One of Wolverine’s best alternate looks is his volcanic Asgardian transformation from Marvel’s Fear Itself, and a new cosplay has highlighted exactly why this look is so cool. Equipped with glowing claws and volcanic armor, this cosplay cuts an imposing figure as it replicates one of the most badass designs Logan’s ever had.
In Fear Itself, the Serpent, the heretofore unknown Asgardian God of Fear, arrives on Earth and attempts to turn it into a hellscape ruled by fear and to destroy Asgard. To do so, the Serpent transforms many of the strongest Marvel characters into the Worthy, his loyal henchmen, who wipe the floor with the Avengers. Faced with overwhelming odds, Iron Man petitions Odin for help, and in Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen’s Fear Itself #7, the remaining Avengers are granted boons, new weapons and costumes forged of mystical Uru metal, which combine Stark’s technology with Asgardian enchantments. One of the most memorable new designs is Wolverine, whose whole appearance becomes molten like he’s formed out of volcanic rock. Now, this design for Wolverine has been incredibly recreated in a new cosplay by Phil Weseman (@stayatfoamdadcreations).
In Wolverine's Asgardian upgrade, his entire body glows and shifts like magma, while his costume becomes an exoskeleton of igneous rock, jutting out at spiky angles over his whole body. The look is completed with his claws becoming extensions of this volcanic power, glowing bright orange.
This Cosplay Brings Wolverine's Most Out-Of-This-World Costume To Life
The way that Weseman's cosplay recreates Fear Itself is incredible. Using foam, Weseman is able to perfectly capture the pockmarked and weathered look of Wolverine’s rocky design, with the outer layer of the costume indistinguishable from actual volcanic rock due to the level of detail on the costume. Weseman also credits Happy Nerd Photography (@happynerdphoto) for the photography, which itself is doubly impressive since the angles used for the photos transforms Weseman, like Hugh Jackman before them, into someone a foot shorter, as Wolverine’s height is 5’3 compared to Weseman’s natural 6’2.
While it was clearly never meant to be a permanent upgrade, the image of Wolverine with glowing claws has been interestingly persistent in comics. When Logan is resurrected in Charles Soule, Steve McNiven and Declan Shalvey’s Return of Wolverine after his 2014 death, he comes back with an upgrade; glowing "hot claws" that superheat when Wolverine gets mad. Similarly, a future version of Logan from Jason Aaron and Christian Ward’s Thor Vol 5 #5 sports glowing claws granted by his possession of the Phoenix Force, and a Phoenix-possessed Logan is an image that Aaron has returned to in his recent Avengers run. It seems that Logan with glowing claws has simply become too cool an image to up.
The Avengers’ Asgardian upgrades are also notable because of what they show about the use of gods in Marvel Comics. At no point during Fear Itself are the limits of these upgrades ever shown, and readers are simply left to imagine what those limits might be. Wolverine is shown to be able to even pierce the skin of a mystically transformed Juggernaut, but the Juggernaut at this time doesn’t have his powers of Cyttorak, so maybe he’s less indestructible than normal. Like so many things, "Asgardian upgrades" simply mean "whatever power level the writer needs the characters to have," and that’s a good thing. Getting bogged down in trying to make sense of power level hierarchies can take up space in an event comic focussed primarily on action, spectacle, and a few key characters. Wolverine’s fiery transformation looks cool and is powerful, and that’s what matters, which is why Phil Weseman’s cosplay is so effective: because it looks rad.
