In a 2006 interview, John Byrne discusses his personal vision for Wolverine in contrast with what eventually found its way into Marvel canon. Byrne had wanted to Logan to have a different backstory, different species, and even a different (but familiar) face. #xmen #wolverine 1/7
“My back-story for Wolverine was that Sabretooth was his father. Sabretooth was the mutant, and the mutation had bred true. So Wolverine was in fact the first of a new species and I intended him to turn out to be a hundred years old, something like that.” 2/7
This may have been C’s plan as well, as Byrne suggests by noting a throwaway reference to Logan’s complex mutanity. Byrne also envisioned that “His mother was a Native Canadian and he’d lived up in the mountains for most of his life, feral, until he was found by James Hudson” 3/7
Byrne’s vision ended up being fairly close to what Claremont, Windsor-Smith and later writers (especially in “Wolverine: Origin”) would eventually piece together as Logan’s canonical back-story, with, of course, some important variations. 4/7
Bizarrely, Byrne has also very recently created his vision for the character quite directly in the non-canonical, fan-fic “X-Men: Elsewhen” self-published free of charge on Byrne’s own website. 5/7
Additionally, Byrne’s original design for Wolverine’s face under the mask (which was not immediately revealed in UXM) was actually that of Sabretooth. Byrne showed the design to C, but by that time Logan’s face had been drawn by Cockrum so Byrne recycled it for Sabretooth. 6/7
Importantly, Byrne also confirms that he saved Logan from the scrap-heap. “Chris and Dave were actually planning to get rid of Wolverine. When I came on-board I said, ‘No way are you getting rid of the only Canadian character!’ I was fiercely patriotic in those days.” 7/7
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