The MCU is the largest pop culture juggernaut going right now, bestriding the world and putting out some of the highest grossing superhero movies of all time. With Disney's acquisition of Fox, it's only a matter of time before the X-Men show up in the MCU and that means one particular hero won't be far behind: Wolverine.
As one of Marvel's greatest heroes, Wolverine is a shoe-in for the MCU but the question remains of how he should be portrayed. In the comics, after years of being an invincible tank, he was deprived of his adamantium and had to fight evil with just bone claws. There are pros and cons to taking this approach to the character in the MCU.
10 Should Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: There's A Lot Of Interesting Stories To Be Told With Him That Way
Wolverine is one of the most dangerous heroes in the Marvel Universe and while that's a lot of fun to see, it also sort of limits him. Wolverine's unbreakable bones and claws that can cut through anything kind of make it hard to find someone who can easily beat him outside of uber-powerful enemies. Add his healing factor to that and he's basically invincible.
Using the bone claw version of the character brings in vulnerabilities and allows the MCU's creatives to tell more types of stories with the character without doing something like constantly taking away his healing factor or arbitrary things of that nature.
9 Shouldn't Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: It Limits His Uses To The Team
When Wolverine lost his adamantium, he went off and left the X-Men behind because he wasn't his old self— he knew that the team would have to look out for him and he couldn't hold his own with them. He came back after his healing factor optimized but for a while, he wandered around mostly getting pounded on by everyone he fought.
Bone claw Wolverine, even with his regular healing factor, isn't as useful to the X-Men. That's pretty bad in the type of battles they'll get into and having him leave the team at all doesn't make sense for the MCU, since he's a surefire money maker. The MCU just got the X-Men; they don't want one of its most iconic members leaving the team anytime soon.
8 Should Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: It'll Show How Skilled He Is On His Own
One of the thing that gets lost about adamantium-laced tank Wolverine is that he's actually one of the most balanced heroes in the Marvel Universe. Wolverine is an expert hand to hand combatant, a master of multiple weapons, and is on the lower end of the superhuman strength and speed spectrum. Taking away his adamantium will let audiences see this.
Too many casual fans see Wolverine as just the cool guy with the claws but he's so much more than that. Bone claw Wolverine had to depend on different things than usual and that allowed readers to see just how good he could be.
7 Shouldn't Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: Sadsack Wolverine Is A Bit Too Nuanced For MCU Audiences
One of the things about bone claw Wolverine that was pretty interesting was that he wasn't the Wolverine readers were used to. The bravado was gone, replaced by the fatalism of a man who had looked mortality in the eye for the first time and was frightened by it. As the story progressed, it became about him coming to terms with the eventual loss of his humanity.
Basically, it was years of chronically depressed Wolverine and while it made for great comics, it's not what MCU audiences want from their movies. They can handle some sadness but the character still has to be a quip machine that is too cool for depression, like Iron Man circa Iron Man 3. That's not how bone claw Wolverine can or should work.
6 Should Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: It Makes Him More Relatable
It's hard for superheroes to be relatable to the audience. These are superbeings who come back from the dead; it's hard for audiences to relate to that. Wolverine is especially hard on that count, as he's a quasi-immortal living weapon with unbreakable bones.
Using bone claw Wolverine makes him more human in a lot of ways. He's still a superpowered mutant but he has that extra vulnerability that makes him a bit more relatable. He has to think his actions through and can't just run in. He has to fight smart, just like anyone else to an extent.
5 Shouldn't Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: The Costume Most Associated With The Character Is Pretty Bad
Wolverine has had some great costumes over the years and most of them would look amazing on the big screen. Comic accurate costumes are a big part of what the MCU does best in their movies, so it has to be taken into consideration. Most of the time as bone claw Wolverine, he either wore his civvies, his yellow and blue costume, or, most infamously, the yellow and blue X-Men uniform with the bandana mask.
It was always a weird choice to have wear a bandana over his face and go to the generic yellow and blue X-Men uniform of the early '90s and seeing that on the big screen would be pretty terrible.
4 Should Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: It Will Be Unlike The Wolverine From The Fox Years
One of the biggest problems with adapting Wolverine at all is how much Hugh Jackman made the character his own. Any future film adaptation of the character is going to have to deal with the fact that the character was already defined by the same actor for nearly 20 years and the best way to do that is to go out of the box with the MCU's take.
While the Fox movies used bone claw Wolverine sparingly, doing a longer arc with that version like the comics did would set the character apart and be more the MCU's speed anyway, since they are known for doing long form stories with their films.
3 Shouldn't Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: It Might Turn Audiences Off To The Character
Bone claw Wolverine isn't exactly the most exciting version of the character. In fact, he's kind of far from it, as his usual slash first, ask questions never approach was changed to a more thoughtful way of doing of things. He isn't the gung ho action hero that MCU audiences like.
Logan was a more thoughtful take on the character in some ways but he was still very much the guy who solves all his problems with his claws. Bone claw Wolverine wasn't and that's just something that MCU audiences aren't going to enjoy for very long, as they like their superheroes without much nuance.
2 Should Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: It Leads Into The Feral Wolverine Arc
One of the most underrated periods in Wolverine history was the feral Wolverine arc, where Wolverine had to deal with his mutant powers going haywire because of the loss of his adamantium, transforming him into more of a beast than a man and making all of his struggles over the years moot. There were a lot of great stories from this time and they could work well for movies or shows.
Going down the feral Wolverine road is not only comic accurate, something the MCU isn't as good at as people like to believe, but it also takes the character to some great places where moviegoers have never seen him go before.
1 Shouldn't Adapt Bone Claw Wolverine: They'll Just Botch The Feral Wolverine Arc
As good as the feral Wolverine arc was at times, it sort of lost out to Marvel editorial wanting Wolverine to be as close to normal Wolverine as possible, as quickly as possible. This hamstrung the entire thing, leading to things reverting to the status quo quicker than they should have.
This is pretty much what would happen with the MCU and why they shouldn't adapt this Wolverine story. The MCU botches stories that they try to adapt more often than not, getting the little things right but missing a lot of the best parts. If the comics messed it up, the movies definitely shouldn't touch it.