Halfway through 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Logan (Hugh Jackman) delivers the line “I come with you. I’m coming for blood. No law. No code of conduct,” which marks a departure from the moral, yet stigmatized killing machine who ventured heroically through the Civil War, World War I, II, and the Vietnam War. And, this seems to be the first facet of Wolverine’s depth as a superhero – or more aptly, anti-hero.
The impetus of Logan’s wrath is the presumed murder of his girlfriend Kayla (Lynn Collins), who he has grown to love in the six years since he abandoned his group of fellow mutant/elite military killing machines in an attempt to suffocate his compartmentalization as an “animal,” a stigma he softens by kissing Kayla in public and holding his temper when confronting token bullies who refuse to let the two of them drive over a bridge. At the same time, Logan’s fear of his potential rage rests lightly on his psyche inasmuch as he needs Kayla’s constant reassurance that “[He’s] not an animal. What [he] ha[s] is a gift.” While we find this is eventually part of a ruse that will be discussed a bit later on, it ameliorates Logan’s latent rage that occasionally manifests itself in the form of night terrors that end in ruined sheets and a mattress that absorb the bone claws driven into them.
As far as superheroes go, Logan initially follows suit in that the loss of a loved one, and the visceral memory of her death, haunts him enough to spur his need for revenge. William Stryker promises Logan an opportunity to “have [his] revenge” with the caveat “You’ll suffer more pain than any other man can endure.” Anodynes don’t exist for lost love, so Logan agrees and his body is injected with adamantium, covering his skeleton and transforming his bone claws into shamshir-like weapons.
Initially, Wolverine’s origin tale is rather familiar and reminiscent of Bruce Wayne, the orphaned child who witnesses the murder of his parents by a mugger who was either looking for a fix – if you follow the rhetoric of Batman Begins – or who eventually becomes the Joker – if you’re a Tim Burton cultist. The entirety of the Batman mythology is that Wayne seeks vengeance over those who attack those who can’t protect themselves or others, much like the young Bruce Wayne. That said, it seems that Batman is simultaneously haunted by his guilt of futility and cowardice – one that prevented him from protecting his parents. As a child, Wayne can’t be held accountable for their deaths, but the inability to act in a time of crisis can often lead to feelings of resentment and self-loathing. Therefore, the memory of his parents’ death and his inability to prevent their demise drives him to don the cape and cowl.
In the same vein, Peter Parker – with the help of a fortuitously precocious radioactive spider – seeks justice against the murderer of his Uncle Ben, a thief who he had originally refused to subdue, stating it is “the job of the police” (Amazing Fantasy #15). Like Batman, Spiderman is driven to protect those who can’t protect themselves by the guilt that resides within him, though this time it is the guilt of indifference. However, what these origin tales have in common is that the memory of a deceased loved one, and the inherent guilt conjured by their respective memories keeps the heroes on their path of vigilantism.
As Origins progresses, there are a number of claw wielding, berserker-style attacks that illustrate exactly how badass Wolverine can be, particularly when he seeks refuge in a farmhouse and must eventually take on a helicopter as well as a sniper with nothing but a motorcycle and six indestructible claws. While some of the casting choices in Origins differ from the story constructed in X2 – primarily the role of Williams Stryker, played by the stout, muscular Brian Cox in X2 and the physically opposite Danny Huston in Origins – the depiction of Wolverine is rather faithful and the third act leads us to the broodingly bearded and mysterious character in 2000’s X-Men.
At the same time, the third act of Origins differentiates Wolverine from most other superheroes, and it’s not because he’s the typical anti-hero that emerged in American pop culture toward the end of the Vietnam War; more so, Wolverine is atypical because he is driven by his lack of memory. The anger-impelled Logan initially sought vengeance on Vincent for Kayla’s death, and eventually Stryker because he and Vincent were working together, fostering a grand manipulation to draw Wolverine into their trap of mutant experiments. While Logan’s memory-driven vengeance is fueled by memory, the denouement of Origins begins with Stryker shooting Wolverine in the head with two adamantium bullets, which don’t kill him, but rather symbolically baptism him in the River Lathe, washing away his memory. Confused and unfamiliar with his apocalyptical surroundings, Logan is unaware of who he is, his only semblance of identity are his dog tags: one side emblazoned with Logan, the other Wolverine, a name earlier given to him by Kayla and one chosen when he embarked on his new trail of revenge – which completely obviates his given name, James. The initial irony inherent in this associative choice is that Logan, now Wolverine, is unaware of where his sobriquet derives. Instead, he associates the visual tags around his neck as a conscious choice, one that stretches prior to the embryonic moments of his new memory. The second irony is that Wolverine has now self-labeled himself “animal,” the very stigma he was trying to snuff through the first two acts of the movie.
Therefore, Wolverine’s lack of memory differentiates him from other superheroes. He doesn’t lose his morals – evidenced by his compassion for Rogue in X-Men and X2 as well as his love for Jean Gray – but his motivation does not stem from guilt as he has no idea what he might be guilty of and no true semblance of who he is. Instead, Wolverine is driven by what he doesn’t know, a quest to uncover himself and the memories that initially impelled the rage within him.
There is an overall sadness in this lack of memory insofar as Wolverine sees Kayla’s dead body on the ground and closes her eyes, seeing only a dead woman, unaware of the love that he originally harbored, and simultaneously unaware of the deceit that she was a part of – the deceit that ushered him into his current predicament. Thus, when Wolverine eventually recovers his memories, fulfilling his quest’s current purpose, those memories will conjure pain and resentment, a feeling of manipulation and betrayal.
While Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker might eventually find closure by tallying enough collared criminals to offset the self-prosecuting crime of futility and inability, Wolverine might be the Hamlet of comic books – discovering what you seek leads to what you never wished to know.
