It has been a big news day for the old Canucklehead. It was announced earlier that Ryan Reynolds was joining the cast as Deadpool, and that Taylor Kitsch had signed on to play Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Before fans could wrap their mind around the fact that Wolverine wasn't running solo in this film, Variety just announced a third addition. Hip hop star will.i.am has signed on, and IESB has the scoop that he will be playing John Wraith.

John Wraith, also known as Kestrel, was one of the members of Team X. He was a skilled teleporter and always knew when to use massive explosives. He wasn't particularly memorable, nor was his storyline where he and Team X tried to prevent themselves from rapidly aging into goo. I vaguely remember this from the Wolverine's solo comic series, and am very sorry it has been dredged up. Team X was one of the most convoluted and bizarre story arcs ever written, where Wolverine ran around in third world countries as a sort of CIA Agent with a team of mutants. He was usually accompanied by his arch-nemesis Sabretooth, who was no longer a savage psycho, but all sophisticated and smart.
They wore suits and carried guns with the handles wrapped in tape. They were like hairier versions of James Bond. To make things weirder, Silver Fox, Logan's once-murdered lover, often showed up as a drug runner or revolutionary. Charmingly, she was always sporting her Indian maiden headdress so that readers could recognize her. It was, needless to say, extremely lame, particularly when it concluded with Silver Fox being eaten by a tree. Only recently, the arc was dismissed as implanted memories, as nearly all bad Wolverine stories are. It's good to have a brainwashed character sometimes.

Where Gambit will fit into this is any fan's guess. I suspect Deadpool will be re-envisioned as a member of Team X, replacing someone like the little remembered Mastodon. But why is Wolverine straying further and further from what fans really want to see -- his recruitment and torture at the hands of Weapon X? I know that Team X is part of that storyline, but it is quite possibly one of the worst chapters of that saga. There is a perfectly good film that can be made out of Barry Windsor-Smith's brilliant Weapon X, particularly when combined with some of Wolverine's recently regained memories. It would be the gritty and brutal storyline Wolverine fans were hoping for. With all these casting announcements, it looks more and more like Wolverine's solo movie will be everything the fans ever hated about the character. But I guess we should count our blessings that Jubilee isn't in it -- yet.