Anyone else hate Wolverine?

[JQP]

I just hate that guy. His smug self-righteousness, lack of introspection, etc. I know he's supposed to be the "anti-hero" or "bad boy" but to me he's just a dick. And a sociopath, of course. I guess what bothers me most about him is how we're supposed to LIKE the guy. He murders people to protect animals and I'm supposed to be on his side? WTF?

 

I admit, I thought he was great when I was a kid, way back in the day reading Claremont/JRJR X-Men, Kitty Pryde & Wolverine, etc. It got old. Now he's just a wannabe samurai* (grew out of Nipponomania, too) cheeseball with inverted morals and a bad Elvis 'do.

 

So this is supposed to have something to do with the game, right? Okay, ever put an effigy of a character you hate from comics and humiliate/torture/kill him in your campaign, like I'd like to do to Wolvie?

 

*Can we put our heads together and try to come up with an ethnic group LESS likely to put up with this scumbag than the Japanese?

[Opale]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Wolverine is a complex character. I can tell I hate him, because he has lots of appeal, but I can't tell either I like him.

I'm speaking about the comic character of course, not he one incarnated by Hugh Jackman, who is a softened version (and sexier) of the super...

What I find interesting abot him, is the background and schemes behind. Imho, he's on the limit to be a vigilante and not a superhero. But it depends who wrote the scenarii so far, so each different author made up a different wolverine.

[JQP]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Yeah, I used to dig the complexity, the eclectic backstory, etc. But it got old. Really old. Now I can't stand the sight of the guy. I don't really mind the berserker schtick. It's the pretensions of morality written in that piss me off. What's "grey" about a guy who murders people for poaching? Nothing. He's a murderer.

 

And I guess a big part of the problem is he's a victim of his own success. Every writer's had a crack at him, and he's all worn out and no longer retentive. He got bigger than was justified.

 

Edit: yeah, I thought it was funny how they sexied him up for the movies. Heh, no 5'4" leading men at the ready?

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

I used to like Wolverine. He had layers. He was the "bad boy". And Cyclops used to slap him around on a regular basis to keep him in his place.

 

But then Wolverine became too "cool" to have a 2nd stringer like Cyke slap him around, and Cyclops became the butt monkey of the Marvell Universe, and so on.

 

I liked the X-Men movies, but I really wish they hadn't cut the Danger Room scene between Cyke and Wolvie. They claim they cut it for 'budget reasons'; I think they cut it because they didn't want to see the fanboi reaction to Cyclops teaching Wolverine a lesson in combat tactics.

[Opale]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

I liked the X-Men movies' date=' but I really wish they hadn't cut the Danger Room scene between Cyke and Wolvie. They claim they cut it for 'budget reasons'; I think they cut it because they didn't want to see the fanboi reaction to Cyclops teaching Wolverine a lesson in combat tactics.[/quote']

 

 

Never saw those scenes ! I'd love to ! Do you know where I could find them ?

[JQP]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Maybe I'm being too hard on the guy. I mean, ride any horse long enough and it dies. I can forgive Spidey's silliness (how can a guy with danger sense and the ability to lift 10 tons ever have money problems, much less recurring money problems?) because he's me with super-powers.

 

But I just can't stand the sight of him any more. Would it kill the guy to have a second thought? A conflict? A regret? A moment of weakness? To fumble for an answer?

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Maybe I'm being too hard on the guy. I mean, ride any horse long enough and it dies. I can forgive Spidey's silliness (how can a guy with danger sense and the ability to lift 10 tons ever have money problems, much less recurring money problems?) because he's me with super-powers.

 

But I just can't stand the sight of him any more. Would it kill the guy to have a second thought? A conflict? A regret? A moment of weakness? To fumble for an answer?

if you mean spidey's money problems he cant be paid without the paycheck in peter parkers name

as for logan he does reget most of his violent actions

i wouldn't say ihate him but i do prefer cap and spidey and the silver age iron man

[Escafarc]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

He was at his best before they told us everything. They should of left his past as a mystery. The scene when the X-men first went to Japan and Cyclops said " I didn't know you spoke Japanese" and his response was" You never asked." was perfect. They should of left it at that.

