John Howlett & Elizabeth Hudson

Let’s move now to another incredibly crowded movie, and quite a messy one in general: X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The first characters we find in the movie are John and Elizabeth Howlett, portrayed by Peter O’Brien and Alice Parkinson, respectively. They are the parents of James Howlett… well, Elizabeth is the mother, while it turns out John is not the boy’s biological son. They are Canadian noblemen from the first half of the XIX Century, and live quite a family drama, the kind of which is common in the era’s literature, at least until it doesn’t take a weird turn. In the comics, their role is almost identical to the one we saw in the movie. Almost. Let’s take a look.

John Howlett was born in Alberta, Canada, in the early 1800s. Wealthy and cultured, he lived a life of luxury in Howlett Estate, along with his father, old and sick but still the head of the family. Elizabeth Hudson was the first daughter of another rich Canadian family, and her marriage to John was arranged so that the two families could increase the respective wealth. Apparently, there wasn’t much love between the two of them since the very beginning of their cohabitation, and it didn’t pass much time before Elizabeth started an affair with Thomas Logan, the groundskeeper. Elizabeth soon got pregnant, and it was almost obvious that her son, John Jr., was actually Logan’s son. Her husband didn’t suspect a thing, though, and he rejoiced to have a male heir… but things didn’t turn out the way everyone expected. When he was still a little kid, John Jr. manifested demonic abilities, and in a moment of rage, he attacked his own mother, severely wounding her with retractable bone claws. John intervened against his son, and unable to contain him, he killed the boy to protect his wife. The incident left both Howletts deeply shocked, and Elizabeth carried horrible scars on her back. Life slowly came back to normal, but John’s and his father’s efforts to hide everything concerning the short life of John Jr. slowly eroded Elizabeth’s sanity. The woman got pregnant once again, always from Logan, and she gave birth to James, but the presence of the baby made her trauma resurface, and Elizabeth suffered a complete nervous breakdown, that forced John to send her to a madhouse. John remained alone to take care of James, who grew up loving his father, and terrified of his grandfather. Then Elizabeth came back, but things were never the same again.

With mental scars even more serious than her physical ones, Elizabeth locked herself in her room, with the sole company of her maid Mrs. Hopkins; she refused to see even her own son, who missed her dearly. Since he had to take care of the Estate, John hired a girl, Rose O’Hara, to keep company to his son, and James grew up with her and with Dog Logan, the son of Thomas. Dog was, however, a violent boy, who eventually crossed all lines when he killed James’ puppy and tried to rape Rose. Believing that Thomas was unable to control his son, John summoned his groundskeeper, and fired him, telling him to leave the Estate along with his son immediately. This was the beginning of the end for the family: that night, a drunk Thomas attacked the estate along with Dog, and he killed his former master John in the effort of taking Elizabeth along. The weak and constantly sick James witnessed the scene, and the shock activated in him what would have been known as X-Gene a century later: just like his older brother, he was a mutant, and in his blind rage, pain and fear he attacked Thomas, impaling him with retractable claws identical to that of his dead brother. This was simply enough for Elizabeth’s frail mind, and she had another breakdown, unable to witness the same scene another time. She called her son “monster”, and forced him to leave Howlett Estate: Rose took the boy along, and ran away. In shock, Elizabeth blamed herself for everything, and talking to herself, she got close to Thomas Logan’s corpse, took his gun, and shot herself with it. Quite a bloody end for such a respectable family.

John and Elizabeth Howlett are a couple of wealthy and respectable Canadian landlords, who hide behind a facade of good manners the fact that they’re deeply damaged by personal and family trauma. John keeps himself busy with work to avoid thinking of his first monstrous son, while Elizabeth is constantly unhappy, trapped in a marriage without love and mentally and physically scarred. The pain and trauma they hide will be their greater legacy to their son.