''Wolverine'' is a radio drama podcast series featuring the Marvel Comics character Wolverine. The show is Marvel's first scripted podcast produced by Marvel New Media and

Stitcher Stitcher is a media company that specializes in the creation, distribution, and monetization of podcasts. Stitcher creates original shows through networks such as Earwolf and Witness Docs. Stitcher provides ad sales and distribution services to ...

. Marvel had previously done some other audio only formats in 1974 with a

Fantastic Four The Fantastic Four is a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The team debuted in ''The Fantastic Four'' #1 ( cover dated Nov. 1961), helping usher in a new level of realism in the medium. It was the first ...

radio series and a ''Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero'' concept album. It was dubbed one of the Best Podcasts of 2018 by Apple while also winning the 2019

iHeartRadio iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast and radio streaming Computing platform, platform owned by iHeartMedia. It was founded in August 2008. , iHeartRadio was functioning as the national umbr ...

Award for Best Scripted Podcast. A comic adaptation was published by Marvel due to the podcast's success. In 2021, Marvel New Media and

Sirius XM Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sat ...

announced '' Marvel's Wastelanders,'' a series of podcasts set in a version of the Old Man Logan universe. ''Marvel's Wastelanders: Wolverine'' launched in June 2022, featuring

Robert Patrick Robert Hammond Patrick (born November 5, 1958) is an American actor. Known for portraying villains and honorable authority figures, he is a Saturn Award winner with four other nominations. Patrick dropped out of college when drama class sparked ...

as the voice of Wolverine.

Premise

The Long Night

Federal agents are led to the fictional town of Burns, Alaska working a serial murder case.

Logan Logan may refer to: Places * Mount Logan (disambiguation) Australia * Logan (Queensland electoral district), an electoral district in the Queensland Legislative Assembly * Logan, Victoria, small locality near St. Arnaud * Logan City, local gover ...

is the main suspect. The agents will uncover Logan's dual identity and the corruption in the small town. Logan is attempting to escape from society and over the course of the series recover some of his lost memories. He is, however, drawn to execute "frontier justice." Located nearby is the Aurora cult, who may or may not have power or be involved in the murders.

The Lost Trail

The second season, ''The Lost Trail'', finds Wolverine in New Orleans, Louisiana, looking for an ex-lover when humans and mutants start disappearing. Assisted by a young boy, Logan investigates the disappearances, which brings them to encounter "biker gangs;" " Cajun thieves," one of whom is Gambit; and "a world of wonders that defies explanation." The duo find a refuge called Greenhaven led by a powerful mutant, Jason Wyngarde.

Voice cast

The Long Night cast

* Richard Armitage as Logan / Wolverine * Celia Keenan-Bolger as Agent Sally Pierce * Ato Essandoh as Agent Tad Marshall * Andrew Keenan-Bolger as Deputy Bobby Reid *

Scott Adsit Robert Scott Adsit (born November 26, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. Born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, Adsit joined the mainstage cast of Chicago's The Second City in 1994 after attending Columbia College Chicago. He app ...

as Sheriff Ridge *

Brian Stokes Mitchell Brian Stokes Mitchell (born October 31, 1957) is an American actor and singer. A powerful baritone, he has been one of the central leading men of the Broadway theater since the 1990s. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 2000 for ...

as Nicholas Prophet * Bob Balaban as Joseph Langrock

The Lost Trail cast

* Richard Armitage as Logan / Wolverine *

Bill Irwin William Mills Irwin (born April 11, 1950) is an American actor, clown, and comedian. He began as a vaudeville-style stage performer and has been noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He has made a n ...

as Jason Wyngarde / Mastermind *

Bill Heck Bill Heck is an American actor who has appeared on Broadway and in television shows, such as '' The Leftovers'' and '' The Old Man'', and films, including in the role of Billy Knapp in the Coen Brothers' western ''The Ballad of Buster Scruggs''. ...

as Remy LeBeau / Gambit * Rodney Henry as Marcus Baptiste * Christina Bennett Lind as Agent Sally Pierce * Blair Brown as Bonnie Roach * Mugga as Ruby Baptiste * Rachael Holmes as Maureen

