Marvel’s Wolverine is in the Same Boat as Insomniac’s Spider-Man, Venom

April 25, 2024

Highlights

Insomniac Games will hopefully wish to carve a bold path for Wolverine while it also takes inspiration from popular Marvel media.
Insomniac’s success with Spider-Man gives hope for a unique Wolverine story, free from comparisons to past versions of the character.

Deadpool and Wolverine’s latest trailer revealed Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, who had already been seen countless times due to myriad set photos, and one immediate comparison to Marvel’s Wolverine has been made between the shots they both feature of Logan sitting at a bar with his back turned to the camera. To be fair, there isn’t much in the way of Wolverine iconography nowadays, at least not since James Mangold’s Logan. Insomniac could take inspiration from X-Men ’97, but even then it doesn’t center around Wolverine individually like the Spider-Verse movies center around Miles Morales.

That’s not to say Insomniac has somehow taken inspiration from this Deadpool movie—the opposite would be more plausible in the timeline of this context—but Marvel’s Spider-Man has certainly taken inspiration from popular Spider-Man media before, even if it was subconscious or inadvertent, meaning Marvel’s Wolverine could, too. But because the dust will have settled again on Wolverine excitement by the time Marvel’s Wolverine launches, Insomniac may be able to carve out an open window of anticipation for itself where it can hopefully thrive and reinvent the character.

Insomniac Games can’t seem to miss, and in the inevitable case that Marvel’s Wolverine is a hit, it should look to other X-Men characters to adapt.

Insomniac Can’t Catch a Break, But Maybe It Doesn’t Want to

Still, assuming that Marvel’s Wolverine is an original story in Marvel’s Spider-Man’s canon, Insomniac couldn’t have come upon the character at a better time if it wants its iteration of the mutant to be authentic and judged by its own merit rather than as a comparison to the few seminal Wolverine’s out there. Wolverine has been the most popular X-Men character for the last couple of decades, but his prominence has faded with how little X-Men media has come out recently.

Even X-Men ’97, which has wonderfully embellished many X-Men characters who needed the limelight most, thankfully refuses to make Wolverine its centerpiece. With any luck, Insomniac can now turn Wolverine’s low-profile present in its favor and showcase the character through an unexpected lens.

Insomniac’s Wolverine Should Want to Be a Rarity and Shed Comparison

Insomniac’s Marvel partnership obviously means it gets to have its thumb on a particular pulse and knowing Wolverine and the X-Men would be stepping back into the public in big ways could’ve gone into the decision of developing a Wolverine game specifically. Regardless, Insomniac doesn’t seem to have a Wolverine-centric heavy hitter to contend with whenever it does launch and if it is capable of mitigating as many obvious parallels as possible to other Wolverine stories it will have an excellent chance of excelling as a unique entry in the character’s mythos.

Miles Morales was wedged between the two Spider-Verse movies and Insomniac’s still-unconfirmed Venom game could end up butting heads with Seth Rogen’s Venom movie. That said, Wolverine is in the clear for now and will conceivably be able to enjoy that spotlight itself. There’s a chance Wolverine’s debut in the MCU is a catalyst for a role in future movies and shows, but if Marvel’s Wolverine is slated for 2025 still it has the potential to be a massive droplet in a considerable draught for definitive Wolverine content.

Either way, it’s inescapably inevitable now that Marvel’s Wolverine could feature a Deadpool and Wolverine-inspired MCU skin. Insomniac has had a penchant for unrelated movie-inspired cosmetics since Marvel’s Spider-Man and there’s no reason to believe that tendency won’t bleed into Marvel’s Wolverine as well.