Wild Thing: Random Appearances

There's nothing earth-shattering or particularly interesting about cameo-appearances in comics. Usually, writers use them as a quick nod to fans or sometimes a character is used as simple canon-fodder to make a threat look more credible. That said, I think the following Wild Thing cameos belong in the first camp....though the first one is probably a little of both?


This first cameo is a weird one. Well, I guess both cameo's are weird, but you'll see what I mean. This story takes place during the massive multiverse-altering event Secret Wars. In a short story printed in Secret Wars: Battleworld #3, Mojo has taken various Wolverine-related characters from across every domain of the patchwork Battleworld and pitted them against one another in a battle royale fight to the death. The story focuses on a pacifist Wolverine who refuses to fight. Wild Thing (or, possibly an alternate-reality version) appears in a single panel of the story....apparently dead or dying after being bitten by a vampiric Wolverine. That's gotta suck.

The second cameo is similarly odd and coincidentally also features various Wolverine-related characters. Deadpool: Too Soon? #3 (which collects Deadpool: Too Soon? Infinite Comic #5 and #6)  presents Deadpool trying to solve the mystery of who is beheading his 'friends'. In an attempt to warn some of them, he pays a visit to Spider-Ham who is in the middle of a baseball game between a team of Spider-Men and Wolverines, the Amazing Arachnids and the Seething Snikters. I am not making this up. Anyway, one of the Snikters is, of course, Wild Thing. What the heck is she doing there? Deadpool does speculate that the team is comprised of clones, so that might go some way toward explaining things....sort of. But not really. The issue is penciled by MC2-alumni Todd Nauck, so it's likely just a fun Easter egg.

There you have it, folks. While the nature of the Secret Wars event has a built-in explanation for why Wild Thing is meeting (and possibly being killed by) alternate Wolverines, the Deadpool cameo just raises more questions. It may be worth mentioning that Wild Thing hasn't made any appearances in MC2-centric stories since before Secret Wars. Maybe she's stranded in another reality? Maybe I'm overthinking....

Until I stop scouring comics for cameo appearances of obscure characters, I remain

frogoat