How to Prepare to Watch Wolverine

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Movie Ticket

How to Watch Wolverine

Step 1

Weapon X

Recognize Weapon X. The Weapon X program is a clandestine government operation that specializes in turning participants (both willing and unwilling) into living weapons. They are the ones responsible for bonding adamantium to Wolverine's bones and subjecting him to various forms of mind-control.

In the comics, Weapon X is conducted by a branch of the Canadian government known as Department K and is part of a larger organization known as Weapon Plus, an American organization responsible for a variety of superhuman soldiers including Captain America. I don't recall the earlier X-Films going into quite so much detail and I'm sure that the Wolverine movie will simply leave it at "a secret government operation".

On an interesting side note, the words "Weapons Plus" can be seen on the cold storage containers from which General Ross retrieves the super-soldier serum in the Incredible Hulk film, creating a connection between the X-Films and the new Marvel movie wave of Iron Man, Hulk and upcoming Thor, Avengers and Captain America. So even though we'll likely never see the X-Men and the Hulk sharing a film, the Marvel Universe has been established on the big screen.
Step 2

Wolverine

Watch out for Wolverine. With enhanced senses and a healing factor that allows him to survive even the roughest battles, Wolverine would be a formidable opponent even without his razor sharp adamantium claws. The same unbreakable metal was bonded to his entire skeleton in an experiment that a normal human would never have been able to survive in an attempt to create the ultimate killing machine. It worked.

The diminutive mutant began life as James Howlett sometime near the end of the 1800s, the pampered son of rich Canadian plantation owners. When his mutant powers and bone claws manifested themselves, he began a life full of hardships that would eventually lead him to see more war and death than the average person would see in ten lifetimes. At some point he ended up in the Weapon X program and began a lifelong rivalry with Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth.
Step 3

Sabretooth

See Sabretooth. Imagine Wolverine without the restraint or moral fiber and you've pretty much got Sabretooth. He's got the same healing factor and enhanced senses and while his claws and fangs may not be laced with adamantium, he more than makes up for it with his savagery and killer instinct. Wolverine is known for constantly struggling to keep his inner beast in check, but Victor Creed has embraced the animal within. Little concrete evidence of Sabretooth's past exists save for his longstanding hatred of Wolverine which may or may not stem from their time serving together in the Weapon X program.

Sabretooth has long been considered the yin to Logan's yang in the Marvel comics, but has only made one other appearance on the silver screen: in the first X-Men movie. In that film, he was depicted as little more than Magneto's stooge. It was actually a bit of a slap in the face to a character known just as much for his cunning as his bestiality. It appears this situation will be ameliorated in the Wolverine film and we'll see a version of Sabretooth that is a little closer to his comic counterpart.
Step 4

William Striker

Regard William Striker. The depiction of William Stryker in the X-Men comic books and the William Stryker of the X-Men film franchise are two distinct individuals with one commonality: an unequivocal hatred of mutantkind.
When God Loves, Man Kills was written in the early 1980's, televangelists were all the rage and Stryker was shown as a reverend whose hatred of mutants was born from religious fervor. When the story was adapted for the second X-Men film, televangelists were no longer a hot-button topic and Stryker's backstory was altered to make him a military scientist who has gone into defense contracting. He is also shown to be involved with the Weapon X program and as the man responsible for giving Wolverine his adamantium claws.
Huston compares his character to a racehorse breeder who rears his mutant experiments like children but abandons them when something goes wrong.