Episodes

Season 1: The Long Night

Season 2: The Lost Trail

Production

Marvel New Media and

announced on December 5, 2017 ''Wolverine: The Long Night'' was in production for a spring 2018 launch on Stitcher Premium and a wider release in fall 2018. Sound design for the podcast was by Brendan Baker and Chloe Prasinos with some of the recording taking place outside in the appropriate terrain and with actors interacting and moving together. Producers are Daniel Fink for Marvel and Jenny Radelet for Stitcher. The first season's first two episodes debuted on March 12, 2018, on Stitcher with two episode per week to follow; it ended its first season with ten episodes in early May. A teaser trailer for the podcast was also released to promote it. On November 5, 2018, Marvel and Sticher announced that second season called ''Wolverine: The Lost Trail'' has started production with Gambit and Mastermind being added to the story for a first quarter 2019 debut. With the release of its trailer, Marvel indicated that the release date for the second season to be March 25, 2019 with Percy and Baker returning as writer for the season with associate director and sound designer Chloe Prasinos.

Reception

After listening to three episodes, Beth Elderkin of Io9 found the podcast to be "... off on a promising (albeit imperfect) note." "It might not be perfect, and some of the characters and setups might verge on the ridiculous, but it's exciting to experience a comic book universe story in this format." In 2018, Apple named it as one of the "Best Podcasts of the Year" while being in their Top 25 Most Downloaded Podcasts of the Year and Top 25 Most Downloaded New Podcasts of the Year. During the 2019

Podcast Awards, it won the Best Scripted Podcast. ''The Long Night'' won Best Scripted Podcast at the inaugural

Podcast Awards in January 2019, as well as a 2019 Webby Award for Best Original Music/Sound Design in a Podcast. In addition, Apple included ''The Long Night'' on its Best of 2018 podcasts list.

Adaptations

Due to the success of ''The Long Night'', a

comic a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

adaptation was written by the podcast writer

Benjamin Percy Benjamin Percy is an American author of novels and short stories, essayist, comic book writer, and screenwriter. Career Benjamin Percy has published four novels, ''The Dark Net'', ''The Dead Lands'', ''Red Moon'', and ''The Wilding'', as well a ...

. Joining Percy on the adaptation was artist Marcio Takara and cover artist Rafael Albuquerque for issue 1 released in January 2019. The adaptation was a five issue mini-series in which two chapters were truncated to fill an issue. A Spanish-language version of ''The Long Night'' podcast — ''La Larga Noche'' — was released in September 2021 as part of Marvel's podcasting partnership with SiriusXM. A Spanish-language translation of the comic book adaption was previously released by Panini Cómics Latinoamérica in Argentina in 2019. The ''Wolverine: La Larga Noche'' podcast is directed by Alejandra López with sound design by Brendan Baker and Chloe Prasinos and features the voices of Joaquín Cosío as Wolverine, Brigitte Kali Canales as Agent Sally Pierce, Guillermo García as Agent Tad Marshall, Bruno Bichir as Sheriff Ridge, and

Ricardo Chávez Ricardo Chávez is a Mexican actor who has worked in theater, television and film. He was also a model and a ballet dancer before acting. Early life and background Ricardo Chávez was born in Mexico City on November 24, 1965, to a middle-class ...

as Nicholas Prophet. Although Percy's original ''The Long Night'' script was used as the basis for ''La Larga Noche'', about half of the dialogue was reinterpreded to better fit the Spanish language. Although the voice actors speak a range of Spanish dialects, the series was voiced primarily in Mexican Spanish.

Wolverine: La Larga Noche

Future

Benjamin Percy teased in a 2017 interview with

Mashable Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...

that ''Wolverine: The Long Night'' could be the start of a whole new interconnected universe, which he called the Marvel Podcast Universe. On August 14, 2019, Marvel and Stitcher announced that a 10-episode podcast adaptation of Kurt Busiek's ''

Marvels ''Marvels'' is a four-issue miniseries comic book written by Kurt Busiek, painted by Alex Ross and edited by Marcus McLaurin. It was published by Marvel Comics in 1994. Set in the 1939 to 1974 time period, the series examines the Marvel Univ ...

'' would premiere in Fall 2019 with the first season focusing on the aftermath of the

's battle with Galactus and Phil Sheldon and his crew exploring the world of superheroes.

References

External links

* {{Wolverine Wolverine (comics) in other media American radio dramas Comic book podcasts Crime podcasts Science fiction podcasts 2018 podcast debuts Works based on Marvel Comics American podcasts Scripted podcasts