To give you an idea of how mess it is, Wolverine (as currently depicted in the comics) is an old-man from a parallel universe who has somehow ended up in the main universe where the younger Wolverine is dead. I'm not making this up.
The language in the contract strikes me as woolly and almost unenforceable given the incredibly wide parameters set and the nature of the source material. No doubt Universal plays it pretty safe and tame and sticks to the "iconic" looks. But I was just curious if they had gone so far as to actually define a time period for the land.
Wolverine is dead in the comics right now. And second, the "old man from another universe" version of Wolverine was a storyline back in 2008 that wrapped up in 2009. So it is wildly inaccurate to state that it is, or even has recently been, the version of him "currently" depicted.
That said, here is a list of all 32 wolverine variations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_versions_of_Wolverine
The rule is quite simple. Marvel Super Hero Island depicts a specific version of the "Marvel Action Universe". So Universal can't go parading Zombie Wolverine, or Earth-X Wolverine, or Age of Apocalypse Wolverine around their park when they clearly are depicting the "standard" universe wolverine. Just because some silly side story gets run for a few months in the comics doesn't mean that suddenly it opens up that particular "age" to them. Besides, even if Universal OWNED Marvel, they would have no reason to depict an alternate Wolverine unless it was for a movie tie-in or something (assuming they actually got so far into the marvel universe they started confusing people with alternate worlds). Themeparks cater to the most common denominator of whatever material they are working with. Hence, the wolverine we get at IoA is based off the 90's comic\cartoon style. Not the Bryan Singer movie style, not the Weapon-X style, etc....
When debating something like this contract you have to look at it from a business perspective and not a comic-book perspective. I guarantee you, at no point did Universal creative ever fret over which version of any character they could or should use. The obvious vanilla version was always going to be the pick. This provision in the contract simply guaranteed that Marvel, not Universal, would get final say on such things.
However, a Marvel Zombie haunted house at halloween horror nights would have been pretty cool
