Uncanny/New X-Men Omnibus Related General Questions

[taylor51]

Hey all. I was dropping in to clear some things up for myself. Recently, as the title suggests, I purchased two of Marvel's Omnibus collections, and I have some questions to make sense of what I'm reading :). First, some background:

I have never really been what one would call an X-Men buff. I was a huge fan of the 90's animated series as a kid, but the sheer amount of titles kinda prevented me from getting into them as I grew up and started getting into comics. I am, however, a huge fan of Spider-Man in it's many incarnations, and recently USM (combined with the awesomeness that is Mark Millar's Ultimates) has persuaded me to get into Ultimate X-Men. Having finished the run, I have to say that I became hooked, but that Kirkman's handling of some of my favorite stories from my childhood left me bitter by their near complete lack of "magic," if you can follow me (especially the Phoenix. Yuck!!). So, despite my previous apprehensions, I decided to start from the beginning with the "real deal," which leads me to where I am now, collecting these hardcover bad boys and grabbing any trades I can from there. I'm into the Days Of Future Past storyline by now. All I can say is wow!! These are some freakin' awesome storylines, and I'm glad that I took the plunge, so to speak.

Anyway, some things have been confusing me. My first question regards Wolverine. Now, everyone knows that he's got an adamantium skeleton and a healing factor, him being the quintessential anti-hero that he is, but when did they establish these powers? For example:

-In #124 Cyclops says something about Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, even though there was pretty much no reference made to this previously (other than his claws of course).

-And then, in #142, they talk about his healing factor when Pyro is owning him... Which also has had pretty much no introduction up to this point (I think... he did get burned down to nothing fighting over the M'Kraan crystal, but no mention of healing was made, I'm pretty sure. I could check...).

I mean, did they ever come outright and define either of those powers in previous issues, or were we as readers just supposed to take it in stride with these stories? I mean, don't get me wrong, the stories are still awesome, but I'm imagining myself as a reader who didn't know all the plot twists to come and kinda scratching my head lol.

I'll follow with some context questions regarding New X-Men (which I've already finished) once we can tackle these. Thanks guys!

[Home made ectoplasm]

Wolvie was introduced in the Hulk and I think some of this was maybe covered in those issues.

I don't have the omnibus myself so I don't know what issues it reprints. Does it start at Giant sized?

I find it strange myself if none of this is stated explicitly, because Clarement quite often gets criticised for re-iterating the characters powers again and again.

[taylor51]

The collection starts as Giant Sized. I did know that he started in Hulk, but I've read the issues and all it mentions (if memory serves correct... I may be wrong) is his adamantium claws.

[Home made ectoplasm]

Not sure then, without going back and reading it again. Hopefully somebody else can help.

[invisiblefive]

(first, sorry for my english...not my first language)
they kinda made up wolverine's powers as they went. on his first appearence on hulk as Weapon X, there is no indications that the character has claws, they seem to pop up from the costume. that's what the x-men first assume about wolverine, until they got captured (by the hellfire club, if my memory serves well). then wolverine popped his claws with his outfit out, which surprised the other x-men.
i think this tend to show that many elements of wolverine history-including the full extent of his powers- were creqted qlong the way (i remember that in the episode in which they go to the howler castle, in scotland, one of the leprechaun hints to wolverine that he might be more animal than man. i just point that one up to show that even claremont didn't seem quite sure about who wolverine was supposed to be...)
but that's mostly my humble opinion...

[taylor51]

Is ^that the general consensus? Does anyone know which issue his healing factor is first explained, or did Claremont really just drop it on us?