This was the first "collectible" I ever bought as a comics fan. When I was 11 or 12, I saved up $20 of allowance & birthday money to buy this one issue. It felt amazing to finally hold it in my hands, and to read it, and to wonder why it wasn't Wolverine's origin story. https://twitter.com/ManFirestorm/status/1045518155618095104

It was a lot of fun to read, tho! And I studied Buscema's art in it for hours. It felt like a movie. A 70s crime flick. I think this was when I first started thinking of Wolverine as a pulp character rather than a superhero (though I didn't have the words for it at the time).

My journey to find Wolverine's origin story next delivered me one of the best stories Marvel has ever published: Barry Windsor Smith's WEAPON X. I was WAY too young to understand, but I staaaaared at those pages. Nightmarish, violent, and dense lines. I still have that hardcover.

And again! Not a superhero story. Instead, this was more a mix of psychological & monster horror, casting Logan as Frankenstein's monster. Revisiting it as an adult with a healthy love of horror and better understanding of storytelling, I realized it's also a masterwork.

And just when you thought Wolverine was done jumping genres and his origins were all told, the beginning of the beginning arrived in the form of ORIGIN. AGAIN, not a superhero story - a turn of the century frontier romance, like a Jack London novel starring a dude with claws.

Origin tends to catch flack from certain readers, but I absolutely adored it. Because, again, this was reinforcing what I'd always felt about Logan - that he can fit into EVERY story, every genre. He can be the spy, the monster, the hero; tragic & noble, dangerous & vulnerable.

He deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Conan, the Man With No Name, Doc Savage. He's just got that grit, that versatility, that potential for story, and every time he's been explored outside the typical superhero narrative, it's been a success - hell, look at LOGAN!

(btw, another comic character who deserves to be listed among the greatest classic pulp heroes? HELLBOY! That's sort of a no-brainer, tho)

Anyway, I didn't expect this to become a thread about my love of Wolverine, but that's not a bad place to find myself. It's the right time of year for it, so after I finish my Domu reread, I think I'm gonna break out that Weapon X hardcover.

Happy reading, all.