I know this has been a complaint from everyone over the past few years, but with the Wolverine trailer hitting the net, I felt it was time to mention it here on Comix 411.  There are too many comic books that feature or guest star Wolverine. 

Wolverine currently has three on going monthly series: “Wolverine,” “Wolverine: Origins,” and “Wolverine: First Class”.  He also appears from time-to-time in the X-men books (Uncanny, Legacy, and Astonishing), X-Force, New Avengers, various mini-series and crossovers.  I thought it was ridiculous in the 90s, but it’s actually gotten worse.

Wolverine used to be one of my favorite characters. I loved the work Chris Claremont did in Uncanny X-men with Wolverine. Claremont’s early work on the solo series was good and the work Larry Hama did on the solo series was the best. These were great stories with great art work by legends in the industry. I haven’t been reading the solo series. I tried reading some of the stuff in “Origins” with his son and it was awful.

Even if these were good stories, I still don’t see the reason to have Wolverine show up in so many Marvel Comics every month. I believe too much of good thing can be damaging. If you eat too much candy, you’re going to get sick. So why is Marvel giving us so much of the “candy” called Wolverine?

This is nothing new. There were how many Spider-man monthlies at one point? I think both Superman and Batman had four or five monthlies each at one point. Eventually Marvel and DC have cut back, but Marvel has needed to cut back on Wolverine’s appearances for over ten years now.

The only thing in my stack that has Wolverine in it is “New Avengers” and I’m tired of the idea of Wolverine in the Avengers. Maybe I’d feel differently if he wasn’t also a member of the X-men and X-Force at the same time.

I would love Marvel to scale back and have only one solo book and temporarily not have Wolverine on any teams.  I would put a new a writer in to try and write some new and interesting stories for Wolverine other than the same old stuff we’ve seen over the years.  I would kill off his son.  I think it was a bad move to introduce a son and I don’t think the character is all that interesting - at least to me.

I hope Marvel doesn’t shove more Wolverine appearances down our throats come next May with the movie.  A Wolverine month where Wolverine is literally in every comic published that month.  God help us if they do that.  By having this overkill Marvel is only hurting itself by turning off long time fans of the character.  Too much of a good thing is not good for us - especially in comics.