What if Wolverine...

With every passing X-Men movie, the collective Marvel fanbase asks the question, "When will Fox give the X-Men back to Marvel". Well, as crazy as it sounds, we're more likely to get one X-Men rather than all the X-Men. And it's the X-Men Fox can't live without. So, What If Wolverine Was In The Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Whether you're a comic reader or a movie goer you have a basic knowledge of who Wolverine is. He's Canadian, he drinks, he smokes, he calls people "bub", he has claws, he heals quick, he doesn't like most people, he's a mutant. But for as commonly associated with the X-Men he is, Wolverine is the most distant of the X-Men. Not just counting his solo experience as a superhero or his time on The Avengers, Wolverine was never even an X-Man from the beginning. Wolverine first appeared (up there) in "The Incredible Hulk #181" and was created by Roy Thomas, Len Wein, and John Romita Sr. back in 1974. When he first showed up he had no civilian name, no origin, the only things we knew about Wolverine were that his claws were made of Adamantium, he healed quick, and he was an agent of the Canadian government. That's it. Len Wein brought Wolverine back in "Giant-Sized X-Men #1" in 1975 where he was confirmed to be a mutant. It wasn't until later in his time on The X-Men he started getting a set origin. One infamous origin that floated around before his membership in the X-Men was that Wolverine was an actual wolverine cub that was turned humanoid by the evil geneticist The High Evolutionary. I know it's bizarre and it's no surprise that origin was scrapped, but still! In another early draft Wolverine's Adamantium claws were part of his gloves. He could retract and extract these claws from his gloves, as Len Wein wanted. Yet again it was changed to Wolverine's claws being part of his hands, and-way later-his entire skeleton. Like I mentioned Wolverine worked for the Canadian government-more specifically Department H, the company that founded the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight-and he even refers to Weapon X-the military branch that trained him-in his first appearance.

So given all this early information on the character, how likely could it be that Marvel Studios could use Wolverine? I think pretty well! See 20th Century Fox may be big, but they aren't Disney big. Disney has lawyers and smart-talkers and loo pol diggers of all kinds. Wolverine's first appearance could easily be used as a hook, it seemed the rights to Hulk and Hulk characters belonged to Universal Pictures for a while there, but recent interviews from Marvel executives have confirmed Marvel Studios can do whatever they want with Hulk properties as long as Universal gets a cut. So Wolverine could be argued to originally be "a Hulk character". If anything, Marvel could do to Wolverine what they did to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. And no, I don't mean retconning. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver's movie rights belong to both Marvel Studios and Fox because-in a court of law, no less-it was agreed that while the twins first appeared in an X-Men book they had more involvement in The Avengers series. As such, both companies got the right to use them. So it is within the realm of possibility that Wolverine could be used by both companies with the condition of Wolverine not being referred to as a mutant or an X-Man. Since both Weapon X and the metal Adamantium were referred to in his debut I think Marvel could fish out those plot elements too.

The final question is "how". How could Marvel use Wolverine in their films? Well, I have a thought. "Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 & 2" will be the third Avengers movie and-as said by it's directors-will feature 162 Marvel characters of note. From big hitters like Iron Man, small-timers like Daredevil, to supporting characters like Pepper Potts. Then again I think Gweneth Paltrow is "above superhero movies" now. Even by 2018 I don't think the amount of significant Marvel film characters will meet that number, but the directors have confirmed some characters will be introduced in the film. That means Marvel characters like Hercules and Black Knight and such might make their cinematic debut in Infinity War, so it would be the ideal place for Wolverine too. Nothing fancy either, maybe Bruce Banner is living in the Canadian wilderness and Wolverine is sent in by the Canadian government to arrest him for illegal entree. Once Wolverine (in full goddamn costume by the way) appears to be a threat Banner hulks out, they fight, they're interrupted by Captain America and he's all like, "Yo, Hulk! Come punch Thanos with us! And you! Short, hairy fellow! You can come too". And that's it. Wolverine helps defeat Thanos and saves the world, he wanders off before anyone can get to know him. Don't do a movie about him, have him just feature in a few films. Like how Black Widow was used. We don't need a Black Widow movie (no, we don't) because her character and origin is told between the five movies she's been a supporting character in. Same with Wolverine. Have him cameo and explain a little of his background. He was a guy enlisted into Weapon X to be another Captain America attempt, the tests went too far and he became more feral, he traveled the world to tame his wilder side, he used claws made of a rare metal (Adamantium) to fight, he was turned into an operative for Department H under the codename "The Wolverine", and that's it. Obviously he'd still be the same character, but with a simplified past and secret agent career. That's all they'd need to do to have their own spin on Wolverine without having to depend on The X-Men. One of the things that made Wolverine so cool back in the day was that you didn't know his backstory, so Marvel could re-invoke that feeling of mystery. And, if Fox knows when they're beat, they'd see Wolverine in "Avengers: Infinity War" and say "screw it, we're done" and give Marvel Studios the full X-Men movie rights. With Fox getting a cut of the money, of course. And you know what? That would work! If Sony can play ball with Marvel so can Fox, that way everyone gets money and everyone is happy! They get millions and we get an X-Men movie that doesn't suck! But until Marvel stops playing nice...all we can do is dream.

Thanks for reading, bub!