[Theron]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Hate requires a degree of effort I'm not willing to make. For every few "Origins" or ridiculous and unnecessary cameos out there, we end up with a gem like "Manifest Destiny," which was an truly awesome story that couldn't have been told with any other character.

 

I would happily pay for a six issue series that consisted of nothing but Logan and Ken "Gorilla Man" Hale drinking beers and swapping ever-escalating "Can You Top This?" stories.

 

No, I don't hate him. I save that for Deadpool.

[yamamura]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

The problem I think is most of these characters have been driven into the mud. It is like over-playing a good song on the radio. The first few times it is good and then it gets boring. Comic book tries to get around it by adding or subtracting what has gone on before. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't but at the very least it adds to the baggage of the character.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Conceptually for a comic book character, Wolverine is great. He had the mysterious background for good plot hooks, he doesn't take crap from anyone, and he has those wicked claws (so much cooler than oversized fingernails) and he is nearly indestructible (and maybe it is just me, but if I could pick any one superpower, regeneration would be near the top of the list). Yes, his character has been written to death; a victim of his own success, but any great character that lives too long will fall prey to that (don't get me started on Batman).

 

As a role-playing character, I do hate Wolverine and all those Wolverine-wannabes. The stoic loner is terrible for a good RPG. In the comics you got to read all of Wolverine's thoughts, and that made him complex and interesting. In a RPG scenario, you don't get that so Wolverine comes off like an anitsocial jerk that doesn't play well with others, and that is no fun.

[Hermit]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

I said else where that it has gotten to the point where a Marvel show or comic that doesn't have Wolverine in it is a positive selling point. Burn out is a lot of it, but also regression. Everytime I've seen him make progress, someone drags him back to 'sniktbubrar!' mode, or so it seems. I'm not pleased with some of what was done to Scott, but I've never been thrilled by Wolverine chasing after married women (He even hit on MJ in the New Avengers IIRC). So now when I think of Wolverine I think 'overhyped sleaze ball given a pass because he's 'kewl' and he pets puppies or saves young teenage girls from time to time'.

 

It isn't entirely fair. In the hands of the right writers, he's a pretty awesome guy, but those moments never seem to stick. I suppose you could say much the same on on any superhero, but I'm not burnt out on them the way I am Logan.

 

 

And I have to agree that 'loners' are a pain in an RP setting.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Yeah, Wolverine's secondary mutation of 'Popularity Induced Mary Sue' activated some time ago.

[Blue]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

A lot of people hate Wolverine and have ever since he became the "break out star" from the new X-men.

 

I'm not one of those people.

 

If anything I don't appreciate the seeming need to put him in EVERY book Marvel has. But I've read plenty of wolvie-based stuff that I enjoyed.

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Never saw those scenes ! I'd love to ! Do you know where I could find them ?

 

They were never filmed. They are implied in the movie (Prof. X to Cyke and Wolvie: Settle this!), and iirc the novelization.

[RexMundi]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Hate Wolverine. Hate, Hate, Hate.......but.....occasionally you get a glimpse of what was Cool about the Character, back in the days when his origin was a bit and piece of something that he couldn't remember and it would come back to haunt him, back when he takes on the entire Hellfire Club in the original Dark Phoenix run, when the Claws were still Cybernetic, not some goofy bone growth. Back before he was refined, heh.

 

You got a glimpse of that again in the Old Man Logan storyline, but that's all you get nowadays. Wolverine is the pet of the ADHD Fanboys out there the RRRAGH "Snikt" I gots Sharp Things! and nothing else interesting about the character at all, except for itty bitty tidbits of back when he was cool, that other folks bring out when he's in other books.

 

Hated all the X Movies as well though I liked bits and pieces of them if they had filmed the Danger Room sequence, I would have liked that one better. As for the comics though, the character is dead to me, and I try and avoid even titles I still like, if he shows his face in them at all. I blame it on a 50 50 mix of actually giving him an Origin (The old half recalled Flashbacks were one of the cool things about the guy), and the fanboys (But you can't argue with Demand so *shrug*). All I can do is spend my money on better Marvel Material like stuff with Ed Brubaker, or Dan Abnett's name on it......but I don't think that even those two guys could redeem this character to me anymore. The Origin just ruined any possible chance and solidified everything that was wrong into one horrid piece of unchangable continuity, in the face of the land of Retcon.....shame to.....Back in the Day....Hanging from the ceiling of the Hellfire Club dropping down on the guards.....that was good stuff. Now.....just a shame.

