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In the 2011 superhero movie X-Men: First Class, enter image description here

Wolverine has a cameo while, in my own words, Magneto and Prof X are out recruiting X-Men.

First Class is set in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But around that time, Wolverine was supposed to be out fighting the Vietnam War (U.S. troops were deployed in 1961).

This leads me to wonder the exact time and place the above cameo scene takes place. Wolverine looks worried about something (he seems busy with his own problems) and the events of X-Men Origins : Wolverine either haven't happened yet or are happening as they speak.

The following are the possibilities I've come up with:

  • Wolverine is still a soldier for the U.S. army and only about to be deployed to Vietnam along with his brother. He is anxious and getting ready for the war.

  • Him and Victor were deployed in 1961, and Victor has already killed his senior officer causing both Wolverine and him to be shot at by a firing squad and then after they survived that, put in confinement. Then, it is plausible that the above scene sees a Wolverine in the beginning years of his commitment to Stryker's Team X.

Watching the movies didn't exactly help since X-Men are famous for screwing up continuity:

More or less a decade after the events of First Class, according to Origins, Wolverine gets his trademark adamantium claws and engages on a full on attack on Victor and Stryker on Stryker's Island. During this time (1970s), Origins show Emma Frost as Sivertail's teenage sister (nix psychic powers) as opposed to the seductress we see working with Shaw in First Class. (sources now say they are different unrelated people) Then, we see a CGI young Patrick Stewart version of Charles Xavier with working legs save the young mutants from Stryker's island which conflicts with him being confined to a wheelchair back in 1962 as seen in First Class.
All this makes things confusing.

This question also extends to what Wolverine was doing in the 1970's when X-Men: Days of Future Past happened. He seemed like he wasn't doing anything.

So, what was Wolverine doing in the 1960's and 1970's? Answers from all earth's similar to the movie universe (which earth is that btw) are welcome :D

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    Remember that Wolverine is Canadian, so he wouldn't necessarily have been deployed with the US troops.
    – krillgar
    Commented Jan 11, 2015 at 15:51
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    Whenever I am confronted with continuity errors in the X-Men movie universe, I try to forget Origins: Wolverine and that usually solves the problem.
    – SethMMorton
    Commented Jan 12, 2015 at 1:56
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    Aww, you left the best part of that scene out of the gif!
    – Chahk
    Commented Jan 12, 2015 at 14:13
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    What was he doing? He was hanging out at a bar. Obviously.
    – KSmarts
    Commented Jan 30, 2015 at 22:13
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    @Nick Strycker's island = Three Mile Island and the accident on three mile island happens in March 28, 1979 (very late 1970's) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident also don't forget Wolverine and Victor were in jail for a looong time after the killings in Vietnam 1971-reviewae.com/2013/07/…. My guess is they wanted the Island rescue to be 1981 which is after the 3-Mile Meltdown leaving certain portions of the island off limits.
    – tls
    Commented Jan 31, 2015 at 8:24

4 Answers 4

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TL;DR: We don't know - the bar itself could be in Vietnam, Canada, or the US.

To put it succinctly, we have no way of knowing. We don't have any criteria by which to judge the location of the bar, so it could be in Vietnam, Canada, or the US. The ramshackle, stained-glass windows of the bar COULD indicate a bar in Saigon, but it could just as easily indicate one elsewhere. And although we know the scene was shot in Savannah, GA, that typically has no bearing on the in-universe location of the shoot. The other patrons of the bar are no more than blurry background figures, so we can't judge based on that either.

We also don't know the whereabouts of Victor Creed during this scene. He could be half a world away or he could be across the street buying more cigars. And it's probably irrelevant either way - although the montage from Origins shows them fighting together in numerous conflicts, it's also safe to assume that they didn't spend every waking moment together.

At the very least, we know that the scene in the bar predates the Origins scene in Vietnam, since both Logan & Victor were thrown into a military prison following those events. We also know that Logan's hair was visibly much longer during the Vietnam incident, indicating that the bar scene predated that by several months at the very least, but presumably quite a bit more.

enter image description here

There simply isn't enough context within the scene itself, or any other movies, to judge where Logan is at during the events of First Class.

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    The events of First Class are supposed to be the "true" version of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The past portions of DoFP in 1973 occurred before Stryker knew who Wolverine was, meaning the Vietnam incident had to have occurred after that. It's way longer than a few months between the bar scene and Vietnam.
    – phantom42
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 19:40
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    @phantom42 - I agree. I also got the sense that Logan & Victor sat in that cell for quite a while, possibly years, before Stryker visited them. The military didn't know what else to do with them, so just let 'em rot there. But I used the hair to point out that it has to be several months AT LEAST between the two scenes. I assume it was quite more, maybe even a decade or so.
    – Omegacron
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 19:57
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Let me explain what I think was happening, just based on what I have seen in the movies. In X-Men: Origins, a scene occurs in which an old man and his wife shelter Wolverine for the night, and afterward the man allows him to test out his Harley Davidson (I assume) motorcycle. Wolverine's comment about the motorcycle is "A '64, huh?" Based on this comment, it seems reasonable to suggest that X-Men: Origins (or at least, the "six years later" bit starting with Wolverine and Silverfox settling down in the Canadian Rockies) takes place after the events of X-Men: First Class.

That said: to answer your question, I believe that your first assumption is correct: Wolverine is still a soldier and is concerned about the war (especially with the background provided in the prologue of X-Men: Origins; if my brother was going crazy because he obviously has seen too many people die to care anymore, I would be worried too!). If what phantom42 is saying is correct (which I cannot verify, as I do not remember the events of X-Men: Origins being specifically dated), then it is plausible that he and Victor will not face a firing squad for at least another ten years after the events of First Class, but I wouldn't be dogmatic. I would personally say that 1973 is the maximum limit for how late Wolverine met Stryker (since it is near the end of the Vietnam War), meaning that '64 should be the minimum limit, given the comment about the aforementioned bike. Either way, what Wolverine was likely doing in the '60s was fighting in Vietnam, then with Stryker, and finally leaving Stryker out of disgust. In the '70s: he was probably just trying to live his life with Silverfox (before she died and he got his famous claws).

Based on an Origins scene with Silverfox at the school where she taught: maybe he was starting to seriously think about starting a family? Just a theory......

Also, part of Days of Future Past (the only X-Men film that I have not seen yet; any information I have is courtesy of Wikipedia) takes place in 1973. Therefore, Wolverine must have left Stryker prior to '73, because otherwise his younger self would not have been available to help the older Wolverine out.

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  • I edited your comment into your answer. In the future please do the same (look for the "edit" button in the lower left corner of your post).
    – Null ♦
    Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 16:58
  • A young William Stryker sees wolverine in the 1973 scenes of DoFP and has no apparent recognition of Logan. It's this meeting that prompts stryker's interest in him.
    – phantom42
    Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 21:41
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During x men first class, wolverine was still a soldier. He must have met Stryker before 1973 and left that team before 1973. He got his adamantium claws only after 'Days of Future Past' timeline, otherwise he would have had those claws in 'Days of Future Past'.

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    Could you maybe add some supporting details?
    – Adamant
    Commented Jun 3, 2016 at 4:37
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The 3 Mile Island meltdown didn't occur until 1979. Plausible timeline is First Class is 1962; Days of Future Past is 1973 before Wolverine has metal claws and meets Stryker for the first time; Wolverine and Sabertooth then go to Vietnam and are imprisioned until Stryker recruits them sometime around the end of the Vietnam War (approximately 1975); then the events of X-Men Origins occur from 1975 to about 1982; following this are the events in X-Men: Apocalypse

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