What Is the Deal With Wolverine's Hair?

UPDATED: March 2017

Is it just me? I mean, seriously. It bugs me.

I don’t mean how his hair goes up to those two points on the sides. Of course it’s going to do that. He’s Wolverine. I’m wondering why Hollywood can’t seem to decide how to create Logan’s iconic hairstyle. Let me show you.

Sometimes it’s big. Sometimes it’s crazy big. Now I’ll grant that it’s probably not the easiest hairstyle in the world to create and manage. It does things that no normal human hair is able to do. And some of the ways it’s been drawn in the comics over the years has been downright bizarre. With every comic book artist having their own interpretation of Logan’s look, it makes sense that every movie in which Hugh Jackman plays him would interpret his up-swept locks in its own way.

It’s still weird, though.

X-Men

X-Men

In the first movie, director Bryan Singer approved a very classic look for Wolvie’s hair. It’s clearly been styled to look that way, but the stylist didn’t feel the need to draw attention to the hair. The proportions are just right for Jackman’s face, but it’s a little too perfect. I mean, every strand of hair has been precisely positioned.

X2: X-Men United

X2: X-Men United

In X2, Singer and Jackman smartly stuck to the same basic style. The lighting in this picture makes it look like Logan has a perm, but in reality, his hair was starting to fray a bit, making it rougher around the edges. And that’s how Wolverine should look.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand

Now we’ve gone to a weird place. Like everything else about Brett Ratner’s universally-despised The Last Stand, subtlety is not this hair’s strength. Logan’s look was styled to be as loud and over-the-top as possible. It’s so stupidly big, it’s as if Jackman is doing an SNL parody of himself.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Director Gavin Hood took us back in time to show us how the big-screen version of Wolverine became the mutant hero we know. Origins abandoned Logan’s signature look altogether, going instead for the windswept look of a man who doesn’t care about style. I like this one better than the Last Stand look (because anything would be better than that), but its break with continuity is irritating.

X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class

Jackman’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in this Xavier/Magneto-centric prequel showed us a Wolverine at a time not long after the events of Origins. One gets the impression that this was unplanned and not part of the script. Logan’s hair backs up this assertion, because it looks rather like a normal human haircut with a few strands teased out at the sides. Basically, the stylist improvised with whatever Jackman had to work with.

The Wolverine

The Wolverine

Wolverine’s second solo film, which is set in modern day after he’s lost both Professor Xavier and Jean Grey, takes the shorter, more “normal” style from Logan’s First Class cameo and perfects it. Director James Mangold reportedly wanted to bring Logan back down to earth for a more grounded, more realistic look to match the tone of the movie. I like it. It may be understated, but it’s impossible not to recognize the character Jackman’s playing.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Days of Future Past

The last X-Men installment, X-Men: Days of Future Past focuses on Wolverine as he is sent back in time in an attempt to change history. The movie was well received, what with the concept being interesting from the get go, but this post is all about Wolverine’s hair; so, I think it does look good, much like the classic look in X-men. The touches of grey on the sides adds something, too, but is kinda out of place. Or is it just me?

Logan

When the third stand-alone Wolverine movie was announced in 2015, Hugh Jackman said that it would be the last time he played the role.

The movie was R rated and had probably the most extreme violence seen in any superhero movie to date (bar Deadpool of course, more on that later). The movie was a huge hit standing at 565.6 million USD (at the time of this page being updated in March 2017) and their have been not only calls for Hugh to do another Wolvy movie but to ream up with Ryan Reynolds for a fanboy wet-dream of Deadpool and Wolverine together.

The hairstyle sported by Wolverine in Logan was inline with the ‘old man Logan’ look depicted in one of Marvel’s alternate universe comics some years back set in Earth-807128, where super villains overthrew the super heroes, written by Mark Millar and Steve McNivan. Many fans have likened the look to the main character ‘Joel ‘ from the hit PS3/PS4 game ‘The Last of Us’ as well as the the overall story arch and narrative.

Which one is your favorite hairstyle? And does it bother you that they keep changing his look for every movie? Eh, it’s probably just me.