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Wolverine Publicity / Wolverine

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Wolverine

The Marvel Comics character Wolverine is the Trope Namer and the worst offender — so bad that he has a whole page worth of examples, which in itself is an example of this trope. By the end of the 1990s, Wolverine had been paired up with practically every Marvel hero in existence, all the way down to five-year-old Katie Power of Power Pack. Twice.

But he's a perfect vector for this trope, and while his popularity is a big part of it, his potent Healing Factor and fairly flexible characterisation make him extremely versatile, able to appear practically anywhere and have it make a modicum of sense:

  1. His Healing Factor makes him functionally immortal, even after accounting for his popularity giving him Plot Armor. And he's quite a bit older than he looks. This allows him to appear in Flashback and Flash Forward with minimal change in his appearance and personality.
  2. His long lifespan and prodigious adventures have given him connections all over the world, meaning he can easily drop into any location. Canada? America? Japan? Germany? France? Russia? Hong Kong? Outer space? Hell? Yep.
  3. It's almost impossible to write him out of character. He can plausibly be both a manly Action Hero and The Woobie, depending on the story you want to tell. He can be a helpful teammate or a berserker lone wolf. He can soundly defeat any superhuman he encounters, or underestimate them and fall victim to the Worf Effect — a Tap on the Head can make all the difference.
  4. He seems to know every hot babe in the Marvel Universe, making an enticing cover design easy to draw.

He's been so overused that his later appearances are prone to parody and Lampshade Hanging, and as of the 2010s the practice appeared to be dying out because of the massive popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which does not include Wolverine because Disney did not own his film rights. Although Disney did subsequently buy Fox and start including Wolverine (e.g. in the video game Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order), it remains to be seen whether he can reclaim the popularity mantle from The Avengers.

Parodies and Lampshades

Comic Books

  • Marvel had already recognized how absurd it was getting by the late 1980s, which is when they started lampshading it in their parody series What The?!:
    • Wolverine appeared on the series' very first cover◊, explicitly to say that he was contractually obliged to appear on the first cover.
    • One cover had him just trying to have a quiet day out fishing, only to be constantly interrupted by other characters badgering him to guest-star in their own comics.
    • Another cover had him discover that his editors were going to create Wolverina — and this was before they kind of did it for real with X-23.
    • When Wolverine wore an eyepatch in the mainline comics, a What The?! story had various other characters start wearing eyepatches just to boost their popularity. (Wolvie "cuts" their plans short.)
  • In an issue of New X-Men, a character mentions that Wolverine is the only mutant who finds time to be on all three X-Men teams at once.
  • In New Avengers, the team discovers that Elektra had been replaced by a Skrull and start to wonder who else might have been substituted. Wolverine points out that when he tries to infiltrate every team he can, nobody else takes him seriously.
  • Sensational She-Hulk spoofed this trope by featuring not just Wolverine, but Punisher and Spider-Man on the cover of the 38th issue. But there's a catch — they aren't in that particular comic at all, which She-Hulk herself explains at the bottom of the image:
    She-Hulk: But you'll notice nothing is said about them actually being in this issue!
  • Avengers and the Infinity Gauntlet, an all-ages retelling of The Infinity Gauntlet, hangs a lampshade when Invisible Woman chooses her team; she specifies the exact qualities she's looking for in everyone she selects — except for Wolverine, whom she picked "because he's on every superhero team."
    Spider-Man: Sounds exhausting. No wonder you're always so cranky.
    Wolverine: Grrrah.
  • Runaways mentions it by Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    Iron Man: A Wolverine appearance? How novel. Seriously, this is the third time I've run into you this week.
  • In Deadpool, Wolverine's appearance in issue #27 was declared "his most gratuitous guest appearance ever!" right on the cover.
  • In the Weapon X: First Class mini-series, Deadpool gives a laundry list of Wolverine's powers ending with "the ability to appear in twenty books every month".
  • One cover of X-Force (Milligan & Allred) (with the team that would later become X-Statix) has Wolverine baring his claws for the camera and saying, "I'm only doin' this to increase sales." This was revealed to be the first panel of the story, meaning he legitimately was appearing in the issue. He's doing it to help legitimize the new X-Force as a favor to his old pal Doop. It's an In-Universe example!
  • Wolverine #73 (July 2009) has a short story that covers a month or so in Wolverine's life that riffs on the idea of his many appearances in various Marvel titles.
  • Wolverine even manages to pull this off in non-Marvel publications:
    • He's appeared on the cover of leading comics magazine Wizard more than any other character. In 2004, Wizard even released a supplement that was entirely about Wolverine, and proudly copped to the trend by displaying their favorite Wolvie covers (because listing all of them would take forever).
    • Twisted Toyfare Theatre enjoys pointing this out — one comic followed Wolverine through a day of his many crossovers. This included Wolvie plowing through a magazine stand, forcing his head through a copy of Wizard magazine, and a kid asking his mom to get the copy of Wizard with Wolverine on the cover.
    • The first Collector's Edition anthology of Twisted Toyfare Theatre features Wolverine and Spidey on the cover in an in-universe explotation of this trope:
      Wolverine: So, how long do I have to stand here?
      Spider-Man: Just long enough to sell this thing.
  • In one issue of New Avengers, Mockingbird asks Wolverine how he can be on the X-Men, regular Avengers, and New Avengers teams at the same time. He jokes that multitasking is his mutant power.
  • During the brief period where Daken was posing as Wolverine at the behest of Norman Osborn, he was a member of both the Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men. The writers decided to have several characters get in some digs by asking just how many teams Dark Wolverine could possibly be a member of.
  • In one cover of Great Comics That Never Happened, Wolverine converts to get his contractually-obligated spot on a Jewish superhero teamup.
  • One backup story shows a few weeks in the life of Wolverine. Every day is a different team-up — except for Saturday. Saturday, Logan drinks.
  • In Avengers (vol. 6) #24, Captain America goes as far as to remove Wolverine from the team because he felt Logan was spreading himself too thin.
  • In Uncanny Avengers Annual #1, Mojo pitches a new show called "Avengers of the Supernatural", which stars various magic and horror-themed Marvel characters such as Blade, Doctor Strange, and Ghost Rider. Upon seeing the pitch, the network execs immediately ask if he can add Wolverine to the team as well.
  • One of the segments in Wha... Huh? written by Brian Michael Bendis featured this as its What If?: every single comic book in the world featured Wolverine, including manga and a much more successful Runaways.
  • In Avengers and Power Pack Assemble, Wolverine claims even he doesn't know how many teams he's on.

