‘Ultimate Wolverine’ Writer Had Complete Creative Freedom, But Avoided Putting “Twist” On Mutant Hero For Fear That “The Novelty Of That Might Wear Off”
Despite the concept being core to the very foundation of both incarnations of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, Ultimate Wolverine Vol. 1 writer Chris Condon has admitted that he declined to have his take on the mutant berserker deviate too far from his standard Earth-616 counterpart out of his own belief that audiences would eventually grow tired of any such ‘novelty’.
While the Ultimate Universe – both the original Earth-1610 version and the Maker’s rebuilt Earth-6160 – is built on the specific premise of providing ‘slightly different takes’ on Marvel’s massive catalog of heroes and villain, whether that be a teenaged Tony Stark taking on the mantle of Iron Lad, Reed Richards breaking bad and becoming one of the multiverse’s greatest threats, or even Peter Parker and Mary-Jane being happily in love, married, and having started a family all their own.
But when it comes to Condon’s ‘Ultimate’ Logan, outside of the fact that his forced experimentation and brainwashing came at the hands of the Winter Soldier program instead of Weapon X, the hero has a nearly identical personal history to his regular 616 depiction, replete with not only a history of manipulation by a government agency, but also a long-standing friendship/rivalry with Sabretooth, soft spots for both Kitty Pryde and the Phoenix, and a personal dilemma over whether or not he actually has a purpose outside of’ ‘killing machine’ – Hell, he even gets his own Muramasa blade.
Put simply, though Ultimate Wolverine Vol. 1 is an overall good book (especially once it hits its climax), its take on Logan feels far too familiar for a world supposedly flipped on its head by the Maker.
Recently sitting down with CBR’s Brian Cronin in reflection of Ultimate Wolverine‘s overall production following the publication of it’s twelfth and most recent issue (as originally intended to be the series’ final entry before Marvel Comics ordered an additional four roughly halfway through writing), Condon was asked if he could elaborate as to his specific approach to creating his alternate-reality version of Logan, to which he explained, “Well, it was mentioned in our initial call, me and [series editor] Wil [Moss], discussing who he would be. And at the end of the day, we kind of came back to the idea that Wolverine is Logan, and it just kind of felt that that was the way that it had to go.”
“I mean, we certainly could have come up with some sort of twist. We could have had it be Creed, Victor Creed, or somebody like that. But at the end of the day, the novelty of that might wear off, and Logan is this quintessential character. I love the idea of that DNA existing across universes, this character is so strong across universes that parts of him remain, and I kind of love that idea.
“I have always kind of referred to the idea of the Ultimate Wolverine book being not just part of the Ultimate Universe, but I have tried to approach it with the perspective of it being the ultimate Wolverine book. What would that be to me as a fan? And I am a fan. So looking at it, what would I think the ultimate Wolverine book would be? And that is what I tried to do as a writer. And Alessandro has been nailing it on art, and so has Alex Lins. Yeah, it has been fantastic.”
Condon further admitted that much of his reluctance to change Logan’s core character was rooted in his love and admiration for the character’s mainstream history, which he felt was too iconic to play around with.
“I have a large X-Men collection. It does not go back to the single digits necessarily, I cannot afford everything, but I have a fairly large collection of X-Men books, and I love them. It is my favorite thing to not just have PDFs that I can look back to, but actually have the physical books that I can pull out and read and have next to me as I am working on these issues and can pull from. Because it is important to me, even though it is a different universe, I want to have that DNA be the same, because I want it to feel like what I love. And again, that kind of goes back to that concept of trying to make it the ultimate idea of what this could be.”
As noted above, with Issue #12 having hit comic shop shelves last week, Ultimate Wolverine Vol. 1 has only four issues to until it, as well as the larger Ultimate universe, come to a close.;
However, don’t expect this epilogue to have much of anything to do with the climactic Ultimate Endgame Vol. 1 event, as Condon says they will instead be more of a ‘red/purple sky crossover’.
