WOLVERINE
Earth-73192

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Extradimensional (Earth-73192), human, android or cyborg

Occupation: Unrevealed

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: None

Enemies: None

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Unrevealed

First Appearance: FOOM Magazine#2 (Summer 1973)

Powers/Abilities: He appeared to be some sort of cyborg possessing unknown mechanical organs and steel hidden beneath his artificial skin. Any powers this Wolverine may have had are largely unrevealed and speculative.

History:
(FOOM Magazine#2) - The character Wolverine was revealed as a contest entry submitted by Andy Olsen. The character was one of the runners-up that lost to a character called Humus Sapien created by Michael A Barreiro.

Comments: Created by Andy Olsen (artist).

In FOOM Magazine#1 Marvel announced a contest to create a new hero or villain, with the winning submission to be chosen by Stan Lee; at some later date, the winning character was to appear in a Marvel Comic, where it was to receive recognition in the form of a full-page splash page with the name of its creator; it was also explained that all characters submitted become a property of Marvel Comics. Marvel printed dozens of characters throughout the next few issues of FOOM, and Andy Olsen's Wolverine was one of the runners-up. I think visually, he looks more like Guardian from Alpha Flight.

I think he kind of resembles the Rampage exoskeleton, originally built by Stuart Clarke.--Ron Fredricks

Here is a part of an interview Olsen gave to the Bleeding Cool website:

Interview with Andy Olsen: BLEEDING COOL - JANUARY 2014

Funny how some things stick with you.

It all started in the dark ages. So long ago it would be easy to forget. The time of analog. Boys my age had fewer creative outlets, computers were almost science fiction, gaming consisted of various boards and cards made of paper.

Paper. The ancient medium of Gutenberg was my entertainment refuge in the form of printed color comic books and Marvel was the publisher of my fantasy world. Much of my school age days were consumed with buying, reading, collecting and discussing with my friends comic book hero plot lines, and artworks of the giants - Jack Kirby, John Romita, Steve Ditko, to name a few - were almost revered, and Stan Lee ruled them all. It inspired me to draw and create my own versions of what I hungrily read and blow my meager allowance money on issue after issue. Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, I was totally into the Marvel Universe. So I think in 1973 or 4, Stan Lee announced a magazine catering to his fan-base called FOOM (Friends Of Marvel - what the O's stood for eludes me..Obnoxious? Oligarch?..Opportunist? ..Oh well..), and I happily subscribed. As I recall it was a cheaply printed 2- or 3-colored mag, supposedly under direction of The Man himself.

At that time, I was mediocre scholastically, but not too bad in art class, with dreams of becoming an artist, perhaps a comic book artist. I was a sketching-fiend, drawing incessantly anything that struck my fancy. Sometime during the short production of FOOM, Stan (I really don't know if it was him personally, but his name was all over it,so I'll refer it all to him. Yes, I know it was never a one-man-show there.) announced a fan contest. Hey kids! Design your own superhero! or villain! - send in your idea,/sketch to us, and Stan himself will pick the winner! The winner will become a Marvel comic book hero! WOW!! I knew there would be hundreds of entries, but just the thought of The Man actually seeing my work was simply too exciting to pass up. So, I gave it some thought: First you need a name... For some reason, it always seems to describe the hero. You never have a superhero named Larry or Bob. So, I looked for an interesting name to build off. Bats, nope, spiders, done, koalas, too cute. I had heard of a creature called a wolverine. From what I knew, it was reputed to be pound-for-pound the meanest animal on Earth. Not even Grizzly bears would tangle with one. A worthy attitude to have when fighting crime. Wolverine it was.

So, I set on using that as a base concept. If you notice in my adolescent sketch, there is a pattern on the back of his costume that mimics the fur shading of the animal as well as the front mask, sort of like the markings of its head. The details other than that elude me, but looking back at the sketch, he seemed to have a metal skeleton and no claws, because I couldn't imagine a superhero scratching an opponent. Sissies scratch.
I sat down and worked up my sketches, eventually working up a finished drawing to send off.

I also created a villain named Krypt. As I recall, he was a part-cyborg fellow who was pissed off at almost everything. I thought the name sounded cool...God, does anyone use "cool" anymore? Well, some weeks went by and the issue announcing the contest results was delivered. To my surprise and pleasure both my entries made it to the runners-up or honorable mentions. The winner was called Hu-man, or something like that. Good for him. I knew hundreds of other kids were out there just as excited and creative as I, so the fact that Stan Lee took time off his coffee-break to sort through a stack of kids' sketches and toss mine into the "do not trash" pile was a thrill. No money, trophy, or notice was given, just a reprint of my sketches in an obscure fan magazine.

Excited, I mentioned this to my uncle, who was an established commercial artist on Madison Avenue (that's in NYC, for those who don't know) who replied: "You did WHAT?? You idiot! Don't you know what these guys did? They pulled ideas from you kids, make money off it and payed you NOTHING!!" Probably using other colorful words, but that's the best I could remember. Feel free to insert your own. I felt rather used and stupid.

That was the end of it, time moved on, and so did I. Even comics lost my interest, but not art as a field of study.

Fast forward a few years later: As a college student, I passed a comic book stand and noticed a large X-Men Marvel title: Wolverine. WTF... and really -- X-MEN?! Of all the Marvel heroes--X-Men--I felt were the bottom-feeders. Then it hit me: I had been had..Uncle was right. My regard for Marvel and Stan Lee was so high, it never dawned on me that the contest was harvesting concepts to breath some freshness into their line-up. I recall also seeing the title Krypt in another comic, but the damage was already done. I toyed with the idea of pursuing it... I could not recall if a waiver was part of the contest. I never signed one or read anything stating that entering the contest removed all rights from the originator.
I was an art student... If I was pre-law, perhaps things would be different... Could Marvel claim plausible deniability? Perhaps. They did add their own scratchy claws and scruffy beard. Nice they kept the metal skeleton I roughed out -whatever adamantium is. I often wondered, It's quite possible other titles in use today are from ideas from other kids that entered the contest along with me. Who would know? So I chalked it up to a lesson learned and concentrated on my own career in graphic design. I made a point to never enter such contests again and council others to be wary as well.

Profile by AvatarWarlord.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Wolverine should not be confused with:


images: (without ads)
FOOM Magazine#2, p7, pan10 (main image)


Appearances:
FOOM Magazine#2 (Summer 1973) - Andy Olsen (artist)


First Posted: 09/29/2019
Last updated: 09/29/2019

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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