Fan Works

  • In Thinking In Little Green Boxes, Harry both lampshades this and weaponizes it; one of his plans counts on Wolverine making an appearance in the fic because of this trope.
  • This House of M parody cartoon takes a shot at it:
    Cyclops: Since when are you in the Avengers anyway, Wolverine?
    Wolverine: I was getting bored only being on three teams while having my own solo adventures. A guy's got to live a little.
  • From the same flash artist, Cyclops assigns teams to deal with the latest return of the Dark Phoenix. Team A is sent, with Wolverine, to track down Phoenix. Team B, with Wolverine, ("Uh...OK.") is sent to defend from an inevitable attack by the Brotherhood of Evil, and Team C, with Wolverine, to have adventures in Europe, or something.
    Wolverine: Now wait just one minute here!

Film

  • In X2: X-Men United, Magneto hangs a little lampshade when he chides Logan for thinking it's "all about [him]".
  • Deadpool and Deadpool 2 both lampshade his Wolverine Publicity; in the first, he doesn't appear but Deadpool complains about it, and he appears in the second as Stock Footage (unbeknownst to Deadpool, who's still complaining). He eventually became the costar of the third film, complete with his name in the title.

Music

Websites

Webcomics

Web Original

Western Animation

  • The Super Hero Squad Show lampshaded Wolverine's super teaming-up abilities.
    • In one episode where he teams up with HERBIE:
      Wolverine: Just you and me, huh HERBIE? Okay, let's see... (Pulls out a huge list) Reptil, X-23, Dr. Doom, Firestar. Ah, here we go! HERBIE, Wolverine team up #640.
      HERBIE: bzzt Wolverine and the Easter Bunny?
      Wolverine: Yeah, that was a hairy one.
    • "Too Many Wolverines" features the clones present in the episode as an excuse for Wolverine Publicity. And yes, X-23 is one of them, wearing a Wolverine outfit long before she actually took the mantle.

