those of us who've been around for a bit and like to know more of the industries history).

As part of their treatment, Andrew Smith (contributing editor) does a very informative Q & A about Watchmen, (which Time magazine listed in their top 100 novels...not graphic novels...of ALL TIME).

For the benefit of those of you who may not have access to the periodical, I'll share some of the more interesting information in the form of multiple choice questions/ which I'll then answer...leading up to the movie's release.

QUESTION #1:

Were the Characters in Watchmen originally inspired by:

a. Golden age DC Comics heroes

b. Marvel comics characters

c. Golden age superheroes created by Archie Comics

d. Charlton comics characters

ANSWER:

d. Charlton comics characters (with a some minor modifications)*

DC had bought the rights to the Charlton heroes in the 1980's. Their introduction to the DC universe was suppose to come through Moore's Watchmen conception. After reading it, Managing Editor, Dick Giordano, realized that there wouldn't be enough of them leftover after the series, to do much with...but he loved the script, so he suggested Moore change the characters to one's he created specifically for the project....which he did, but with some familiar traits.

-Rorshach was based on Steve Ditko's Question, with elements of Mr. A added in.

-Nite Owl II, was based upon the Blue Beetle (with lots of similarities also to Batman).

-Dr. Manhattan was Moore's version of Caption Atom, though I personally see him more derivative of Dr. Solar (or Solar Man of Atom).

-Ozymandias was inspired by Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt.

-Silk Spectre II, is loosely based upon Charlton's Nightshade...though Moore's said in interviews that the similarities only go as far as she's the only woman on the team, he was envisioning more of a Phantom Lady or Black Canary type character.

-The Comedian was really a blending of Groucho Marx, Nick Fury with G. Gordon Liddy, though visual elements of his character can be seen with Archie characters, Hooded Justice and Hangman (one of the most brutal comic characters of the 1940's).

*According to Moore, he originally had toyed with the story using the golden age Archie comic heroes, before DC offered him the Charlton ones...which explains some of the similarities to those properties.

Explaining the Graphic Novel

As someone who is out there in the media and bookstore trenches, attempting to explain to people who didn't grow up reading graphic novels (or comics, or manga) what exactly they are, I think I've developed an explanation that I think helps make better sense of the whole conversation and if you're a fan of the format...could help to better explain it to someone who may not yet be familiar with it.

For many years now, literary critics, book reviewers and pseudo-intellectual bloggers have been pondering the graphic novel and where it fits into...or even if it fits into...serious discussion about literature.

Here's a current example of this kind of discussion, (by journalist Seth Sommerfeld for the online Gonzaga Bulletin), which is typically created for those who might new to the medium, by those who are vaguely familiar with it. Usually these kind of Graphic Novel 101 pieces, involves invoking one or more of the works that everyone knows since they have been successfully developed into other mediums, (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, the upcoming Watchmen, 300, Sin City etc...). Within this competent piece, Sommerfeld restates the stock answer to the question, what is a graphic novel? "A graphic novel is a book-length comic. Everything one would expect in a traditional novel is present, they just happen to add illustrations to correspond with the story."

While much of that is indeed true, (and for the purposes of discloser...I've used a version of this explanation myself in interviews), I've grown to feel that much of that description is not only too simplistic, but just plain out and out misguided. First of all, what he's explaining here, is more akin to an illustrated novel, which adds illustrations every few pages or chapters, that "correspond with the story," and help flesh out the look of the characters for the reader. With a graphic novel, the illustrations don't just add to the story, they are integral to it. Ask anyone who's spent significant time reading or purchasing graphic novels (or comics) and more often then not, their buying decisions are based upon the artist (or art team), rather than the writer. There are exceptions of course, (Neil Gaimen, Alan Moore, Frank Miller to name a few), but typically if the art does not appeal to the reader he might as well be reading a novel (no pun intended)!

You see, when you break it down, a graphic novel is much closer in structure to the format of a screen play, than it is a novel. While you may find some GN authors who write their "scripts" similar to a novel outline, you find a greater majority create a document that looks and reads very much like a screenplay. This is because the creation of a graphic novel parallels the developmental course of a screenplay, more so than a novel.

With a novel you have the writer and then the editor (or team of editors) who help craft the story into a marketable form. But as far as the foundation of the story goes, (the creation of the characters, their descriptions, the settings, the mood), unless there is a ghost writer involved, the writer is the sole person responsible for the creation and vision of the work and he gets the lion share of the credit (not to mention the royalties).

