In the latest Drawing Crazy Patterns, where we highlight five recurring themes in the comics, we look at how many times Khonshu has brought Moon Knight back to life in the comics.
When Insomniac Games announced that they were releasing a Wolverine video game (due to various issues, the video game hasn’t been released yet, but it looks like it will finally be released next year), there was a lot of coverage about the attention to detail in the game, including the fact that he was referring to Wolverine’s penchant for bar fights.
However, recently, reader Mike W. asked me when, exactly, Wolverine getting into bar fights BECAME such a major part of his character. Interestingly, this really isn’t something that caught on until the character had been around for over a DECADE, but actually the answer to WHY it took so long is due to a very logical reason which I’ll get into.
When did Wolverine first get into a bar fight in the comics?
Mike wrote to me a while ago to ask about one of the most underrated Wolverine comic collectibles, this one from 1979. Marvel Comics #335, a British comic book featuring Wolverine’s first ever solo story. In case you’re wondering why Wolverine’s first solo story appeared in a BRITISH comic, it was because Marvel had Marvel UK, and as I noted in the previous article, in England the comics came out weekly, so they were short serialized stories that would combine to tell larger stories. Marvel comics would then be split into multiple installments when reprinted. However, as they began producing original material, there was suddenly a need for occasional short stories that could be inserted when space was needed. So Marvel produced a number of short standalone stories that would be inserted into various titles (standalone so they could be inserted at any time without having to tie into anything).
The comic strip was written by Jo Duffy and drawn by Ken Landgraf and George Perez, then reprinted in color in the 1980s. Marvel Treasure Edition #26 (again, once Marvel paid to create new original stories, they were NOT going to print those stories in the US, you know?), and it featured Wolverine and Hercules fighting in a bar…
So wait, Wolverine debuted in 1974, and he didn’t fight in a bar until 1979?! What gives with that?
Well, the problem is that Wolverine was part of a team-up book and a team-up book that only had SEVENTEEN pages of story per issue. X-Men #98-136 (and a single additional page of X-Men #94-97), so naturally there really wasn’t much room for Wolverine to get into bar fights, as he rarely had any downtime for himself PERIOD! And when he had occasional downtime around X-Men #120, he spent it with his girlfriend and future fiancée, Mariko.
So, of course, as soon as someone was able to write a Wolverine SOLO story, they would get into a bar fight. Say, when was the NEXT time Wolverine had a solo story?
The first Wolverine miniseries delved into the bar fighting aesthetic
In 1982, Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, and Joe Rubinstein gave Wolverine his first miniseries, and sure enough, Wolverine immediately got into a bar fight because he was furious about encountering a crazy bear who had been poisoned by a hunter’s arrow. Logan faced the bear hunters…
So I think you can see where this is going. When Wolverine had SOLO adventures, he spent a lot of time in bars and so bar fights became a bigger deal.
Wolverine and Havok’s adventures immediately involved a bar fight
Likewise, the Havok & Wolverine – Fusion The miniseries, released around the time Wolverine finally got his own ongoing series, opened with Wolverine getting into a bar fight while he and Havok were vacationing in Mexico. The series, written by Walter Simonson and Louise Simonson, notably had Jon J. Muth drawing Havok, and Kent Williams drawing Wolverine…
I just love that they gave Havok the top spot in this miniseries. It almost seems like it’s a matter of spite of sales.
When did Wolverine first get into a bar fight in Madripoor?
When Wolverine received his first ONGOING solo series, it was set in the island nation of Madripoor, and one of the main settings WAS a bar. When Wolverine first walked into the bar, he got into a fight, but it was to take out some guys who were robbing the place, and obviously that doesn’t count as a “bar fight.”
What’s really interesting is that when he was in Madripoor, Wolverine called himself “Patch” and really tried to be Rick from Casablanca, so he tended NOT to get into bar fights in those early Chris Claremont and John Buscema issues. A notable exception occurred in Wolverine #10 (by Claremont, Buscema and Bill Sienkiewicz), where Wolverine dwells on the fact that it’s almost his birthday, and he knows that Sabretooth will soon show up to torment him, and so “Patch” quickly attacks two assholes in a bar…
Wolverine’s bar fights are the subject of graphic novels
In the graphic novel, Wolverine: Bloodthirstby writer/artist Alan Davis and inker Paul Neary, we see how graphic novels featuring Wolverine quickly began to involve Wolverine in bar fights to quickly establish Wolverine’s bona fides. This is a really well designed fight sequence…
The problem is that Wolverine gets TOO out of control on the next page, which is kind of what the story is about (Wolverine’s bloodlust).
As noted, however, upon the release of this 1990 graphic novel, Wolverine getting into bar fights was just an established character trait for Wolverine, and it has been that way ever since.
Please remember that these lists are not, by nature, exhaustive. This is a list of five examples. So no instance is “missing” if it is not listed. It’s just not one of the five examples I chose. If anyone else has suggestions for a future crazy pattern drawing, send me a message at brianc@cbr.com! Thanks for the question, Mike!