The series follows Logan's various adventures when he's not with the X-Men, which tend to be darker then than the stories presented in Uncanny X-Men, with a lot more drugs, sex, and violence. It also heavily features his adventures in the country of Madripoor in his "Patch" alias.
The first issue was released July 12, 1988. The series lasted for 189 issues, with the last issue being released April 16, 2003. The series was relaunched in 2003. see Wolverine 2003 for more info.
Wolverine (1988) provides examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Invoked by Logan in the first issue as his inner dialogue outlines his powers, long before the bone claw reveal in issue #75.Lastly, I have claws. Six of 'em, three in each hand, extending from bionic implants housed in my forearms. The blades are pure adamantium...honed so keen they'll cut through anything.
- Awkward Stoplight Moment: Issue #47 revolves around a drug user who snaps and goes on a killing spree, with Logan as more of a background character for most of it. Near the climax, as Logan is on his motorcycle at a stop light, the killer pulls up beside him in his car. Already drunk and ramped up on adrenaline from his previous kills, as well as armed and with stolen money in the seat beside him, the killer starts freaking out as he looks at Logan, seeing that he's not someone to mess with and wondering if he's a cop.
- Body Horror: Wolverine's "feral" form
◊ that he devolved into in issue #100 after his body rejected a second adamantium infusion, which had elongated, barbed claws, a warped face with the nose shrunken to little more than slits, diminished height, bulging muscles, exaggeratedly hairy arms, hunched back, and Sabretooth-like clawed fingernails and fang-like canines. Picture Wolverine as somewhere between a troll and a caveman, and you have the basic idea. - Haunting the Guilty: Alluded to when Jubilee has Reno and Molochai, the hitmen who'd killed her parents, at her mercy. Wolverine tells her that one "paff" note to the brain stem and they'd be dead and it would seem like a regular heart attack, aside from two fairly healthy men experiencing it at the same time. Jubilee protests.Jubilee: You've killed people. You've killed so many, and...
Wolverine: Yeah. You wanna sit up some night and help me talk to all of 'em?
Jubilee: Oh. *settles for a Groin Attack on both men* - Healing Factor: As described by Logan in his internal dialogue from the first issue:[...] I'm a mutant, born with a para-human, super-efficient healing factor that can deal with any illness, or poison, or wound. Makes me way stronger than normal, faster, tougher. Makes my senses keener than any animal's.
- Immune to Bullets: Wolverine lampshades this in his internal dialogue from the first issue, after taking several bullets through the gut from an AK-47:The bullets burn like fire. Would've killed anyone else. They just make me mad...which is when things get out of hand. *cue berserker rage*
- Life-or-Limb Decision: Played with in one issue where Logan ends up captured and with one arm in a huge manacle that he couldn't easily cut through...so he pulls his arm out of the manacle, basically skinning it in the process.
- Mourning a Dead Robot: Wolverine and Jubilee are confronting a group of Sentinels which have achieved sentience. One Sentinel, severely damaged, begins to express a sincere fear over the termination of its existence. Jubilee is moved by the robot's fear of death. Another Sentinel, dubbing itself Unit 3.14159, is puzzled by Jubilee's display of empathy, and rather than continue with its plan to spark a solar flare to roast all life on Earth, it decides that it, and its compatriots, will enter a dormant state while they consider the nature of empathy.
- Off with His Head!: Subverted in the first issue. During the brawl with the pirates, one actually lands a neck cut with a sword, but it shatters on Wolverine's spine and he gets skewered promptly.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Bloodscream isn't technically a vampire, but a guy who was cursed by a witch to live forever with a blood thirst. The only cure, of course, is Logan's blood.
- Pet the Dog: Logan gets this from Lady Deathstrike in one issue during the "no adamantium" arc, when she learns the metal's gone.[Logan retracts his claws, letting Deathstrike see him bleed from the holes in his hands]
Deathstrike: You're...still bleeding. But your healing factor—
Logan: It's pretty much used up. As good as gone.
[Deathstrike hesitantly brushes Logan's forehead with one finger]
Logan: [internal] For the first time in years, she reaches out to touch me...and the touch is gentle. - Reckless Gun Usage: During the fight with the pirates, one opens up on him with an AK-47 in a crowded room, and Logan notes that the guy doesn't care a whit if he hits anyone else (which he does) as long as he hits Logan (which he also does, and which makes Logan go berserk).
- Rigged Spectacle Fight: The first issue opens with a fight between the leader of a pirate gang and the captain of a plane that the pirates have captured, with the other pirates and the surviving passengers watching. It's immediately obvious that the fight is meant to be bloodsport, as the pirate is wielding a machete while the captain's arms have been tied behind his back. The captain manages to put up enough of a fight to impress some of the other pirates, but he's eventually overpowered and decapitated by the pirate leader, who makes it clear to some of the female captives that this was done as an example of what could happen if they displease him.
- Sadly Mythtaken: The Shiva robots quote that they are Shiva the destroyer, and are so named after Shiva in Hindu Mythology, however, Shiva is not simply the Hindu god of destruction, as destruction refers to the aspect of clearing the way for new growth, or a new cycle.
- Serious Work, Comedic Scene: The comic is typically a very serious, and often grim story with more than a few grisly moments to it. But that's not to say that it's without humor.
- The Big Crunch story arc (#51-53) starts with Logan picking up a woman at a local bar. Jubilee follows him and finds him at a motel...and is shocked to find Jean Grey coming out of the motel room. She returns to the Westchester mansion, dejected, until she sees Jean Grey jogging around the mansion, doing her morning workout. Jubilee is ecstatic, embracing Jean, realizing that whoever Logan was with it was someone she could "punch in the nose". note
- The Savage Land story arc (#69-71) has Wolverine, Rogue, and Jubilee go to the Savage Land to investigate rumors of Magneto being there. Separated from the others, Jubilee runs afoul of some native tribes in the Savage Land, and manages to best them in combat. When Logan meets up with her again on the Blackbird, he's informed that the people of the tribe mistook her for a boy and tried to betroth her to one of their princesses.
- Shoot the Dog: Subverted in issue #47. The killer's wacked-out behaviour causes Logan to associate him with a rabid dog, which for some reason makes Logan unable to kill him, shown as flashbacks to him being unable to put down a rabid pet dog when he was young. After Logan retracts his claws, the killer is shot dead by a female police officer. In talking with her, Logan reveals at the end of the issue that Silver Fox took the gun from him and shot the dog herself.
- Smoking Is Edgy: In a 2001 storyline, writer Frank Tieri introduces Mr. X, a killer from the upper crust whose telepathic powers kicked in when he watched a woman be run over by a car — similar to how Jean Grey's powers first emerged. Mr. X tells Wolverine that, after the car accident and the sensations he felt in his young mind, nothing could compare: cars, women, travels. The accompanying comic book panel has him smoking a cigarette with a bored look on his face, while a girl clings to his side.
