At -K-M-'s request, I'm posting some of my own observations of the character's traits. I have no accompanying pics yet.
Wild Child's Speech Pattern:
Byrne introduced Wild Child as eloquent and fluid in his speech. Future writers ran with this with some patchy spots in between. Scott Lobdell continued the eloquence in Weapon Omega, and to an extent Simon Furman did so with Wildheart. Not until Jeph Loeb tried revitalizing the character with amazing results did we see his eloquence again. I give the man credit where credit is due trying to take the character back to his roots.
Other writers either made him mute (Tieri) or talking with the exact same speech pattern as Sabretooth and Wolverine (Mackie, Way). If people criticize the character for being too much like Sabretooth, why perpetuate the wrong speech pattern? He never talked like this at all in Alpha Flight or Loeb's take as Romulus' right hand man.
Wild Child's mental state:
He has been sane, he has been insane, he has been noble, he has been twisted, he has been psychotic (here's a retcon they could have used. Daken's phermones inducing psychotic rage.) It was said in Alpha Flight that he had two distinct personalities. I would say not to the extent of Aurora/Jeanne-Marie, but he is definitely dissociative, and his persona changes seem tied to his shifting appearance. Something else he doesn't share with Sabretooth. Whether this has anything to do with his genetic alterations, his powers affecting his mind or influenced by Romulus, it bears exploring.
Wild Child's healing factor:
Diablo caused a spot on his chest to burn from lava, without injury or effect. His age also fluctuates, which would suggest his healing factor is not stable and can be so strong at times that it can reverse his aging process to a limited but significant extent.
Wild Child's father:
Who is he? It's been said he's supposed to be the son of Sabretooth, which explains their similarities. Is it Victor? It wasn't Wyre, merely the source for genetic experiments on abducted mutants. Could it even be Romulus himself? I doubt he'd trust an incompetent as closely as he trusted Kyle as his right hand. But his son?
Spoiler............
Wild Child's Death:
It felt off, forced, callous and deliberate. Not only does Way portray the character directly opposed to how Loeb was setting him up, he wrote him as so profoundly out of character it seemed deliberate. Wild Child died directly on panel, so we could see him descend into a vat of molten iron hands first and then another shot of nothing in the vat, Wild Child submerged and destroyed, the same vat of molten iron Wolverine had just gotten out of. Nevermind that Kyle has been exposed to such extremes before and his healing factor may have been comparably strong enough to save him. Way wanted him dead and wanted to make a point of the character being unusable. If a character "sucks" wouldn't a writer do something other than perpetuate that notion and kill it off? Loeb obviously had some damn good if unusual ideas. I still want to know what he was doing in WWII. If they retconned that in. Wild Child was anything but the incompetant he way portrayed in W:0 #39.
