Wolverine: A natural leader?

Really? Well, seeing as how Wolverine has done this many times I wouldn't say so. For example, one of the first times the X-men fought Magneto, Wolverine simply rushed head on and was thrown into a wall like nothing.

Wolverine has on multiple occasions lept into battle without listening to the rest of the team, and on many occasions it has resulted in himself being thrown out of the fight injured.
Granted, Wolverine is a better team player now, but when he started out he was a lose cannon, and he still has the tendancy to simply ignore orders and jump into battle.
He wasn't reflecting fan mentality. He was relflecting an early team dynamic in the x-men comics. Have you even read any of the older comics? This was something that happened often.
The original X-men comic died because the writing was boring and the characters were one-dimensional. Yes, Wolverine is the most popular X-men, but Claremont made that comic popular because he made all the characters well rounded, not just Wolverine.



Wrong, there have been many X-comics without Wolverine. Wolverine is the most popular X-man, yes, but to say that there is no X-men without Wolverine is simply ignorant and wrong.


I agree that Wolverine is a warrior, but to say that Cyclops isn't truly shows how little you know about the X-men. Have you ever read the Pheonix saga? Cyclops and Pheonix were the last two X-men standing against the Shi'ar guard. Not Wolverine. Cyclops was ready to die for the woman he loved. He is a warrior.

And honestly, when has Wolverine been a leader? He's the loner, not the leader. He doesn't like to be in the spotlight, he doesn't give long hearty speaches. He fights, and he does what he wants. If Wolverine is ever the leader its the lead by example kind, one that doesn't talk much and just fights as hard as he can.




Really? That's funny because they had Wolverine act almost exactly like Cyclops in most of the movies. The only time he actually acted like the comic Wolverine was in the first movie a bit, and then when he went nuts on the guys in the Mansion in X2, and not at all in X3. In X3 he acted exactly as cyclops would, he never acted like Wolverine.

Wolverine's character in the comics is a tough, gritty, violent warrior. A man who struggles with his inner beast and fights to keep his animalistic side at bay. A man who's been tortured by a government he doesn't even care about, and a man who strives to be an honorable Samurai but always falls just short of the mark.

Was any of that present in the X-men movies? No, it wasn't. Sure he was a little gruff, but after that, he acted just like Cyclops. He gave reassuring speaches to the X-men and led his team into battle. Wolverine in the comics doesn't do that.

So if you think the Wolverine in the movies is the same Wolverine as in the comics, then you really haven't read many Wolverine comics, because the character in the movies was not the character in the source material.

Very nice response and exactly how I feel about the character.
To quote Whedon :

Cyclops: "Emma's a former villain, Logan's a THUG.."
Logan: "Born and Bred"
Cyclops: "And me... I can LEAD a team"


Wolverine is a thug. plain and simple.
It's what he does best. The man did the Samurai training yes. That doesn't make him a leader though. He's a strong-arm to the team, Cyclops is the leader. It's a very simple dynamic, I'm confused as to why so many people can't figure it out.
It doesn't take away from Wolverine's character to say that he is not a leader. It just gives it a different focus.
 
True, Wolverine is not a real leader in the conventional sense because his violent nature gives him an anti-authoritarian mood. But I do like that gives him other qualities, like the way he acts as a father figure to the many girls in the X-Men, and I liked him becoming a leader in X3, because there was no one else left.

Whedon's idea of him as a thug is definitely an underestimation: he has honorable qualities under a gruff exterior. Getting under his skin is what makes for a good Wolvie story: and that's why I praise Hugh Jackman for making Wolvie the leading man of the films. He was so good they unfortunately chose to kill Cyclops.
 
I already said that I hated the idea of Wolverine being the leader of the X-men in the new animated series.

My post in the Deadpool thread was in response to other characters getting their lines cut so Wolverine can be in the spotlight.

I believe it's a misconception among the general audience and studio execs that a popular character would be the leader of the group or have the lead role. They don't seem to understand that what makes Wolverine appealing is his attitude, fighting ability, and being the loner in a group. So they fulfilled those expectations in the films.

Also in the "realistic" style the movies were set in, mutants tend to showcase their powers rather than use them to fight. Once you've seen cyclops use his optic blasts once or twice you've seen it all.

I also think that cyclops was too powerful in the world where powers were toned down. Magneto never demonstrated the ability to use a force field so I doubt he could have lasted long against a Cyclops as a confident leader and tactician. It's easier to just keep throwing Wolverine (who was the most capable fighter but weakest against magneto) at him.

Wolverine has alot of battle experience though and can lead if he has to. He was the leader of the X-Men during the Fall of the Mutants arc but he gladly stepped down for Storm once again. Leading just isn't in his animalistic nature.
 
I will admit Wolverine is more likely to desert the X-Men once Xavier is dead, but I still liked X3 (in which Storm became the leader anyway, despite two scenes that indicated otherwise) and the new cartoon looks great.
 
