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When did Wolverine really become popular??
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356 posts in this topic

Nope, just another character in the early '80s. :eyeroll:

 

 

Who said that?

 

You know know that's essentially what someone is saying when they say he was not a star and had a lot of ground to cover before he became one.

 

Despite repeated requests, you seem completely incapable of not talking about me, so I'll simply reply when you've said things that are not true.

 

This is an example.

 

This brings me back to Jr. High

 

I agree completely. When someone repeatedly asks you to stop making the conversation about them, and they refuse? Classic Jr. high school behavior.

 

How about we all be men, agree to disagree, and call it truths?

 

I "agreed to disagree" with delekkerste several days ago, and have not engaged him on this topic since. You might have missed that. I assume you mean "truce"...?

 

Yes, thank you. "Truce".

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I agree completely. When someone repeatedly asks you to stop making the conversation about them, and they refuse? Classic Jr. high school behavior.

 

If you say stupid mess, you really can't expect people not to call you out on it. (shrug)

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Nope, just another character in the early '80s. :eyeroll:

 

 

Who said that?

 

You know know that's essentially what someone is saying when they say he was not a star and had a lot of ground to cover before he became one.

 

Despite repeated requests, you seem completely incapable of not talking about me, so I'll simply reply when you've said things that are not true.

 

This is an example.

 

This brings me back to Jr. High

 

I agree completely. When someone repeatedly asks you to stop making the conversation about them, and they refuse? Classic Jr. high school behavior.

 

How about we all be men, agree to disagree, and call it truths?

 

I "agreed to disagree" with delekkerste several days ago, and have not engaged him on this topic since. You might have missed that. I assume you mean "truce"...?

 

Yes, thank you. "Truce".

First cease fire truce in CG history

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I agree completely. When someone repeatedly asks you to stop making the conversation about them, and they refuse? Classic Jr. high school behavior.

 

If you say stupid mess, you really can't expect people not to call you out on it. (shrug)

 

It's one thing to disagree with someone. It's quite another to insult and denigrate someone because they disagree with you.

 

There's a valuable difference in between the two. I honestly hope you learn that at some point.

 

Take care!

 

:hi:

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I think that the rules that applied to Spidey in the 1970's and early 1980's didn't apply to anyone else.

 

On the Marvel side, for sure. DC was running those ads in the 70s showing all the titles (including JLA) for Superman and Batman.

 

I'm not quite following the five titles for Spider-Man math. Counting Marvel Tales and Spidey Super Stories is kind of weak. Remember, Web of Spider-Man is the replacement for MTU, in the same way that Batman and the Outsiders was the replacement for Brave and the Bold.

 

I'm wondering if Wolverine's popularity while not having his own book is the exception that proves the rule.

 

Read something interesting in The Secret History of Marvel Comics over the weekend. In 1979 the direct market was 6% of Marvel's unit sales. Completely tiny, but of course showing hyper growth vs declining newsstand sales. The world was very different by 1983.

 

I also find it interesting that two of the four (?) books that Marvel used to debut its trade paperback line were the prime Wolverine material, the miniseries and the Dark Phoenix Saga.

 

For me, retailing comics in a little store-within-a-store inside my parents' store starting in Fall, 1983 just as I started high school, Wolverine was a big deal and it was because of the miniseries, which was all we could get. You could buy them from a Joe Koch ad in CBG at 75 cents and retail price was basically $1.50. All I had to do was loan out a copy of this and it was "instant Wolverine fan."

 

I can understand that X-Men 132/133 created a lot of new fans, but one panel in 132 and a few pages in 133 is pretty thin gruel compared to the majesty of the miniseries.

 

I would almost never get any Byrne issues to sell but thanks to all the speculation copies around (people were even buying 5-10 copies off the newsstand), I could get issues usually starting around 148 and up pretty easily. I'd also buy extras of each month's issue from the distributor, but not in numbers like I would for Web #1 or Batman #404 or Miracleman #1.

