Meet the Characters of X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Learn all you need to know about Marvel mutants
X-Men Origins: Wolverine marks the fourth film appearance for Marvel's most popular mutant. By now, you should be pretty familiar with Wolverine and his super-powered teammates from the previous X-Men movies, but unless you're a comics aficionado, you might not recognize some of Logan's other compatriots, such as Wade Wilson, John Wraith, and Agent Zero. And although Sabertooth, Stryker, and Cyclops have been seen on the big screen already, there are new actors playing those roles this time around. That's why we've put together this rundown of the major players you're going to see in the upcoming installment of the X-Men saga.
WOLVERINE
Real Name: Logan/James Howlett
Played By: Hugh Jackman, the Australian actor/dancer/singer who rose to fame when he was cast as a then-unknown in 2000's first X-Men film. Noting that Wolverine's personality had mellowed in X-Men: The Last Stand, Jackman has been quoted as being excited about playing Wolverine during his most feral days, comparing the performance to that of Robert De Niro's in the Cape Fear remake.
Powers: Super healing, regeneration, super senses, adamantium-infused skeleton, adamantium-infused claws and a berserker battle fury.
In the Comics: For the first 25 years of Wolverine's publication in Marvel Comics (first introduced in The Incredible Hulk #181, November 1974), Wolverine's true origin story was one of comics' greatest mysteries. As in the first three X-Men movies, readers were given bits of the puzzle over the years, but Wolverine's true roots weren't revealed until the 2001-2002 mini-series Origin, which detailed the events of Wolverine's youth and young adulthood. The comics have also now depicted in many different ways Wolverine's time as part of the Weapon X program, in which both he and Sabretooth were used as part of a military program to use mutants as super soldiers.
In the Movie: X-Men Origins: Wolverine borrows heavily from several of the comics that have dealt directly with Wolverine's origin story, but reportedly also has some new or different elements, especially in the Weapon X era. This is, of course, to be expected, since the first three movies very much departed from the comics, de-aging characters like Angel and Iceman, and having Wolverine join the X-Men by himself, rather as a member of a completely new team (with Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, etc).
SABRETOOTH
Real Name: Victor Creed
Played By: Liev Schreiber, an American stage and screen actor who is not previously known for starring in action movies, preferring instead to focus on characters better known for being cerebral than brawny. Schreiber, however, threw himself into preparing to play Sabretooth, bulking up with an extra 40 pounds of muscle through an intensive diet and exercise regimen. Liev Schreiber has been for a few years now dating British-Australian actress Naomi Watts, with whom he has had two sons, Sasha and Samuel.
Powers: Sabretooth's powers (healing, regeneration, super senses) are nearly identical to those of Wolverine's, except that he lacks Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, and his claws are actually just longer fingernails, rather than claws that pop out of his arms like Wolverine's. Sabretooth is also physically larger and inherently stronger than Wolverine.
In the Comics: Like Wolverine, Sabretooth is a Marvel Comics character known to be much older than he appears, and his encounters with Wolverine go back as far as 1910. As in the movie, Sabretooth served with Wolverine in the Weapon X program, although he did not undergo the same extensive experimentation as Wolverine. After parting ways with Weapon X, Sabretooth spent the next decades working as an assassin, coming into conflict with Wolverine many times, until eventually (and controversially) becoming an X-Man himself.
In the Movie: The most obvious departure for Sabretooth from the comics is the rumor that in the movie he is actually depicted as being Wolverine's half-brother. In the comics, Sabretooth is usually depicted as having blonde hair (as also depicted in the first X-Men movie), whereas Liev Schreiber has dark brown hair.
STRYKER
Real Name: Major William Stryker
Played By: Danny Huston, the son of acclaimed director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen), and the half-brother of Anjelica Huston. Although Danny Huston probably could have parlayed his famous last name into movie star status, he has instead focused on a career as a character actor in mostly supporting roles in movies like The Aviator, 21 Grams and Children of Men.
Powers: None
In the Comics: Before the release of X2: X-Men United, William Stryker was a relatively obscure character who had only appeared in the 1982 graphic novel X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, as a Christian televangelist who has launched a campaign to destroy all mutants, who he sees as an abomination in the eyes of God.
In the Movie: Few X-Men characters were as changed from their comic book roots as William Stryker, who was used as the leader of Weapon X, the program responsible for giving Wolverine his adamantium skeleton, and the team that is central to much of the story of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Mister_Prophet on 04-22-2009 06:10 PM
Just don't screw up Deadpool and Gambit. That's all I'm asking.
Nick P. on 04-22-2009 06:47 PM
im not going to ruin anything for you but they don't give justice to deadpool (even though i think Ryan Reynolds did a fine job) and for gambit he is really not if the movie a lot so its hard to say they screwed it up but the parts he was in i enjoyed.
Playboy Slim on 04-22-2009 08:49 PM
Same here.
Sexy B. on 04-26-2009 05:52 AM
I hear this is going to be amazing, but while you mention things getting screwed, check out the movies at myMILFspace.com , they won't dissapoint, I promise!
Marineboy on 04-29-2009 01:20 AM
They did