After much fanfare (and a few different miniseries), Wolverine is officially back in the Marvel Universe. With Return of Wolverine concluded and the mystery behind Logan's resurrection solved, readers and fans can now focus on following his monthly adventures in the pages of Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine: Infinity Watch and the recently-announced Savage Wolverine.
As you can see from the comics listed above, Marvel is going back to its winning formula of featuring Wolverine in multiple series. Logan is back among the X-Men and Avengers franchises, going cosmic alongside Loki and the Infinity Stones in Wolverine: Infinity Watch and has spiffy new powers in his #HotClaws.
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However, among Marvel's high-profile announcements and updates to Wolverine was a very subtle change that appears to have been overlooked by the majority of the audience. It has nothing to do with flaming claws or a future-self powered by a cosmic bird, but it's just as important to longtime fans of the Canadian mutant -- Wolverine's brown costume is back in rotation!
The Clothes Do Make The Man
When Wolverine made a surprise return in 2017's Marvel Legacy #1, he was wearing a simple white t-shirt, jeans and cowboy hat, a look he carried throughout the various "Where Is Wolverine?" post-credits scenes. The attire made sense, considering Wolverine was keeping a low profile, though he still made time to check on his friends and teammates from the shadows. (It was later revealed that this Wolverine wasn't even the reborn verison, but was actually the Old Man Phoenix incarnation who had come back form the future to save the universe. Complicated, yes - we explain it all here.)
Once Marvel decided to have Wolverine interact with the larger Marvel Universe, however, the rugged everyman clothes disappeared and a proper superhero suit popped up. While it wasn't the temporary costume from Return of Wolverine, the brown-and-yellow is the classic suit Wolverine wore for a long stretch of his career, dating back to its debut in Uncanny X-Men #139.
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Wolverine can first be seen in his brown costume on the cover of March's Uncanny X-Men #14. With the majority of the X-Men believed dead following the events of the weekly "X-Men: Disassembled" story arc, Cyclops and Logan bring together the remaining survivors to form a new team to take on old threats. Wolverine is again featured on the covers of Uncanny X-Men #15 (taking a psychic blade to the head from Psylocke) and Uncanny X-Men #17, with the X-Men leaders mourning the death of a teammate.
The final entry comes from the newly-announced Savage Avengers #1, its cover showing Wolverine standing among Earth's Deadliest Heroes such as Conan the Barbarian, Punisher, Elektra, Venom and Brother Voodoo. The series will mark Wolverine's return to an Avengers team since his death, but as we see above he is sticking with his new choice of fighting clothes.
We'll have to wait and see how long Wolverine stays in his brown costume, but after decades of the yellow-and-blue combined with the shirt/jeans combo of Old Man Logan, a change in fashion style is appreciated and welcomed.
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