The best Wolverine costumes in Marvel Comics

❘ Published: 2024-02-08T19:10:11

Wolverine's astonishing, classic, and brown costumes.

Marvel Comics

Before Wolverine returns to the big screen in Deadpool 3, take a look at the character’s best costumes.

The Deadpool 3 trailer is almost certainly imminent, which means all eyes are on the first proper look at Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in action.

Deadpool 3 will mark the long-awaited debut of a more comic book-authentic Wolverine in action. To date, the character has managed to avoid wearing any of his trademark comic book costumes.

But there’s more than one iconic look for the character. With that in mind, here is a rundown of the character’s best looks throughout his 50 years of history.

Wolverine’s best costumes in Marvel Comics

Sure, he isn’t the most fashionable guy, but these looks are easily Wolverine’s best costumes in Marvel Comics.

New X-Men

Wolverine’s New X-Men costume is honestly pretty garish by today’s standards. It consists of an open leather jacket, leather pants, and Wolverine’s majestic chest hair in all its exposed glory.

Like other New X-Men looks, it’s a product of the time. The black leather look replaced an era of more manga-inspired costumes following the success of the first X-Men movie. They didn’t last too long, but it’s hard to deny that Wolverine’s fairly grimy New X-Men costume works.

Wolverine, along with the rest of the team, went back to traditional superhero togs when Cyclops called for the team to be more superheroic. Still, this one remained a memorable look.

Astonishing

By the mid-00s, many felt the classic blue-and-yellow Wolverine look was running a bit long in the tooth, paving the way for the black leather New X-Men look. When it came time for the X-Men to return to center stage, it meant superhero costumes were back on the table.

Fortunately, the team got a whole makeover in the Astonishing X-Men soft reboot. Driven to be less like fighters and more like superheroes, the team got brand new suits based on classic designs. For Wolverine, it meant getting one of his most iconic costumes ever.

The Astonishing costume has been pretty much the gold standard and is the clear inspiration for Hugh Jackman’s look in Deadpool 3. It retains many of the classic costume’s visual elements, but adds more blue and more refined cowl design to take the look out of the ‘90s and into the modern era. The look has persisted, serving as the basis for his Krakoa-era brown costume.

X-Force

Wolverine has long been a stealthy character, which is why it’s so odd that he’s regularly worn garishly bright colors. That changed when Marvel revamped X-Force for the post-House of M era of X-Men comics.

Formed out of the Messiah Complex story, the new X-Force was less a task force and more a mutant wetworks squad. Led by Wolverine, the team hunted down threats to mutant-kind and took them off the table permanently.

To accentuate the new direction, everyone got new X-Force costumes that were black and gray with red eye lenses. The look works remarkably well for Wolverine and proved so popular that it became a common alternate costume for video games and other appearances.

Brown

Prolific comic book writer and artist John Byrne has been on the record numerous times over the years about disliking Wolverine’s classic blue-and-yellow design. Byrne, in posts on his forum, revealed he wanted to change the look as soon as he was on the book since Wolverine looked more like a member of Michigan State than the X-Men.

Byrne technically got that in the form of the “Fang” costume, a look Wolverine got after stealing another character’s costume in the run before his. But that suit was a godawful nightmare with rows upon rows of teeth to painstakingly draw, so Wolverine went back to his classic costume pretty quickly.

When Byrne finally got the opportunity to redesign the suit, he worked with colorist Andy Yachus on an updated take. The new Wolverine costume was a much more streamlined affair with a muted brown tone. The look was an instant hit with readers and remains one of the character’s most popular and iconic looks to this day.

Blue and Yellow

Let’s be real: Wolverine’s classic look should not work. It’s a garish blue-and-yellow number that sticks out like a sore thumb. Does it make sense that it’s X-Men colors? No, because he got the suit while working with Alpha Flight, and it doesn’t match any of their costumes.

But years of refinements have made it a classic. Gil Kane accidentally drew the mask to look more like Batman and omitted the whiskers on the Giant Size X-Men #1 cover, but everyone preferred the look, so the issue was redrawn. Over the years, legendary artists like Jim Lee, Leinil Francis Yu, and Marc Silvestri made the costume so iconic that it’s now regarded as the ’90s costume, despite originating in the ’70s.

It’s a pretty dated look by today’s standards, but even now, Wolverine goes back to it every few years, even if only for a couple of stories. No matter how many redesigns, updated costumes, or soft reboots there are, you can always find a connection between Wolverine’s latest look and his classic costume.

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