Wolverine first appeared as a third wheel in a fight between two monsters, joined a team that had never been successful before, and somehow became the most popular new addition to the Marvel Universe. Logan was an anti-hero at a time when they were new, which definitely helped him get readers attention but the one thing that kept fans coming back were the mysteries of the character. He was the ultimate man of mystery, with a history that stretched back to the frontier days in Canada that we knew little about. Every new reveal was treated like a heavenly revelation, with stories like “Weapon X” leaving readers with as many questions as they answered. It was the most exciting part of being a Wolverine reader back in the day; you never knew when some story would become a part of the canon, for lack of a better term.
Origin would see the biggest secrets finally revealed, with readers learning that the man we knew as Logan was really James Howlett, a Canadian son of privilege who learned the terrible truth about his parentage the night his mutant powers manifested. Origin was a massive hit, but you could tell that there was a part of Marvel that regretted revealing this much about their premiere man of mystery. A few later, in House of M, Wolvie would get the rest of his memories back and would eventually learn about the existence of Romulus, a mutant who had been playing a huge role in his life, in the story “Evolution”. This story also brought up one of the worst Wolverine ideas ever. However, there’s something even funnier about the whole thing – a similar origin had appeared a few years before “Evolution”.
So, in “Evolution”, from writer Jeph Loeb and artist Simone Bianchi, Romulus took Wolverine, Sabretooth, Sasquatch, Feral, Thornn, and Wolfsbane on a trip across the world leading to them an archeological site with some strange bones. The whole point of the scheme was that all of them were related to an offshoot of humanity called the Lupin, who had evolved with more canine characteristics. It was a wild reveal, explaining why so many heroes and villains in the Marvel Universe had similar powers (and hair) to Wolverine. It caused an uproar in online spaces at the time. However, when the story was released in 2007, it was the second time in four years that fans got a story that did this same sort of thing.
Kingdom Come made Alex Ross into an even bigger superstar than ever in the ’90 and Wizard Magazine asked him to take the Kingdom Come approach and apply it to the Marvel Universe, creating a future where the heroes of today had retired and a new generation had arisen. It was called Earth X, published as a magazine that you got when you bought Wizard #77. Fans loved it and eventually Marvel decided that it would be a good idea to make it a reality. Ross teamed up with writer Jim Krueger and artist John Paul Leon and Earth X became a reality in 1999, eventually becoming a trilogy with Universe X and Paradise X continuing the story.
The basic gist of it is that the Celestials implanted an egg in the Earth and modified the human race so they would protect it, which is why humans gained superpowers when exposed to certain traumas; it germinated the Celestial seed inside of them. However, this was just the beginning, as Mar-Vell used the battle against the Celestials to return to life and begin a new mission, one that would see him gather powerful weapons and target Mistress Death, all in an effort to stop the machinations of Mephisto, who was the true big bad of the Marvel Universe.
Ross has gone on record saying that he never really liked Wolverine as much as anyone else and the version he created of Logan in Earth X was that of a bitter, washed up has-been, in a loveless marriage with someone he thinks is Jean Grey, but is really Madelyne Pryor. Paradise X would see the “Days of Future Past” Logan brought to Earth-616 and he would eventually meet a group that had showed up in Universe X – the Moon Boys, primitive humans who were offshoots of Moon Boy, the caveman who had rode Devil Dinosaur and had similar hair to Wolverine. Eventually, X-51 was able to learn that they were the only humans to escape being altered by the Celestials and that Wolverine was one of their descendants.
So, in Earth X, Logan wasn’t even actually a mutant; his superhuman abilities were just ones that humans were always supposed to have if the Celestials never got involved. Ross has often talked about not liking the more mature comics that came in the ’80s and ’90s, feeling that Wolverine was endemic of a lot that he didn’t like about the character. However, in the afterword to Paradise X Vol. 1 (I may have re-read it lately), Krueger reveals that researching the character made Alex have a greater respect for Logan.
Paradise X came out in 2002-2003, so the Internet was becoming a bigger part of the comic fandom. However, not many fans took notice of the “Wolverine as Moon Boy” origin that the book posited. Part of this is popularity; Earth X had been a big hit, but Universe X was honestly a lot more complicated and fans didn’t love it as much. Paradise X debuted to a whimper of interest; most fans probably didn’t even read the book and the ones who did apparently didn’t see the need to run to the Internet and complain about an alternate universe story. That was the other factor; the story was an alternate future, so not technically canon.
The same thing can’t be said for “Evolution”. It kicked off in the 50th issue of Wolverine (Vol. 3), which was one of the bigger solo books of the day, and boasted a new A-list creative team. It was a big story for Wolverine fans and by the time we got to the end, a lot of us were wondering what exactly we had read. Fans took to the Internet and trashed the story, to the extent that Marvel made sure to establish that the idea of the Lupin was actually a trick by Romulus. It’s a fun example of a similar story having two very different reactions, but it’s about to get even better.
It all got way more wild with the addition of the MCU to the whole thing. If you’re reading this and you have any knowledge of the MCU, you know that the Celestial plan – putting a Celestial egg in the middle of a planet and then empowering its inhabitants to protect the planet – is canon to the MCU. While the MCU didn’t go so far as to reveal that all of humanity was the result of Celestial experimentation, we can assume that’s also canon. All of this is a long way of saying that MCU Logans are all not actually mutants, but ancient humans who escaped Celestial experimentation and have more in common with Moon Girl than the X-Men.
This is the fun part about being a fan who knows the comics and the movies – you realize stuff like this. I don’t think that Marvel Studios meant for Wolverine in the MCU to be an offshoot of Moon Boy and one of the only “real” humans in the MCU, but they did it. I figured that out and now, if you’ve read this, you know it too. Share this knowledge with the world.
