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Hugh Jackman’s Best Wolverine Moments Part 2: Top 5 Action Moments

3. The Breaking of the Bone Claws — X-Men Origins: Wolverine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdrnUbKEWPQ

Now a lot of people give X-Men Origins: Wolverine some for taking certain liberties with its source material. I certainly complained to no one in message boards about how Deadpool looks like Baraka from Mortal Kombat for some reason, but this isn’t an article about Deadpool’s best movie moments no matter how much I wish it were…

While we were all getting our X-underoos in a bunch over the cheap CGI metal claws, we all forgot about what the movie got right: the bone claws. In X-Men, we witness Weapon X surgeon’s implanting adamantium blades into Logan, with an accompanying X-ray detailing the mechanics at work. It’s a debate that we all got into as kids: are Wolverine’s claws a part of his mutation or just implants? X-Men Origins: Wolverine says screw the implants, let’s go au natural, revealing Logan’s ribbed bone claws in all their spiny glory, which while anachronistic in terms of the films, is actually in continuity with the comics. Furthermore, these bone claws seem to actually be a prop in the film, not just CGI, giving the bone claw scenes a bit more heft to them.

We can certainly confirm that these bones are the real deal, as the film also makes a reference to one of the most well known scenes in Wolverine history –his fight with Cyber.

For those unaware, at one point in Uncanny X-Men, Magneto finally stopped messing around and ripped the adamantium from Wolverine’s body. While this act didn’t kill Logan, it revealed the brittle bone claws hidden beneath the indestructible metal, in addition to severely taxing Wolverine’s healing factor. We learned specifically just how brittle and just how taxed the two were when Wolverine crossed paths with Cyber, a Weapon X-Mercenary with adamantium skin. Wolverine gets his licks in, as he is wont to do, but Cyber is all, “okay, knock it off guys,” picks up Logan, whoops him in an expedient fashion, and stomps his bone claws into a million little fibers with a satisfying crunch. It’s a gritty scene, and a rude reminder that having a healing factor doesn’t mean you don’t feel pain.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine may not have Cyber in it — not sure anyone demanded Cyber actually — but in homage to his greatest hit, Victor reminds Logan that he is still the runt of the litter by curb-stomping the overgrown nails he calls claws.

In a movie with adamantium bullets and Will.I.Am, the fact that this single scene features the same angle and same sickeningly satisfying crunch of the comics shines as one of the few things that X-Men Origins: Wolverine got right.

– Chris

2. Bezürker Rage in The X-Mansion — X2: X-Men United 

Even though Wolverine was on every comic for the 1990’s and is probably the most popular X-person of all time since Xzibit, he really didn’t get a chance to stretch his claws in the first X-Men film. Oh, he got some brutal stabs in sure, but nary a feral scream nor the evisceration of two faceless goons at once — or even a face removal!

Then came X2: X-Men United.

With William Stryker waging his one man war to defend humanity, ironically by using mutants to further his cause, he learns of the location of the X-Mansion by manipulating Charles Xavier. So Wolverine’s routine night drinking is interrupted by soldiers not just infiltrating his home, but also drugging students in front of him. America is fighting Logan on his non-Canadian home turf, and Logan unleashes the best of his guerrilla tactics and the most bezurk of Berzürker rages since Bruce Banner tried QWOP.

Wolverine literally cuts loose here, charging face-first down a hallway and shrugging off knockout darts and carbine rounds as if they were acupuncture. He pulls off hit and run tactics, falling back on stalking his prey when necessary and leaving the best of the brutality to our imaginations. It’s refreshing, it’s brutal, and you feel every cut, slash, disembowelment, and wow is it long overdue.

– Chris

1. Wolverine vs. Lady Deathstrike, X2: X-Men United

With Logan believing that he finally has his “creator”, Stryker, where he wants him, in the room where the Wolverine was born no less, Stryker reveals that Logan used to be the best there is at whatever it is he does, but since then he has become old news. His new right hand woman, Lady Deathstrike, is the future of regenerating adamantium-lined leather-clad assassins, and she is more than willing to put her name to the test with the Wolverine.

The beauty of this fight scene is that it doesn’t give Wolverine an equal match, like his earlier fight with Mystique, but rather someone who is actually better than a guy who’s biggest claim to fame is being: “The best there is at what I do.”

True, Deathstrike hardly resembles the freaky cyborg Japanese lady of the comics, but do you really want those monster hands? No, so a lady with adamantium nails that can grow on command will more than suffice. In addition, this is a battle of immortals, two individuals who can recover nigh instantly from the cuts and slashes that the other deals out, so they have to work fast and messy. And boy do they!

From Deathstrike pulling herself off of Wolverine’s claws to the guttural “URK!” he gives when Deathstrike slits his larynx, nothing is below the belt here because everything below the belt has already been cut off. The height of the combat comes from Deathstrike reverse straddling Logan, trying to make soup out of his chest cavity before his healing factor can make it all up again. Deathstrike may be more agile and flexible than Logan, but he hits harder and knows how to take a beating like a tube sock in junior high.

What’s the best part of the scene? Where most movies would end the fight, with Logan trapping Deathstrike in a surgical tank, the fight keeps going, giving Logan just enough time to heal so he can appreciate Deathstrike’s stabby hands all over again. If it weren’t for Deathstrike’s hubris and Logan’s rope-a-dope thinking of an adamantium surgical tool, I’m fairly certain we could have had a Wolverine Fights Deathstrike: The Movie.

Ultimately, it’s not so much a fight between Wolverine and Deathstrike, but a Neanderthal with a rock versus a Spetsnaz agent with a hypodermic needle. A guy on a tyrannosaur versus a girl with a jetpack and a length of rebar pipe. You may not be sure who’s walking away, but you can be certain that walk will be more of a limp. Victory is painful.

– Chris

 

Join us tomorrow as we look at Wolverine’s Top 5 Character Moments!

About the author

Chris Davidson