Straight Examples

Anime & Manga

Comic Books

  • The image on the main page is technically justified; it was 30 years to the month since Wolverine's first appearance, and as a tribute, every comic Marvel published that month included Wolverine on the cover — even if they didn't actually take place in the Marvel Universe, hence his appearance in their adaptation of the Anita Blake Urban Fantasy books.
  • Wolverine had a bad habit of appearing on the covers of anthology comics that happened to feature him. The bi-weekly Marvel Comics Presents had him on the cover for its first ten issues, and all but twice from issues 39 to 142, even as the purpose of the comic was to occasionally showcase the lesser-known heroes of the Marvel Universe.
  • One of the earliest examples is Alpha Flight in the 1980s:
    • In #13, released in 1984, on the cover we see a badass-looking Wolverine pointing his claws at some unseen menace, defending Heather Hudson from it, and saying: "Okay, sucker, the only way to get to the lady is through me!". Something like this does happen in the comic, but then we learn it was all just Heather's nightmare (and even in the nightmare Wolverine only appears in a handful of panels), and the real Wolverine is not in this issue at all.
    • Issue #16 features a Wolverine cameo at the very end, but showing that the trope is not yet in full effect, the cover doesn't mention him at all, instead featuring main story guest-star the Sub-Mariner. But Wolverine does feature prominently on the next issue's cover, as it's a reprint of James Hudson's first appearance in Uncanny X-Men #109 (with John Byrne re-creating Dave Cockrum's original cover) with a present-day Framing Device in which Wolverine also appears.
  • The Wolverine: First Class title takes it to its logical extreme. The book is about Kitty Pryde as a young X-Man, but because Logan is her mentor, he gets the title. Had the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini-series from the 80s come out about three years later, the names would have definitely been reversed, although the book is 60% Kitty and 40% Wolverine.
  • Wolverine and Power Pack is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. One episode had the Power Pack (and Franklin Richards) accidentally travel back in time to the early 20th century and save a boy named James Howlett from kidnapping. A cynical reader might think they've been bilked out of their money, until The Reveal: James Howlett is Wolvie as a kid.
  • Exiles is a comic where the members are drawn from different Alternate Universes. For one arc, the main characters are suddenly fired and a new team created, made up entirely of different versions of Wolverine. Why? Because an evil alternate Wolverine is causing trouble and everyone knows the only way to beat Wolverine is with two or more Wolverines. What's more, we discover there have been several teams of Wolverines before that, and the main villain is a Wolverine. You end up with two entire issues with every version of Wolverine imaginable; the main team is the Days of Future Past Wolverine, young James Howlett, Marvel Zombies Wolvie, Albert (a robot made in Wolvie's image) and Elsie Dee, and a fresh from Department H Wolvie.
  • The poorly-regarded First X-Men mini-series went so far as to establish that prior to the formation of the original Silver Age team, Wolverine had actually led a short-lived sort of prototype X-Men team. Whats more, it was even implied that Logan's influence was what ultimately gave Professor X the idea to form the X-Men.
  • The Ultimate X Men collection books have special covers depicting, in order, Wolverine, Wolverine, Wolverine, Wolverine, Wolverine, Captain America, Wolverine...
  • New Avengers #35 is the perfect example of how Covers Always Lie. It depicts Wolverine being assimilated by a symbiote, which turns him into a monster that looks like Venom, a very popular supervillain who is also commonly used to enhance marketing. However, this plotline actually belongs to Mighty Avengers, a companion series that was being released alongside the New Avengers. The issue itself instead follows the Hood as he assaults Tigra and takes control of Deathlok, with the symbiote storyline only being briefly mentioned by a news reporter in the final page.
  • Moon Knight is known for having multiple personalities. One of the hooks of the 2011 Moon Knight relaunch by Brian Bendis was that the character had developed new personalities modeled after his fellow Avengers Wolverine and Spider-Man, meaning that he frequently interacted with hallucinations of those two. The cover of the first issue drove this home by showing Moon Knight wearing Logan's trademark Wolverine Claws on one hand and Spider-Man's red glove on the other.
  • Given the nature of Alternate Universes, sometimes Wolverine will be sidelined by another Wolverine, meaning the cover is lying about the number and type of Wolverines you'll encounter:
    • The cover of Old Man Logan #2, published during Secret Wars (2015), depicts Old Man Logan fighting his Secret Wars counterpart (practically identical to the mainstream Wolverine), but the latter doesn't actually appear in the issue.
    • In All-New, All-Different Marvel, Wolverine is dead and has become a Legacy Character, so his adopted daughter Laura Kinney (a.k.a. X-23) becomes the "All-New Wolverine" — but this doesn't stop a pair of random appearances from Old Man Logan intervening in the universe. And Laura's got competition for her own title; as of ResurrXion, Logan's adopted son Jimmy Hudson from Ultimate Marvel also wanders into the universe. (Other than that, the actual All-New Wolverine typically inverts it, with popular heroes making guest appearances to help establish Laura as the new Wolverine.)
  • Marvel Legacy brought Wolverine Back from the Dead (well, he's probably low down on the Sorting Algorithm of Deadness) — but they couldn't really think what to do with him, leading to multiple issues including "after-credits scenes" of Wolverine just Walking the Earth and commenting on what everyone else is doing.note  Once they did decide to give Wolverine his own plotline, he got no less than four full issues devoted to him in a month (including Return of Wolverine), plus existing appearances in Uncanny X-Men, Hulkverines, and Dead Man Logan. The latter also became the only one of the "X-books" allowed to complete when they were relaunched in 2019.
  • One The Incredible Hulk collection appears to do this at first, featuring Wolverine and only Wolverine on the cover. Only when you look carefully at his claws do you realize you can see the Hulk reflected in them.
  • In the Iron Man 2020 event, android copy Albert and Tyke Bomb Elise-Dee were given a series, iWolverine.