 

~Rex

[Cassandra]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

I don't hate Wolverine, but I think he's overrated. His big moment came when he killed a Hellfire Club guard during the Dark Phoenix saga, and a mythology of cool was build up around him. Having Hugh Jackman play him in the movies helped continue the perception.

[brionl]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Hate would require too much effort. How about intense disinterest?

Now, one I really hate is Lobo.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Never liked Wolverine all that much, and like Hermit I think something *without* him is a selling point.

 

As to the last-minute tacked-on mention from the OP, I don't recall ever including a character "effigy" in my game of someone I didn't like, just so bad things could happen to him.

 

Wait, that's not true. There is a player I met at GenCon, who I named the "player from Hell" because he couldn't shut up about all his "kewl" characters and "kewl" plot ideas and what-not. From hearing him talk, and from chatting with a player from one of his games, it was apparent that his game world was populated with plenty of GMPC "Mary Sues" and "Marty Stus". Ugh! So I created a supervillain (Hackmaster) who was a rabid online gamer and could turn into his various game avatars -- where he would brag about how great and tough each one was. Irritated the heck out of everybody, and he often got a lot of smack-down. His own teammates didn't like him much, so they didn't give him a lot of help, either.

 

Heh, heh. Good times, good times...

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Hate would require too much effort. How about intense disinterest?

Now, one I really hate is Lobo.

It's very interesting that you bring that up because I think Wolverine and Lobo suffer from the same disease: people didn't get them.

 

I liked Wolverine way back when, but the Wolverine I liked has been dead a long time. For me the essence of the character was the noble savage, the grizzled veteran who understood the dark side of life but didn't embrace it. He could act as a father/big brother figure because these were all kids to him, and he understood true responsibility better than they could. He wasn't a loner, he was alone, and that's an important distinction. His greatest power was his absolute willpower, not his claws.

 

Unfortunately, outsiders saw "Hey, this guy with the claws is popular... it must be the claws!" And so the wave of ultra-violence started to build. (Along with the Punisher's "Hey, this guy with the guns is popular... it must be the guns!" syndrome.) People didn't get him, and so he was destroyed.

 

Lobo was a reaction to all of this, a satire based upon the absurdity of the ultra-violence, and it was funny. Then somebody said "Hey, this character's popular... let's mainstream him!" They didn't get the joke, and thus it was destroyed.

 

But hey, they made money, so who cares?

[lemming]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

Cool character that got overused.

[JQP]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

For me the essence of the character was the noble savage

 

Maybe that's the problem; I find the idea of the noble savage offensive, like much of its author's ideas.

 

His greatest power was his absolute willpower, not his claws.

 

Easy to have absolute willpower with an uber healing factor.

 

I was AWOL for the bone claws thing. I remember a comic-reading friend telling me about it and I was like, "WTF"?

 

Dunno much about Lobo, outside of the fact that I thought his duel with Evil Santa was pretty awesome. 'Cept Evil Santa would totally win.

 

Edit: what's this "Mary Sue" thing?

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

I've always liked Timberwolf from DC's Legion of Superheroes a lot better. The character was created 10 years before Wolverine (1964 vs. 1974).

[Vondy]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

I haven't read an x-title, or x-related title, in something like fifteen years. But I remember wolverine from when I was a teenager, before he became marvel's teen-fan-wangst-flagship, and before the x-verse became a totally muddled gazillion title continuity-killing nightmare. Once upon a time wolverine was a cool character. An anti-hero bad-boy of sorts, true, but with several redeeming character traits and well enough written to be interesting. That hasn't been the case in close-on twenty years now. So, basically, I hate what wolverine has become.

[Zephrosyne]

Re: Anyone else hate Wolverine?

 

LOL, I thought I was the only one who loathed that character. In fairness, I started hating him as a teenager because he was my best friend's favorite character; soooo naturally, I had to hate him . Of course, it got pretty easy to hate him for just being him and being sick of seeing him everywhere after a while, especially the over the top portrayals of him. I did like his portrayal in the movies though. Still, I think the character I learned to hate even more is Plastic Man. When he was in JLA, he grated on my nerves. God, I was glad to see him go away!