True, Wolverine is not a real leader in the conventional sense because his violent nature gives him an anti-authoritarian mood. But I do like that gives him other qualities, like the way he acts as a father figure to the many girls in the X-Men, and I liked him becoming a leader in X3, because there was no one else left.

Whedon's idea of him as a thug is definitely an underestimation: he has honorable qualities under a gruff exterior. Getting under his skin is what makes for a good Wolvie story: and that's why I praise Hugh Jackman for making Wolvie the leading man of the films. He was so good they unfortunately chose to kill Cyclops.

I was extremely annoyed at Wolverine in X3, because he never acted like Wolverine. We barely saw his gruff side, and none of the movies dealt with his struggle to control his violent nature. I mean, that's been a central theme of the character for years!

Not only that, they basically made Wolverine into Cyclops with claws. I mean, I can live with Wolverine taking control of the X-men when he absolutely has to, but Wolverine would never, ever be making a speech like he did at the end of the movie. Not only that, but having Wolverine be the one to bring Jean back to her senses is a huge slap in the face to one of the best X-men stories of all time.

Overall, I was very disappointed in how Wolverine was portrayed in X-3.



--------------On a side note, does anyone know why Thomas Logan got banned? I mean, his posts weren't exactly amazing, but he didn't come off as too offensive to me, at least not as bad as I've seen around here before.
 
A leader is the one that knows when to make the right decision, not just the cool one. Leaders usually are the straight laced, boring types. Look at TMNT. Raphael and Leonardo. Raphael could technically lead, but they'd get ****ed up twenty times over for jumping in without a battle plan. The leader has to sometimes be the dork.
 
He isn't a leader. He's more of someone who will get the job done no matter what it takes and usually to him this means doing it himself cause someone will always mess it up in his mind.
 
Not only that, they basically made Wolverine into Cyclops with claws. I mean, I can live with Wolverine taking control of the X-men when he absolutely has to, but Wolverine would never, ever be making a speech like he did at the end of the movie. Not only that, but having Wolverine be the one to bring Jean back to her senses is a huge slap in the face to one of the best X-men stories of all time.

Exactly, I agree the speech was overdoing the whole story of Wolverine deciding whether he was an X-Man or just wanted Xavier to retrieve his memories. It's just such a shame James Marsden chose to film Superman Returns and not stay with X-Men.
 
A leader is the one that knows when to make the right decision, not just the cool one. Leaders usually are the straight laced, boring types. Look at TMNT. Raphael and Leonardo. Raphael could technically lead, but they'd get ****ed up twenty times over for jumping in without a battle plan. The leader has to sometimes be the dork.

I agree. The thing is the leaders have better control over their emotions. Wolverine's and Raphael's emotions often get the best of them and then they just loose it. They can't make objective, clear decisions. Cyclops and Leonardo can.
 
I don't think Wolverine is a natural leader. He's not cool-headed enough. He's driven by emotion and testosterone. He does have combat experience and he's fine when he's level-headed, but he isn't always that way.
 
True, Wolverine is not a real leader in the conventional sense because his violent nature gives him an anti-authoritarian mood. But I do like that gives him other qualities, like the way he acts as a father figure to the many girls in the X-Men, and I liked him becoming a leader in X3, because there was no one else left.
Well, there was Storm. I guess both the writers and Halle Berry are to blame for the fact that Storm didn't feel like the leader she should have been.

Whedon's idea of him as a thug is definitely an underestimation: he has honorable qualities under a gruff exterior. Getting under his skin is what makes for a good Wolvie story
I agree. Although, the movie-Wolverine lacked a lot of that gruffness above the good guy. Sure, he was tough and made a few sarcastic comments, but I felt that he was missing that scary loner edge.

As for his leadership skills. Wolverine has the skills and knowledge to be a good leader, when he makes the effort. However, I think both Wolvie and the fans are happier when he acts as the right-hand man for the actual leader. That way he can give the team the benefit of his experience at one moment and go berzerk in battle the other knowing that he has someone like Cyke or Storm there to keep him in line.
 
Whedon's idea of him as a thug is definitely an underestimation: he has honorable qualities under a gruff exterior. Getting under his skin is what makes for a good Wolvie story: and that's why I praise Hugh Jackman for making Wolvie the leading man of the films. He was so good they unfortunately chose to kill Cyclops.

That was something that annoyed me as well. Though I think that Cyclops was only making a generalization, because he was talking about how the public perceived the individual members of the X-men.

I had noticed during Whendon's run he had reduced Wolverine to his early Claremont days, before his character was fleshed out more. In those comics Wolverine basically would just rush into a battle then get knocked out and thrown aside quickly. It was almost like a running joke.

Claremont later turned him into a more interesting character, who had more depth then the generic thug character. It would have been nice to see Whendon introduce more of those aspects into Wolverine, especially because writers now a days seem to want to use him only as a beefed up Punisher, a guy who doesn't mind killing teams of men if it comes to that.

This greatly contrasts the theme that Claremont tried to set up, the man vs. animal dynamic. I really liked that, it's too bad the comics have since abandoned it.
 

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