It’s finally happening. For two decades, Marvel fans begged to see Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine suit up in his classic yellow and blue costume in the X-Men movies and then lamented never getting to see it when the actor retired the character in 2017… but everything is different now. Following a brief “character retirement,” Jackman is playing Logan again in Deadpool 3, and it’s been revealed that he will be rocking the hero’s comic book look. This development has stirred excitement from a great number of fans, but it has also stimulated reflection on Wolverine’s full cinematic history.
It’s the latter that has inspired the writing of this piece. It can be argued that the evolution of superhero movies has been mirrored in the macro evolution of Wolverine’s big screen look – starting from a time when the blockbusters were seemingly embarrassed by their source material to a time when the weird and wildness of comics has been embraced by Hollywood. The full story traces back to the year 2000, and the early approach can be summed up in a line that has been seen as notorious among fans (no, not, “You know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning?”)
