Wolverine is one of the most popular Marvel characters and one of the most popular mutants. His origin story and powers are well known and it’s quite clear that he exhibits some animalistic traits which obviously translated to his name, overall look, and skillset.
While his status as a mutant these days is uncontested, it wasn’t always so as originally Wolverine was supposed to be something entirely different.
Originally, Wolverine was not intended to be a mutant. When he first appeared in ‘Incredible Hulk’ #181 (1974), co-created by Len Wein, Roy Thomas, and John Romita Sr., he was introduced as a character without a defined mutant identity.
In this debut issue, the Canadian government referred to him as “Weapon X,” which was merely a codename for him at the time.
When Wein was tasked with creating a new international team of X-Men, he brought Wolverine into the fold. However, after the launch of ‘Giant-Size X-Men’ #1, Wein had to step back from the project due to his new role as Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief. He handed the X-Men series over to Chris Claremont, who continued developing the character.
In ‘X-Men’ #98, the creative team of Claremont, Cockrum, and Sam Grainger revealed that Wolverine’s claws were not a part of his costume (as initially intended) but were actually a part of his body.
This issue also indicated that Wolverine was not a mutant, which was a surprising twist.
Later, in a 1996 interview for ‘Wizard Magazine’, Cockrum mentioned that Stan Lee rejected this idea, finding it “disgusting.” They had even considered a storyline where someone questions Wolverine’s humanity, hinting at his true nature as a mutated wolverine. However, the concept was never fully developed.
Cockrum often used “we” when talking about the idea of Wolverine being a mutated wolverine, but later, Len Wein clarified that this concept was actually developed with Chris Claremont, not with him. Wein didn’t like being linked to the idea and criticized it later in his life, making it clear that he didn’t want anyone to associate him with it.
The idea of Wolverine being a mutated wolverine was still considered even after John Byrne joined the comic. He mentioned in an interview that the original origin story was that Wolverine was a mutant wolverine made human by the High Evolutionary. However, they decided to drop this idea because it was similar to a story that had already been used in Spider-Woman.
Marvel Spotlight #32 came out about a year after X-Men #98, so the idea from Cockrum and Claremont was still fresh when they used it. It’s likely that they were just told to drop the original concept. It took some time for the comics to clearly show that Wolverine was a mutant. This was finally confirmed in ‘X-Men’ #101, where he is referred to as a mutant.
Interestingly, this confusing piece of Wolverine’s history almost resurfaced in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ as the director Shawn Levy revealed that one of the Wolverine variants that Deadpool meets in the Multiverse is the real animal Wolverine:
Number six and seven was an actual Wolverine. We really, really wanted an actual Wolverine, the animal, and then he would maul Deadpool. But, we came up with that idea too late to do a convincing digital wolverine, so that one is in my back pocket should I need one for a sequel.
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