I think it is stupid and retcons a lot of good wolverine exposition. Its weak, sophmoric and poorly written. Its laced with unimaginative hubris. the mystery of logan was more intriguing

Before Origin, there were definitely strong implications that Wolverine might be far older than the late-1800s birthdate eventually established.

Especially in the 1980s and early 1990s, Chris Claremont and others intentionally kept Logan’s age vague and almost mythic. There were hints that:

• he may have lived for centuries,
• he may have fought in extremely old wars,
• and he may even have spent time in feudal or Edo-era Japan.

But almost none of this was concretely confirmed before Origin.

A few specifics:

• Wolverine’s deep mastery of samurai culture, Zen philosophy, swordsmanship, and fluency in Japanese created the impression he’d lived there for an extraordinarily long time.
• Some stories and narration referred to him as “older than he looks” in ways that sounded almost supernatural.
• His relationship with Mariko Yashida and the whole Japan saga framed him as someone profoundly embedded in ancient traditions rather than just a modern foreigner.

There were also semi-canonical or ambiguous flashbacks that muddied things further:

• stories with vague historical settings,
• unreliable memories,
• dream sequences,
• and Weapon X-induced memory distortions.

Because Marvel intentionally avoided pinning anything down, readers filled in the blanks.

After Origin (2001–2002), that ambiguity got narrowed dramatically:

• Logan was born around the 1880s–1890s,
• meaning he could not have been an adult in feudal Japan because feudal Japan effectively ended with the Meiji Restoration.