When pop-culture figures reach a certain level of success, many of them receive a little pomp and circumstance. Superman’s city of Metropolis is fictional, but that didn’t stop the good people of Metropolis, Ill. from erecting a five-metre-tall statue in his honour. Philadelphia has a statue of Rocky Balboa. And when the City of Detroit wouldn’t pony up for a full-size bronze of RoboCop, a group of concerned citizens decided to crowdfund the project. It even happens here in Alberta. In the 1990s, the town of Vulcan famously leveraged its nominal (and, frankly, completely tenuous) connection to Star Trek and built a replica of the U.S.S. Enterprise near the entrance to town. But it’s not like this province is lacking for homegrown characters who’ve actually made an impact on pop culture. On the contrary: one of the most popular superheroes ever is a proud Albertan who wears his nationality proudly on his sleeve—often literally, as his civilian outfit of choice involves a solid foundation of red flannel. I’m talking, of course, about Wolverine. Since his debut in the final panel of 1974’s Incredible Hulk No. 180, this straight-talking, adamantium-claw-wielding Canuck has been the star of cartoons, video games, and thousands upon thousands of comic books. (A recent glance around my local shop found 13 current titles with Wolverine on the cover.) Wizard, the late comics-industry magazine, named him the top superhero of all time in 2008. Wolverine’s star has risen even further in recent years thanks to Hollywood, where Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of the character has graced the silver screen no fewer than six times since the X-Men franchise debuted in 2000. In May, Jackman will add a seventh item to that list with X-Men: Days of Future Past, a time-travel epic with a storyline that veers from the comics it is based on by making Wolverine, rather than the less commercially viable Kitty Pryde, the star. But, strangely, despite being one of this country’s most successful cultural exports in recent memory, Wolverine (born James Howlett, better known as Logan) has never received any kind of public celebration or recognition from any level of government. And this cannot be chalked up to some inherent Canadian bias against comic books: Superman, that paragon of all-American values, had a set of three limited-edition coins dedicated to him by the Royal Canadian Mint last year just because one of his creators was born here. Canada Post, meanwhile, has given the Man of Steel a whopping five commemorative stamps. At this point, getting your own stamp is hardly an exclusive club. Even Franklin the Turtle has one, and he’s insufferable—not unlike Superman, now that I think about it. But Wolverine? A character so famous that he transformed an unknown actor into the host of the Academy Awards in less than a decade, so iconic he can be identified by a single sound effect (snikt)? Nothing. The closest we’ve come so far is a satirical petition demanding that a 300-metre-tall statue of the superhero be built in downtown Edmonton. Popular though the petition was, shovels aren’t going in the ground any time soon. (The Edmonton Arts Council recently surprised everyone by announcing approval of funds for the project on the morning of... April 1.)

So why the short shrift? Several possible reasons come to mind. One is that, while ethnically Canadian, Wolverine was not created here. He is the brainchild of three Americans—Roy Thomas, then Marvel’s editor in chief; writer Len Wein; and artist John Romita—and was conceived at Marvel’s headquarters in New York City. In Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, a history of the company, Thomas is described as having “detected a need to exploit the Canadian market,” which isn’t exactly the most romantic way to put it. And when Marvel finally did spell out the character’s official back story, in the 2001 mini-series Wolverine: Origin, the writers even toyed with the idea of relocating the young Howlett to North Carolina from Alberta. The truth is that Wolverine was always an American invention, with any concept of “Canadian-ness” foisted upon him by our not-always-enlightened neighbours to the south. That might also explain why the only place you will find Wolverine on a postage stamp is in the United States, where he was included as part of a larger series about Marvel Comics in 2007. And his national origins have sometimes left his creators scratching their heads (carefully). Shortly after his debut, Wolverine found himself drafted to a new X-Men team, but neither writer Chris Claremont nor artist Dave Cockrum were quite sure what to do with him. The character would likely have been dropped entirely, were it not for the intervention of the artist who replaced Cockrum soon after: a 27-year-old British-Canadian named John Byrne. Just a few years earlier, Byrne had dropped out of the Alberta College of Art & Design to pursue a career in comics. In what he described last year in a post on his website’s message board as “the only instance of ever wrapping myself in the Canadian flag in the 22 years I lived in that country,” Byrne told Claremont, “We are not getting rid of the only Canadian in the book!” With Byrne taking the lead, Wolverine was transformed from the non-descript brute of his Incredible Hulk appearance into the feisty, complex character we know today. Yet that transformation, integral to the character’s success, also suggests another reason why he’s never been a poster boy for tourism in this country: he represents a side of the Canadian character that we’re not so eager to project to the rest of the world. Instead of a peacemaker, Wolverine is a brawler. Instead of polite, he’s surly and withdrawn. In short, he bears more than a passing resemblance to a hockey player. And, according to Richard Harrison, a poet and professor at Mount Royal University, that is a problem. “The Canadian superhero,” Harrison says, “is the hockey player: an oversized figure in colourful clothes moving at superhuman speeds, capable of great violence within an extended story, and perpetually young.” Instead of a timeless character like Wolverine, Harrison argues, we’ve worshipped a series of Gretzkys, Orrs and Crosbys. Harrison’s theory is appealing but debatable. There are other possible explanations for the lack of commemorative plaques. In an interview, a representative from Travel Alberta cited his “rather tragic” back story—a diabolical government department grafted unbreakable metal onto his skeleton and then wiped his memory clean—as another likely reason.