Wolverine without his claws is just Wolverine. Instead of claws he'd use knives, and there would be no difference except less of the painfully forced badassness.

Like you can do that now? I mean the only thing that separates Sabertooth from Wolvie is that he's a bad guy, and not even for a reason, just sos there's a bad guy to beat up. Cable/Deadpool right before it ended was a great example; "Hey, let's get everyone off the island." "Wait, Cable, Creed's here." "Oh, okay, we did need some violence in this issue. I'mma go beat him up. Back in 10."

The claws really are one of the defining traits Wolvie has. The only other weapon that I can see him using is a Katana after all that samurai crap they wrote in. And Psylocke already has one. But then I see no reason she needed that in place of her psychic knife, so assuming that never happened, it would be less of an issue and more one of whether they really wanted to portray people getting sliced in half and stuff. Frankly, I see less of a problem with the claws and more of a problem with how he's essentially the star of Wolvie-Men, Uncanny Wolvie-Men, Xtreme Wolvie-Men, Ultimate Wolvie-Men, Wolverine, and Amazing Wolvie-Men, plus 80% of the rest of the Marvel universe. There are a LOT of other fun characters who just don't get the screen time, and a lot of other "star" characters who are overshadowed by Wolvie in terms of characterization. I mean, seriously, does anyone really know what makes Storm tick? She's, last I checked, leader of the Gold Team (though it has been quite a while), and an incredibly powerful mutant whose very emotions control the weather. She could probably fry Wolvie with so much electricity that he'd explode, but you never see people make such a huge fuss over her.

It's part of the character that most screams X-TREEM. Plus I figure if you take away the claws then he just like, punches you in the face with his metal-encased knuckles, which is pretty bitchin'.

But then, what makes him The Wolverine instead of The Terminator?

Seriously, I'd get rid of the metal skeleton before the metal claws.

A Wolverine that is not X-TREEM is not, in fact, Wolverine. The best solution to this is to ensure that he is always the straight man in a comedy duo - for example.

There is a Marvel What If? comic I want to direct you to.

Basically it is What if Wolverine wasn't Weapon X? In it he has a subdued healing factor (He is bandaged and has a broken arm at the end.) and no bone claws.

He basically fights Weapon X with a MP5 and a Katar.

It was to this day the best Wolverine comic I ever read.

Most "What If?"s are usually better than their source material simply on the grounds of not being completely raped, pillaged, looted, and repeated over the last fifty years or so.

Read: Red Son and Nail.

Returning to this --

-- I think the best I can explain it is to say that (per the given example) the Wal-Mart manager is able to put up a totally great fight, against the illegal immigrants he is exploiting, which is the part of the story that actually matters and in which Superman is ultimately a secondary actor. The goal isn't to tell stories about how Superman fights enemies of Superman who want to fight Superman because Superman fights Superman Superman Superman Superman Superman Batman. The goal is to tell stories about people, and the struggles and enemies and villains that actual human beings fight and get beaten by every day, and then introduce Superman as the element that changes that situation.

On a related note --

-- to my mind asking for a particular power level for Superman is even almost beside the point. I mean by my looking at it Superman ultimately is going to basically be "strong enough", the question is strong enough to do what?

I actually rather enjoy Fifthfiend's Superman idea -- that statement would probably surprise him -- but my biggest concern would be that the "villains" in his storyline would be treated in a rather haphazard, dehumanizing way. I mean I know it's fun to believe in a world in which every businessman, CEO, and politican with any semblence of power is evil just for the sake of greed, but I really don't get the impression that any human being -- even those oil tycoons we're trained as a society to despise -- is really that sinister. These guys do their part to instigate and propagate the system, perhaps even for their own personal gain, but they also have families and hopes and dreams and desires and are essentially just like the people they unwittingly abuse, only on the other side of the equation.

I guess I'm just sick and tired of the notion that "every" person in a position of power in a capitalistic society has somehow sold his soul to get there, and thus deserves to have Superman beat the crap of him (or her.) In the real world, I've met the Presidents and CEOs of organizations I've worked for, predominantly aerospace industries and the Peace Corps, and they're not bad people. They're richer than I am and I'm not sure they can really relate to the entry-level working struggles I'm going through anymore, but they're not smiling their asses off like sinister villains, getting off on the pain they're causing.

So if there was some way in which Fifthfiend's vision of Superman could be orchestrated without Superman turning into every bit as stereotypical a communist fable about eeevil people in power, I'd probably enjoy it. For one, if Superman spends more time fighting and exposing the inherent pitfalls of our capitalistic system without necessarily demonizing everyone participating in and benefitting from the system itself into sociopaths worthy of getting their heads crushed in, I'd enjoy it. But then in that incarnation of Superman I'd have to wonder; where would the action potentially come in? You'd either have to demonize those 'in power' to such an extent as that they actually deserved the full consequences of Superman's wrath every time, or you'd have a comic with very little action and much more philosophical debates and dialogues. Maybe a mix of both approaches would work best. After all, I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be any corrupt CEOs or politicans deserving of a head-bashing. I'd just prefer there at they weren't all stereotyped into that one narrow classification of assholery, as most CEOs and politicans aren't really like that. Hell, even the HMO executive I met who supports a healthcare system I consider total bullshit was a pretty nice guy in person, who had a nice wife and two decent kids.

Also, I was going to write an in-depth response to Fifthfiend's Wonder Woman idea here as well, but I fear it's a topic more suited for discussion. Besides, it's a tight rope for a man to walk because I can't really personally comment much on "what it's like to be a woman" in modern society, eh? Discussions on feminism always lead me to wonder just how much a role in those discussions men can actually play -- it's similar to wondering just how possible it'd be for a white man to attempt to objectively dissect the "black power" arguments articulated by Malcolm X.