Yesterday, Marvel Comics announced Wolverine Origin II by Kieron Gillen and Adam Kubert, a sequel to 2001's mini-series that first depicted the secret beginnings of the world's most popular X-Man.
I talked with Gillen about what to expect in the series, the secrets of navigating continuity, and the villains that might be making an appearance in the early days of the man known as the Wolverine.
IGN Comics: First, I’m guessing this is a mini-series – how many issues is it running?
Kieron Gillen: Five or six. If I can get it in five, I'll do it as five, but I think it's going to probably need six.
IGN: Is Origin II a direct sequel to Wolverine: Origin, or can it be read without having read the first series?
Gillen: It's a sequel to Origin, but can be read without having read the first. I'm taking a This Is A Novel approach to it, with everything you need to know inside it while softly evoking the larger Marvel Universe. If you know everything in the MU, you'll see how everything cascades outwards. If you come knowing literally nothing, you'll still get the experience.
IGN: Continuity-wise, is it tricky to navigate the history of a character in this way, having to work in between the panels, so to speak, of the things we’ve seen before?
Gillen: A little tricky but not impossible. Looking at the space between the end of Origin and where he picks up with the Silver Fox/Sabretooth stories is a considerable gap – and the man who we know in the latter is miles away from the man we know in the former. There's a big, meaningful, meaty story in there, and that's what we focused in on.
IGN: What do you think is so massively appealing and enduring about Wolverine?
Gillen: Who doesn't like a dude with knives in his hands?
I joke, but you must never underestimate the power of a good visual in comics. We bandy the word “Iconic” around a lot, but those claws sliding forth are that. More so – they scream “INSTANT CLASSIC.” But away from that, he mixes some big classic archetypes (mysterious man with a past) with the specifics of his execution means it's an incredibly potent mix. He's adaptable, in terms of what stories he works in. Hell, he's so strong that you can get great stories by casting him against type (Cross-ref: Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men).
IGN: Right now you’re in the middle of another secret origin story with Iron Man. Did navigating those waters with Tony Stark help you at all with Wolverine?
Gillen: A little, though that they're so far apart in theme and execution that they bear little in common other than the word “Origin.” With Iron Man, I'm posing an existential threat to Tony Stark's self-image. With Origin II, I'm digging into core character and trying to elegantly show how he came to be. Iron Man is based on a Everything You Know Is Wrong concept. Origin II is based on a This Makes Everything Make Sense.
IGN: The announcement text from Marvel seems to suggest the appearance of Mr. Sinister (unless I’m totally wrong), who we saw quite a bit in your Uncanny run. What’s appealing to you about that character, and how does he fit into this 19th century Marvel Universe?
Gillen: Well, he's one of the few names around in the period. That helps.
People who read my Uncanny will be familiar with the grand imperialist fop I wrote Sinister as. The man you meet in Origin II is different. In the century between the two stories Sinister warped everything about himself. When we meet him in Origin II, he's Nathaniel Essex. He's an icy cold and totally unethical genius, a disgraced British scientist continuing his work at whatever place that'll accept him. One of the titles of the working titles for the story was Origin of the Species, which gives you an idea for what Nathaniel's interest may be. This is a story packed full with all the ideas and energy of the period.
By the way – I mentioned the accessibility earlier? Nathaniel would be a good example of that. Everyone who knows the MU will know the characters' full abilities... but they also know that one of them is Shape-changing. They'll know that this human-appearing character is just the pose he's chosen to take for now. Conversely, people who just read Origin II can take him very much as he is.
This is a period novel in the Marvel Universe, and we're trying to make its technology redolent of the world just preparing for WWI (Origin II is set in the years Germany formalises the Schlieffen plan). You're more likely to see Maxim guns and Mustard Gas than steampunk fancies.
Mr. Sinister.
IGN: Anything else you’d like to add?
Gillen: It's a grounded, brutal period novel of a book. The first issue is redolent of a Jack London novel, in some ways (White Fang specifically, though updated to our modern understanding of Wolf packs). With Adam on it, it's going to look incredible. I'm hoping to create something that works just as well for a reader, whether they've read every single Wolverine story in existence, or whether it's their first.
Oh – and the story of Logan's greatest enemy? I think people will like that too.
IGN: Looking forward to it man, thanks for your time!
Gillen: My pleasure.
Joey is a Senior Editor at IGN and a comic book creator. Follow Joey on Twitter @JoeyEsposito, or find him on IGN at Joey-IGN. He often wonders whatever happened to Billy's RadBug.
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