Elijya said:
Not necessarily. Batman, Superman and Spider-Man are all immensely poopluar and have more exposure then Wolverine, but I can understand them. Those characters have incredible mass appeal, not to mention very deep symbolism.
Wolverine just seems to get by on "cool factor" alone
Yes, they're all popular, as to exposure, the amount of books Wolverine has compared to them doesn't equal up in each case however. As to you being able to relate to them, well that's a personal view and has nothing to do with the character itself, just each individual's preception of him. Just as you find him more difficult to relate to, a larger chunk of cmic book readers CAN relate to him, it all matters but obviously more so to that person and those that see through that same particular window.
Appeal, well yeah they all also have massive appeal, including Wolverine. As to symbolism, Wolverine has indeed become the staple for the 'cool' or 'badass' factor, his character and the fan following have made him just that. It's therefore how he's pushed and he is indeed pushed and people continue to buy.
The core of my earlier post was that once a character reaches this level of popularity, they have to change to appeal to the audience as a whole, in general if you will. Wolverine could afford to be tactical and methodical when he was at a smaller fan following but once that popularity grew, they found a much more simple and appealing way to get him across to the general audience, instead of the smaller specialized group. They overshadowed the tact and intelligence with an animalistic fury and cunning. A cigar smoking, beer drinking, quick healing, woman stealing guy. They took the traits that gained him his foundation and made it his everything. Now it turned away some of the early fans but it has turned around and gained a larger crowd, an exponentailly larger crowd.
Now of course many of the internet community want him to change to when he was 10, 20 years ago, as is the case with most everything in comics. The problem comes in when, how can I put this? For instance, if you've got a barber that up and decides that the hair cuts back in the 80s were better quality than what's being done now and he starts to cut his customer's hair in the 80s style, the customer's going to turn on him and say 'I don't want this, I look like an old ass man.' This is quite the same with what's going on now. They've got Wolverine to his modern, more marketable and hyped stage with an enormous following, if they changed him back, took away some of the titles, they take a big chance of losing that majority to please the minority. Now ethics? It's a loyal move. Financially, it's suicice. It's just not smart business, so they'll continue with the animal Logan, and we'll see some of the old Wolverine every now and again but not too much. I really can't blame a company for trying to make as much money as they can off a popular character. Now if the buyers slow down on the sales, they'll have a legit reason to revamp Logan. It always lies with the consumer; you can complain and keep buying, or you can show them in the most direct route that you aren't happy: your money.
And just like Spiderman, Batman, and Superman, this is all just a change from popular characters to comic icons. The other changes just sit better among other fans than they do for Wolverine and not so good with the rest. You can never make everyone happy since not everyone can agree on what's best for a character, it's all opinon. If you favor tactics, then the 80s. If you prefer badass personification, Camel cigarette type guy, then the current version.