Ultimate Comics: One Universe ApplicationCharacter You're Applying For: Wolverine
Powers And Abilities: He is a mutant who naturally has retractable claws the length of his forearm that erupt from his knuckles. They happen to coated in adamantium, one of the most resilient metals known to man. He also possesses supernaturally sharp senses, extremely rapid healing, extraordinary speed, phenomenal strength and a craving for blood. He's also so old that he can remember seeing A New Hope in theaters. Most things can't leave much of a mark on him these days, but most things aren't made out of gold these days.
Origin And Backstory (Must Be A Single Paragraph Long): James Howlett took, his father, Mr. Thomas Logan's name and his life when he was eight years old, the very moment he discovered he had retractable claws. He then ran away, joining the Canadian military before befriending self-serving low-life Skinner Sweet, a vampire. Sweet attempted to suck Logan dry, almost did, but was thwarted when those nasty little claws perforated his lungs. Sweet didn't die, but Logan did. Don't worry, he got better. He returned to life as a new man--or perhaps something like a dozen new men, if government records are to be believed, traveling the world looking for beers to drink and monsters to slay. These days though, he's enrolled in a shady little program named Weapon X. It's got him feeling a little anxious.
What Makes This Character 'Ultimate'?: So Wolverine, in regular continuity, has several unrelated superpowers that really make no sense in relation to one another, many of which are reminiscent of a certain variety of undead. This interpretation streamlines the explanation of his powers while exploring what it means to be a monster, what it means to be a hero, and if the two are mutually exclusive. Logan's noble aspirations will be inhibited by his bestial nature as much they ever were. An undead nature also strikes me as a nice way to summarize the plight that he has within, having lost so much of himself over the long years of his life. Vampirism is not what makes this my ultimate take on Wolverine, it's that he'll scrap anything and anyone that stands between him and his ability to chain himself to whoever he chooses.
Supporting Characters:Abraham Cornelius - Scientist that gives everybody else something to do by making a mess.
Victor Creed - Assassin/Bounty Hunter/best-friend/Bully/Long-Lived Life-Long Scumbag/Mutant.
Dracula - Lord of The (Carpathian) Vampires.
Romulus - Mysterious mystery man of mystery.
Skinner Sweet - Yet another long-lived life-long scumbag. American Vampire.
Character Picture:Sample Post:The Howlett Estate
The Fall of 1853
James’ bare little feet trotted along the cool wooden floors without a care in the world, with the slight bits of dust and sweat painting the panels like a treasure map. He was vaguely uncomfortable. There was this stinging little headache that sat just behind the root of his nose, like he’d been burned. But he hadn’t, nothing had been burned into his brain, not yet anyhow. The future being what it was, he had things to do in the present.
“Motherrrr,” the boy purred, rolling the letter R like a cigarette, “where’s Mister Logan?”
James watched his mother’s heart break like an egg: “Son: Mister Logan left.” She was, of course, referring to their housekeeper of eleven years who’d maintained the property, prepared their food and had personally overseen all of the other members of their staff.
“Did he tell you where he put the map, momma?”
She bit her lip, declining to give a more elaborate or accurate answer. “He didn’t say anything about that on the way out. He just wanted you to know that he loved you like his own flesh and blood.” She smiled and pinched her eyelids to conceal her bloodshot frustration.
“Why are you crying, mama?”
“After all these years, everything with your father’s business, your sister’s passing and all’a that, I’m just.. not .. to see Mr. Logan go is like losing..”
“Losing a treasure?” The boy asked.
She nodded and took a breath so deep and long that it could’ve crossed the Mississippi river or looked Niagara Falls in the eye. Then she turned away from her son and to the window. She smiled as she looked out the window and said, “There is one thing that he left us that we can remember him by.” Saying so, she fished through her elaborate and fanciful dress before producing a necklace. Without looking back to him at all, she tosses the locket underhand and casts it into his chest. “This was his just as much as it’s yours.”
Young James pops open the locket and examines its contents. There’s no map of the yard, no buried treasure. Just a tooth. A darkly colored and partially disintegrated tooth. Why would anybody want this, he asked himself kiddishly before musing on how funny it was that he had lost a tooth just like this wrestling with the house servant no more than a fortnite ago.
1845 - James Howlett is born
1853 - James Howlett kills Logan and takes his name
1855 - Logan is sold into a circus, run by vampires, who draw in crowds to feed on them before he is rescued by mercenary Victor Creed, who was hired by Johnathan Howlett
1861 - Civil War Begins, Lincoln begins campaign to free humans from vampire enslavement in secret to avoid criticisms of his sanity due to the vampire's masquerade