It’s an unspoken rule in the world of comic books that very few characters — especially in the Marvel and DC universes — die and stay dead. Nowhere was this rule more prominent than with Wolverine,as his mutant healing factor makes him virtually immortal. He’s survived a nuclear explosion, being crucified, and theAdamantiumbeingripped from his bones.Logandefied traditionwhen it was released, showing a Wolverine whose healing factor was dimming, and the film eventually killed him off, endingHugh Jackman’s tenure as the clawed Canadian (until he returned forDeadpool & Wolverine).
ButLoganisn’t the first time the Grim Reaper caught up with Wolverine. Back in 2014, the appropriately titledDeath of Wolverineminiseries fromCharles SouleandSteve McNivensaw Logan shuffle off the mortal coil. In a surprising show of restraint, Marvel waited four years before reuniting the same creative team forReturn of Wolverine(withDeclan Shalveyjoining in). Soule also worked withDavid Marquezon theHunt for Wolverinespecial.But how did Wolverine die, and come back?
Logan sees the titular hero, AKA Wolverine, in his twilight years as his healing factor has begun to fail him, and he has begun to age more rapidly. Set several years in the future, Logan finds himself caring for an ailing Professor Xavier, whose mind has begun to succumb to dementia, making him an incredibly dangerous mutant that can cause widespread destruction accidentally. But when the preoccupied Logan is asked to meet with a woman that requests he transports a young girl to a mutant haven known as Eden, he learns that she may have his DNA and that the fate of mutant-kind may rest in her hands.
On a mission to the subatomic realm known as the Microverse, Wolverinecontracted a virus that effectively “burned out” his healing factor. For the first time in years he was mortal, and someone took advantage of that by placing a bounty on his head. Logan wound up fighting a number of his foes, includingSabretooth, the body-hopping warrior Ogun, and Lady Deathstrike. Eventually, he learned that Doctor Cornelius, one of the scientists behind the Weapon X program, was attempting to refine the process and needed his Adamantium skeleton. Logan freed Cornelius' test subjectsbut was coated in molten Adamantiumin the process. It served as an almost poetic death; Adamantium made him into a living weapon and ended his life.
Wolverine Resurrected and Gained a New Superpower
The X-Men took Wolverine’s Adamantium-encased body to a private cabin in Canada, but shortly after, they discovered that Logan’s makeshift “tomb” was empty. This led Kitty Pryde, Iron Man, and Daredevil to assemble teams of heroes to try and track down Wolverine’s whereabouts.A mysterious organization known asSoteira had resurrected Wolverine, with its leader Persephone intending to use him as a weapon to “remake the world.” Wolverine eventually regained his memories and stopped Persephone, learning about a new power in the process:he could superheat his clawswhen he was enraged enough. The issue was that it “overclocked” his healing factor, making him more vulnerable. “They represented all the bad things he was and could be - death, rage, loss of control. It was no accident that he doesn’t heal from wounds taken while berserkering the same way he does normally,” Soule said when discussingthe final issue ofReturn of Wolverineon Twitter.
Other universes have shown Wolverine dying. The legendaryDays of Future Paststoryline had a Sentinel burning him down to his Adamantium skeleton, whileOld Man Loganshowed an aging Wolverine whose healing factor was diminished.Death of Wolverine, alongsideLogan, remains one of the few times Wolverine was truly killed off, and they were all the more powerful for it.