With a graphic novel, you still start with the writer (and also most likely an editor) to craft the story into a usable form. But from that point, the progress of the work will veer into the direction of what happens with a screenplay. With a GN script, the writer is responsible for pointing out what is taking place not only in each scene, but on each page of the scene and depending how they work, sometimes in each individual frame within that page.* With some exceptions when a graphic novel script is completed, it then goes to an artist (some times one person, sometimes a team of people) who take the script and break it down into layouts based upon the descriptions in the script; then pencil illustrations are done; then fully inked renderings are created from these illustrations; and then (in some cases) fully colored-painted artwork. In that case the writer of the script is closer in definition to the writer of a screenplay, since this is the basis on which to total presentation is built. The penciler, inker and colorist (sometimes all the same person) are akin to the cinematographer, director of photography, casting director and director...in that what the writer has indicated in the script, is now translated through their eyes onto the page. The process then comes full circle as the words are then added to the artwork, to create a whole that is now much greater then the sum of it's parts.

So unlike most novels, graphic novels are the result of the vision of more than one person (unless of course you work like me with Eyewitness...actively involved on almost every level). And like movies the final appearance of a graphic novel, can drastically deviate from the original story as envisioned by the writer in his script...because after all, we all visualize a bit differently. How many times have you read a good novel and had a real solid visual image of what a character looked like (based upon the writer's description) only to have him/her look dramatically different on film. That's similar to the impact that a casting director has on a screenplay and/or your pencil artist has on a graphic novel.

Now, when you have one person who is not only the writer, but also the artist and editor of a GN project, you have what could be related to in the world of cinema, as an indy film...one that is driven by the creative vision of one man who not only writes the screenplay, but is also director and cinematographer...rather than an ensemble cast of participants.

So the next time you hear someone trying to talk down graphic novels, because as a literary form, they do not adhere to the basic tenets and accepted practices of a prose novel, politely correct them, that graphic novels are more closely related to movies than they are novels, (which is why they are so easily adapted to that format, since a lot of the work of the director, cinematographer and director of photography has already been done), and so should be judged accordingly! You'll not only most likely "smack down" a literary snob, but you'll sound darned prolific doing it!

Robert James Luedke
Author and Illustrator
http://www.headpress.info/


*There are basically two different formats most GN writers work in...the Marvel Style and Full Script. Peter David, in his seminal work, Writing for Comics, explains it this way, "In the Marvel Style, (Made popular by industry icon, Stan Lee), the story is presented in a general manner , like a short story written in present tense. It includes some, but not necessarily all, dialog and gives the artist much latitude in how he visually paces the story. Once the artwork is done, the writer then scripts the story, adding dialogue, captions and sound effects. When you write in full script, you're telling the artist everything that's going to be on the page...how you want it framed, at what angle, what's in the background, what's the character's expressions, where are their hands...by their side or in their pocket, what's the weather like, etc..."

Clark Kent meets Peter Parker?

Now's this is what you call a GRABBER of a headline, from one of the L.A. Times fanboy blogs.....at least it got my attention!

SUPERMAN MEETS SPIDER-MAN!?

(by: Geoff Boucher)

Ah, one of the great moments of my childhood was in 1976 when all the rules of physics seemed to stop and the impossible happened: Superman met Spider-Man. What happened? Well, they started punching each other, of course.

The book had GREAT cover drawn by Ross Andru (based on a Carmine Infantino layout and tightened by Dick Giordano inks) and a fun story by Gerry Conway with Lex Luthor and Dr. Octopus as the bad guys. It was sold as one of those great oversized tabloid editions.

I was thinking of that landmark DC-Marvel crossover this morning when I saw footage of Brandon Routh, the most recent Man of Steel on the silver screen, meeting the considerably shorter Tobey Maguire, who was pitch-perfect as Peter Parker in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" films. If Warner Bros. brings Routh back as the last son of Krypton (that's no done deal, of course) perhaps we'll see a summer showdown between the two signature heroes of the top comic-book companies. That would be cool.

The two actors met at a charity event, here's the lowdown from MTV: "They were on hand at Abram Simon Elementary to perform some community service as part of the president-elect’s call to community action on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. But the momentous meeting was the kind that comic geeks salivate over. Maguire was hard at work with volunteers in a classroom at the school trying to figure out how to build the IKEA-style shelving units, when Routh walked by just behind him, but the superheroes-in-street-clothes barely acknowledged each other as they pitched in while wearing their civvies ... Though Maguire was kept busy screwing panels of the shelves together, a short time later, as Routh pulled books from boxes to stack them in the newly built cubbies, he happened across a — no joke — Spider-Man book, and walked it over to his super-brethren. 'I think this is yours,' he said, handing Maguire the book. The web-slinger laughed, and the actors shook hands and chatted for a few moments before Routh walked back across the room to shelve 'I Can Read: Spider-Man 3, Meet the Heroes and the Villains.' 'I think I can probably beat them all up,' Routh said. 'Just kidding.'" [MTV]