Film

Literature

  • The audiobook adaptation of Civil War (2006) has Wolverine front and center on the cover, displayed prominently next to Captain America and Iron Man. Except he shows up in one chapter and then completely disappears from the plot.

Toys

  • Wolverine is one of the most frequently used characters in the Marvel Legends line from Hasbro (and the original Marvel Legends line from ToyBiz), having been featured over 20 times (not counting repaints or reissues) in the 6" line as of 2019. After Disney bought his film rights from Fox, Marvel Legends did a special commemorative wave based on the X-Men movies in 2020. To nobody's surprise, three different versions of Wolverine (from X-Men, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Logan) were produced.
  • He was the most frequently featured character in the toy line for the first X-Men movie, popping up no less than six times in the primary 6" assortment. The 6" line for the sequel was significantly smaller, and yet still managed to include four Wolverine figures. Strangely enough, this was averted with the Marvel Legends figures for X-Men: The Last Stand, which included Jean Grey, Beast, the Juggernaut and Colossus, but not Wolverine.
  • Despite the film having numerous characters and Wolverine not even being the main character, he was the only person from X-Men: Days of Future Past to get an action figure from Hot Toys.
  • He was featured in the toy line for Avengers Assemble despite never actually appearing on the show due to Ike Perlmutter's infamous mutant embargo, and unsuccessful push for the Inhumans to replace the X-Men, of the late 2010s.

Video Games

  • Wolverine shows up in the Ultimate Spider-Man video game, as one of the boss battles for Venom.
  • He's on the cover of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (except for the Nintendo DS version; Nightcrawler is the only mutant to be found there). You fight him, he gives you all of two missions, he (involuntarily) becomes Venom-Wolverine much later so you fight him again, and then he disappears from the game. Luke Cage does more in the game than he does. And the game cover was voted by fans out of a choice of two. The other cover didn't feature Wolverine.
  • He appears in the Deadpool game. He does very little of note other than lying unconscious while Deadpool repeatedly slaps him in the face.
  • In the Marvel vs. Capcom series, Wolverine is one of the most frequently-appearing characters on the Marvel side, showing up in almost every single installment, even X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes. He's even in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 twice (one with the adamantium claws and one with bone), with each version having different movesets (the adamantium version is based on his previous Marvel vs. Capcom appearance while the bone claw version takes after his style in X-Men vs. Street Fighter). The lone exception is Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, in which his absence seems to be entirely because of the whole kerfuffle over the Marvel movie rights.
  • When the X-Men embargo ended in 2019, Marvel and Nintendo chose to announce this by featuring Wolverine in the reveal trailer for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, and also making him one of just six characters in the promo to actually have any dialogue (for context, not even Captain America, Iron Man or Spider-Man got to speak). In the game itself, Wolverine is the first X-Men member available as a playable character, whereas most of the other X-Men aren't playable until later in the game. And of course, he's front and center on the box art.
  • In September 2021, it was announced that the first other Marvel property Insomniac Games would be branching out with following the success of Spider-Man (PS4) and Spider-Man: Miles Morales was, you guessed it: Wolverine.
  • In Midnight Suns, Wolverine is prominently featured on the cover despite joining your party relatively late in the game. Like most of the non-supernatural heroes present, the only reason he is there at all is Executive Meddling to boost marketability.note  But whereas Spider-Man and the Avengers at least admit to being out of their element facing a magical threat like Lilith, Wolvie just so happens to be old friends with Caretaker (he's the one who referred fellow X-Man Magik to the Midnight Suns) and is unphased by everything he sees.

Western Animation

  • In Ultimate Spider-Man, Wolverine was one of the first guest stars, even though at the time Marvel was phasing the X-Men out of its TV division as a result of the dispute with Fox over their film rights. As such, he was the only X-Man to make a full appearance on that show.
  • The Hulk Vs. double feature was released in Scandinavia under the much catchier title "Wolverine"... despite only half of the movie involving him, and the other half being Hulk vs. Thor.
  • The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes:
    • Season one practically retconned Wolverine into a member of the Howling Commandos. He fought alongside them in the episode "Meet Captain America", and later appeared with them before Cap during his stay in Niflheim. However, no one refers to Wolverine by his codename in either of those episodes, instead using his original surname, Howlett.
    • In the second season, Wolverine becomes The Lancer of the New Avengers. Interestingly, Iron Man explains that he picked each of the New Avengers based on past performance; each of the other five heroes did guest spots prior to this episode, but Wolvie just had the fleeting cameos mentioned above, and only gets accepted into the team after saving Spider-Man. (That said, EMH was supposed to be in the same continuity as the aforementioned Wolverine and the X-Men, but plans for a full crossover got scuttled after the latter's quick cancellation.)

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