Warning: contains minor spoilers for Power Rangers #18
The BOOM! Studios comic run of Power Rangers is introducing an interesting concept by inadvertently borrowing from Marvel’s scrapped concept of Wolverine. Wolverine has always been a character whose mannerisms, presence, and obviously his name offers fair parallels to feral animals. However, before he officially made his debut, Marvel had plans to make those similarities and parallels not just more apparent, but literal.
Wolverine’s original origin concept saw him conceived not as a human, but an actual evolved wolverine, hence why X-Men #98 by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, and Sam Grainger seems to “confirm” that Wolverine isn’t a human and might be more than a mutant in his first mask-less appearance. Obviously, the idea didn’t stick long enough to be fleshed out into something more than an idea kicked around by Cockrum and Claremont. “The first origin that was concocted, was that he was actually a mutant wolverine, boosted up to human form by the High Evolutionary,” John Byrne clarifies in an interview for Comics Journal #57 (quote found via CBR). The idea was ultimately scrapped because Archie Goodwin did something similar for a Spider-Woman story at the time. It’s not hard to see why the original idea behind Wolverine had a short shelf life. On paper, the idea of an animal fighting crime in a superhero costume sounds too silly to take seriously, even by today’s standards.
However, Ryan Parrot and Marco Renna are proving the contrary in Power Rangers #18, where the new Omega Blue Ranger is seen in action sporting retractable claws similar to Wolverine’s. The new Blue Power Ranger is the Rangers’ pet alien cat, Yale. Suddenly, Wolverine’s original origin looks plausible. It certainly comes off as plausible for Yale, who is even more feral than Wolverine was in his original conception. Yale doesn’t speak, only growls, and gets treated and fed by the Rangers like an actual animal. Yet, he can be taken seriously as a fighter holding his own against rivals, especially when the claws are out.
Maybe the fact that Yale actually is an animal and is treated like one makes the idea easier to buy into, rather than the advanced humanoid creature that Wolverine was supposed to be. Still, the fact that audiences can easily buy into the idea of someone’s pet being a superhero goes to suggest that Wolverine as he was originally intended to be may have been beloved and accepted by the mainstream Marvel fandom as easily as he is today.
While fans are certainly happy with the human Wolverine that the world knows, it is always tempting to imagine what would happen if the character had taken a different path. Though quite different, a wolf version of Wolverine did appear in Demon Days. Yale in Power Rangers #18 is probably the closest that Marvel fans will ever get to seeing the original version of Wolverine.
Power Rangers #18 is available now exclusively from BOOM! Studios.
