This iconic comic book (which is not in my collection) came out right when I was born! The cover date says November but Marvel always put a future date on their covers to make them seem newer longer. Marvel Unlimited has it marked as Sept 1, 1974 but for comics published previous to the digital age they seem content to just be accurate as to the month, they all say Sept 1 or May 1 or whatever. Did it come out on September 11, 1974? It doesn't really matter at all, but it would be cool to think the (more or less) first appearance of Wolverine coincided with my birthday. 

The Hulk and Wolverine have been two of my favourite characters for much of the intervening 40+ years.

A friend of mine asked me on Twitter a while back, how do I define strength? In the context of, you know, how this pandemic and all the things is wearing us down at varying rates and in different ways. I didn't think hard about it, I just answered off the top of my head:

"Like the Hulk or Wolverine: strong, angry and incapable of being hurt."

(It being Twitter I couldn't go back and edit my answer because as a writer it irks me that I answered a question about defining strength using the word 'strong' lol- I should've said Big or Muscley.) 

Anyways, this answer kind of stayed with me for a while, since I wonder if it revealed a little more about me than I really wanted to reveal. But it's instructive too, as a place to move forward from. 

Here's a comic I do have in my collection, another iconic cover featuring my favourite characters, that came out, as David Hartwell's famous quote would have it, during my golden age of comics. (Hartwell said the golden age of science fiction is 12, and that works for so many things):

Hulk and Wolverine once again have occasion to engage in fisticuffs. Wolverine was most annoyed with Hulk because Hulk accidentally caused one of the X-Men's Blackbird engines to fall off. While the X-Men were flying in it! So, fight fight fight. It's really awesome! (Hulk is grey and smart here because reasons.) Wolverine has what I think is an interesting insight:

He goes on to say "It makes him tougher, stronger, harder to hurt." Obviously cancer doesn't work like that in real life, but it's a good reminder for stunted boys like me that there is nothing aspirational about the Hulk (let's ignore Endgame for this discussion though!). Wolverine struggles here with his own nature, at first proud of himself for not losing his cool, but then he most definitely loses his cool. Fight fight fight!

Eventually they realize they are being silly and go their own ways, promising to not do it again at least until the next time.

As I go my own way, I realize I am looking for something better to use as a guide, as a definition of strength. Or maybe even more importantly, recognizing the limitations of using "strength" as one's core image of self-sufficiency.

And to be sure, I've always tried to have an expansive and open heart. Generosity of spirit. It's hard to do that in practice if one holds onto anger as a sort of armour against being hurt. But I have found that lowering one's guard can open up worlds.

I don't like to use memes too much, but this one gets the chef's kiss treatment from me:

Specifically Gojira has been my balm, my source of meditative rumination. A new definition of strength, or better yet, just guiding words whether one is strong or not: 

I embrace the world