After reading ‘Wolverine: Origins and Endings’ by Daniel Way, it struck me that Wolverine (of the X-Men) needn’t be such an infamously grouchy and angsty guy. The main source of his suffering lies in his constant existential puzzlement about his painful past, of the half forgotten and mostly fragmented ‘former’ life that he led before his loss of memory, of the hazy enemies who tormented him, having caused him to lose his sense of self. He thus sets on the seemingly endless quest to unravel his secret history, violently slashing his way through if ‘necessary’, unfortunately creating more enemies, creating a more unpleasant ‘present and future life’ for himself.
Wolverine’s state of being haunted by his past is so strong that without this fierce attachment per se, readers would lose the identity of his present character! Wolverine lets his past eat into him, when he could simply drop it, walk away and be free. There is no fixed Wolverine to cling to – this is what himself and readers should know. There is no one constant Wolverine of the past, present and future because he changes from moment to moment. This is the truth of non-self, the realisation of which leads to liberation from suffering! Since the past has already passed, ‘bring’ it to the present – only if there were lessons missed. If not, why hanker after it? Incidentally, a movie based on the origin of Wolverine will be screening later this year.
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