 

This is anecdotal, but 25% of my convention sales in 1985-1987 were from selling X-Men (almost entirely made up of issues 144-213 plus various minis). Those are my actual figures, not a guess.

 

Btw, I remember being at a show in Ypsilanti, MI (a pretty big show), fall 1985, and thinking to myself, why the hell did I buy one of each X-Men button when I should've just bought all Wolverine? The Wolverine one sold right away and the rest just sat for months, lol

 

Another bit of anecdotally-tinged speculation here, but I would argue that at the time, I and most of the people I know really liked X-Men 144-164. Yeah, I think we thought that Smith was noticeably better and loved 165-175, but we had a lot more love for the Cockrum second run than people will admit to today. I personally loved issue 150 and reread it multiple times, loved Hellfire Club II, loved Rogue, especially loved 159 and 160, loved Annuals 5 and 6. My speculation is that as we have time to reread books and perhaps sentimentalize our favorites, we give short change to the Cockrum issues. I'd also suggest that the fact that these are not money books (tons easier to come by thanks to each year or so of the booming direct market having a lot more books tucked away than the year before) we on this collector's board subconsciously put down issues that aren't worth "dealing in." I know I do.

 

Btw, the only massive speculation of Byrne issues I ever heard about was Beerbohm's claim that he was picking up 10,000 copies of each (starting in the late 120s I think) and flipping a lot of them to Rozanski months later for prime golden age. (Not counting issues 143, which seems to be everywhere... I have a lifetime supply of them.)

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I think that the rules that applied to Spidey in the 1970's and early 1980's didn't apply to anyone else.

 

On the Marvel side, for sure. DC was running those ads in the 70s showing all the titles (including JLA) for Superman and Batman.

 

I'm not quite following the five titles for Spider-Man math. Counting Marvel Tales and Spidey Super Stories is kind of weak. Remember, Web of Spider-Man is the replacement for MTU, in the same way that Batman and the Outsiders was the replacement for Brave and the Bold.

 

I'm wondering if Wolverine's popularity while not having his own book is the exception that proves the rule.

 

Read something interesting in The Secret History of Marvel Comics over the weekend. In 1979 the direct market was 6% of Marvel's unit sales. Completely tiny, but of course showing hyper growth vs declining newsstand sales. The world was very different by 1983.

 

I also find it interesting that two of the four (?) books that Marvel used to debut its trade paperback line were the prime Wolverine material, the miniseries and the Dark Phoenix Saga.

 

For me, retailing comics in a little store-within-a-store inside my parents' store starting in Fall, 1983 just as I started high school, Wolverine was a big deal and it was because of the miniseries, which was all we could get. You could buy them from a Joe Koch ad in CBG at 75 cents and retail price was basically $1.50. All I had to do was loan out a copy of this and it was "instant Wolverine fan."

 

I can understand that X-Men 132/133 created a lot of new fans, but one panel in 132 and a few pages in 133 is pretty thin gruel compared to the majesty of the miniseries.

 

I would almost never get any Byrne issues to sell but thanks to all the speculation copies around (people were even buying 5-10 copies off the newsstand), I could get issues usually starting around 148 and up pretty easily. I'd also buy extras of each month's issue from the distributor, but not in numbers like I would for Web #1 or Batman #404 or Miracleman #1.

 

This is anecdotal, but 25% of my convention sales in 1985-1987 were from selling X-Men (almost entirely made up of issues 144-213 plus various minis). Those are my actual figures, not a guess.

 

Btw, I remember being at a show in Ypsilanti, MI (a pretty big show), fall 1985, and thinking to myself, why the hell did I buy one of each X-Men button when I should've just bought all Wolverine? The Wolverine one sold right away and the rest just sat for months, lol

 

Another bit of anecdotally-tinged speculation here, but I would argue that at the time, I and most of the people I know really liked X-Men 144-164. Yeah, I think we thought that Smith was noticeably better and loved 165-175, but we had a lot more love for the Cockrum second run than people will admit to today. I personally loved issue 150 and reread it multiple times, loved Hellfire Club II, loved Rogue, especially loved 159 and 160, loved Annuals 5 and 6. My speculation is that as we have time to reread books and perhaps sentimentalize our favorites, we give short change to the Cockrum issues. I'd also suggest that the fact that these are not money books (tons easier to come by thanks to each year or so of the booming direct market having a lot more books tucked away than the year before) we on this collector's board subconsciously put down issues that aren't worth "dealing in." I know I do.

