Why did Wolverine stop wearing his brown costume?

Summary

  • Wolverine's costume change in X-Men #139 was a huge shock in 1980.
  • Jim Lee's fandom for the original X-Men Wolverine costume influenced the decision to bring back the classic look in 1991.
  • The change was explained in Wolverine #49 and #50 due to Wolverine's problems with memory implants.



This is “In The Spotlight So Clear,” a column where we highlight moments in comics where characters or storylines need to be eliminated to make room for a new status quo. For example, if you want to introduce a new Captain Superhero, you might want to get rid of the previous Captain Superhero first. Or if you want to do a new Captain Superhero series, you might want to wrap up all the storylines from the previous Captain Superhero series first. Things like that. Stories that are specifically designed to clear things up for future stories. Today, let's take a look at how Wolverine's costume change in Jim Lee's X-Men was explained in the Wolverine solo series.


While obviously major characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America have all gone through slight evolutions of their costumes over the years, it's surprising how rare it's been to see MAJOR changes made to most superhero costumes once they've reached a certain “fixed” point. For example, Iron Man went through a number of different looks in his early issues, but after he hit upon the yellow and gold design in Suspense stories #48, it wasn't long before he settled on a certain design that would last for the next decade. Batman getting a yellow oval for the bat emblem on his chest was a major change when it happened in 1964! That's how rare it was for major changes to occur in popular superheroes.

Therefore, it was quite a shock when John Byrne introduced a new costume for Wolverine in the 1980s. The X-Men #139, shortly before Byrne stopped drawing the series.

Wolverine got a new costume


Byrne talked about the change a while back:

[O]Of course, unless they play football in Michigan, Wolverines aren't blue and yellow… so I kept asking if I could come up with something more “Wolverine-esque.”* Shooter finally relented and said yes, and I sat in the bullpen and scribbled down what I had in mind. Then colorist Andy Yanchus had copies made and played with different color schemes, the first of which was… blue and yellow!

Then came the matter of introducing the new costume, and in typical Wolverine fashion, I said he should just show up in it in the first logical issue, without comment. Which is pretty much what we did. It was gratifying, by the way, that readers (at least the ones who wrote in) were almost universally positive. Comic book fans tend to fear change, but they liked this!


As Byrne notes, the costume change was a huge success and Wolverine wore it for more than a decade, before reverting to his original look during Jim Lee's time on The X-Men in 1991. Why did the change occur and what explanation was used to explain it?

UPDATE: 08/16/2024 10:58 AM EST BY BRIAN CRONIN


I've updated this old article of mine to further elaborate on how Todd McFarlane had Wolverine change costumes throughout McFarlane's iconic Spider-Man run as well.

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Why did Jim Lee change Wolverine's costume?

How did Jim Lee's X-Men fandom factor into this change?

In 1991, Jim Lee was given full creative control of the X-Men, just in time for the launch of the second title in the series, with Lee designing both The X-Men AND The Mysterious X-Men (which he would co-track with While Portacio, the artist of The Mysterious X-Men). However, first, Chris Claremont and Lee co-wrote one last story in X-Men #1-3, sending Claremont away with some hefty royalties from the release of The X-Men #1, the best-selling comic of all time…

Wraparound cover for X-Men #1. Art by Jim Lee.

(It's funny that Jim Lee answered a funny question I asked him a few years ago about the cover.)

Presumably because the first story arc was about saying goodbye to Claremont, Lee kept the Wolverine costume for that first story arc, although Lee introduced new costumes for a number of X-Men in The X-Men #1, and it was Lee's costumes that were adopted by the X-Men: The Animated Series design team for that series when it launched the following year.


Way back in 1977, when Lee was a teenager, he drew Wolverine in his original All-New, All-Different costume (basically his original costume, just with the addition of Gil Kane's cowl)…

An old drawing of Wolverine by Jim Lee from 1977

So obviously, Wolverine in that costume meant a lot to Lee. Well, in The X-Men #4, Lee put Wolverine back in that costume…

Wolverine returns to his old costume


And, funny thing, Byrne had become the X-Men writer with X-Men #4, and Byrne recalled that Lee had told him about the costume change: “When I followed Chris as a writer on UNCANNY, one of the first things Jim Lee proudly announced to me was was that he was putting Wolverine back into his “real” costume. Apparently, he didn't know who made the change in the first place. (Or maybe he thought I was “forced” to change Logan's suit. There's so much myth-making going on behind the scenes!)”

What about Wolverine's costume change in Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man series?

Why did Todd McFarlanee beat Lee to designing a new Wolverine costume?

Some readers have noticed that during the five-part storyline of “Perception” in the pages of Spiderman #8-12, writer/artist Todd McFarlane also had Wolverine don his old costume. The storyline began with reports of a monster killing people in the woods. We see that the Wendigo, the villain that Wolverine and the Hulk teamed up to fight in Wolverine's first appearance (before Wolverine proceeded to attack the Hulk, once the Wendigo was out of the way), was in the area, but we also see that Wolverine has shown up to hunt down the Wendigo (or whoever it's killing)…


Wolverine Hunts the Wendigo

In Spiderman #10, Wolverine's costume is torn to pieces during a battle with the Wendigo…

Wolverine tears his costume

Then Wolverine showed up in his previous costume…


Wolverine, however, continued to wear the brown costume in The Mysterious X-Men, The X-Men AND Glutton for seven months after Spiderman #10, so obviously this was just an isolated case because McFarlane, like Jim Lee, clearly liked the old costume better.

So this was the “real” reason the costume changed, but how did Larry Hama explain the change in the Wolverine solo series?

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What is the comic book explanation for Wolverine's costume change?

Why did Wolverine tear his brown costume?

In Glutton #49 (by Larry Hama, Marc Silvestri, Dan Green and Hilary Barta), Wolverine was struggling with the memory implants that had been placed in his mind by Department H. Professor X and Jean Grey tried to help him remove them, but they were so deeply entwined in his brain that Xavier explained that if he removed them, Logan could become fundamentally feral. Wolverine didn't like hearing that and tore off his brown costume, explaining that he wasn't an animal, he was an X-Man!


Wolverine tears his brown costume

And then, in the next issue, Glutton #50, wears the classic costume again…

Wolverine returns to his old costume

Glutton #50 came out the same month as The X-Men #4, so this was the explanation given for having Wolverine get out of his brown costume and into his classic costume, since that was the costume he wore when he first joined the X-Men, and thus reminded him more of being a man and not an animal (as Byrne noted, the brown costume was meant to be more similar to the look of the real animal, Wolverine).


Not the best explanation, but not better than nothing! Especially when you don't really need a reason to change your costume, per se.

Alright, so that’s it for this episode of In the Spotlight So Clear! Feel free to suggest more examples at brianc@cbr.com!

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