 

Btw, the only massive speculation of Byrne issues I ever heard about was Beerbohm's claim that he was picking up 10,000 copies of each (starting in the late 120s I think) and flipping a lot of them to Rozanski months later for prime golden age. (Not counting issues 143, which seems to be everywhere... I have a lifetime supply of them.)

lol

 

Ypsilanti, MI

 

Ann Arbor's toilet.

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I really believe he was an instant favorite.

Hulk 181 came out and as soon as I read it I loved the character. The panel when Wolverine looks at the Hulk before he attacks, he has an attitude "don't mess with me"

4806663-3844551-hulkvswolverine1_zpsxnqc

Then not long after this he becomes part of the new X-men, a new team that captured the hearts and imaginations of young readers. Then not long after he became a member of the hot new Xmen, a fan favorite artist at his peak became the artist of the book.  That point was only a couple of years into the character, I really do believe he was an instant favorite.

 

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My perspective, as a kid that started reading and collecting comics in the 1976-1977 range- nobody cared or knew who Wolverine was until 1980-1981 at which point he was just a part of the unbridled success of "the New X-men".  Yes, fans talked about how cool he was then but they also couldn't get enough of John Byrne in general or any of the X-men related material (x-overs, etc.). It was some time around 1982-1983 that the run up on Hulk 180 and 181 started in earnest.  Before that, you could still find them pretty cheap in back issues.  After that, they were "wall books" or kept in the glass case.  Anyway, that's just my recollection.

Believe it or not, I had friends at that time that didn't even like Wolverine as a character.  To them, he was rude, dangerous, unpredictable and oddly aggressive.  To them, he wasn't really hero material.

Different time.

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9 hours ago, Randall Dowling said:

My perspective, as a kid that started reading and collecting comics in the 1976-1977 range- nobody cared or knew who Wolverine was until 1980-1981 at which point he was just a part of the unbridled success of "the New X-men".  Yes, fans talked about how cool he was then but they also couldn't get enough of John Byrne in general or any of the X-men related material (x-overs, etc.). It was some time around 1982-1983 that the run up on Hulk 180 and 181 started in earnest.  Before that, you could still find them pretty cheap in back issues.  After that, they were "wall books" or kept in the glass case.  Anyway, that's just my recollection.

Believe it or not, I had friends at that time that didn't even like Wolverine as a character.  To them, he was rude, dangerous, unpredictable and oddly aggressive.  To them, he wasn't really hero material.

Different time.

I recall similar perceptions of Wolverine; he was more a march to his own drummer anti-hero (closest marvel predecessor maybe Namor) but even then a little more firmly on the good guys' side. I think the badass stuff got exaggerated after the Punisher character was proven popular by being taken over the top. Not sure what it says about our culture that this is the preference (in your face anti-hero vs the subtly of not exactly a hero....the more blunt take strips out much of the morality play for a writer).

But As to when, similar to RD, I recall him being increasingly popular within the X-Men from early on but exploding outside the title post miniseries. After they took a chance on their popular team member with a fast-rising star (Miller) he seemed to become more exposed and more powerful too. I remember when he scratched the Thing and thinking, "He needs a certain level of strength no matter how hard the claws are to accomplish that using them. Never thought of him as strong enough for that before." Then the one-shot vs Spider-Man came out in 1987 and I thought claws aside Spidey should have the speed and strength to mop the floor with him quickly. That story really delineated his viciousness as an edge over many others in some combat situations.

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I wasn't old enough at the time but from everything I've read and people I've talked to when I started buying comics at the LCS the breakout was Frank Miller/Claremont Wolverine run in '82 as mentioned a couple of posts up.

Edited by MGsimba77
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