Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics
What are Wolverine’s most devastating moments?
Tragedy is a part of every superheroes life. Peter Parker lost his Uncle Ben, due to his irresponsibility. He turned his death into a lesson to use his powers for good and became the hero Spider-Man. Bruce Wayne saw his parents murdered in front of him as a child. This event made him want to prevent tragedy from happening to anyone. Thus, Batman was born. Wolverine isn’t exempt from this. But unlike most heroes, it seems like his tragedy never ends.
His unfortunate moments started before he was old enough to be in high school. After seeing the man he thought was his father killed, he went into a rage and killed his real father. This was the first time he lost control, as well as the first time he popped and used his claws. A few years later, Logan accidentally killed the first woman he ever loved. This drove him mad. He left his home and lived in the woods for a while after that.
A black cloud of misery continues to follow Logan throughout his life. Some of these events end up working for him and others in the end. Others leave scars on his soul that won’t heal. Here are the 10 most heinous things that have happened to the man they call Logan.
Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics
Used by Romulus
Comic book series: Wolverine Origins
When you look at the things that happened to Logan before he became an X-Man, it seemed like something was always going wrong. These were things that made him into the killer and animal he is today. It’s almost like someone was causing these things to happen in order to mold him. We find out in Wolverine Origins (the comic, not the movie) that someone was trying to control Logan’s destiny almost since birth. That guy’s name was Romulus.
Romulus says that he’s more than human and has been around before the dawn of man and has been shaping the events of the world for centuries. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen. What we do know is that he’s responsible for Logan being who he is. Romulus had Logan’s wife killed while she was pregnant, took the baby out of her dead body, and raised him to hate Logan. He forced Logan to kill people to toughen him up. He had women murdered in front of him to make him go feral (making it easier to control him). He even went as far as to set him up to attack the Hulk to get Professor Xavier’s attention (more on that later).
Everything that made Logan’s upbringing terrible can be blamed on Romulus. The idea was to have Wolverine replace him as the unseen ruler. That obviously didn’t happen. In this end, Wolverine did help save the world and universe because of these events. Gift and a curse.
Image Source: Digital Marvel Comics
Magneto rips the metal from his bones
Comic book series: X-Men: Fatal Attractions
Magento always said that Wolverine is his fiercest opponent. This says a lot considering that the metal bonded to Wolverine’s skeleton gives Magento a huge advantage against him. Despite that, Wolverine manages to give Magneto problems. In X-Men No. 25, Magento had enough of Wolverine. After Logan caught him off guard and stabbed him, Magento used his powers to rip the metal off Wolverine’s bones and brought out through his skin. This almost killed Logan, despite his healing ability. The only reason he didn’t die was Jean Grey’s intervening to keep him alive. Wolverine said he fought for survival because of her.
After Logan healed up, he made an attempt to fight in the Danger Room. The X-Men noticed an unfamiliar look on his face. Wolverine was scared. After telling Logan to stop, he said no because he was still, “The best there is at what I do.” He then popped his claws and couldn’t stop bleeding. This was when we find out that Logan’s claws weren’t put in by Weapon X. They were part of his mutation.
Logan left the X-Men for while to get himself together. This part of his life made him learn more about who he was as a fighter. He could no longer depend on his unbreakable bones to help him in a fight. However, this did lead to the time where he looked more bestial but, as Wolverine fans, let’s pretend that never happened.
Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics
Hitting Logan where it hurts
Comic book series: The Return of Weapon X
Sabretooth was recruited by Weapon X to hunt down mutants. It was a job he was forced to do, but enjoyed it nonetheless. To Weapon X, Sabretooth was a model agent. He did as he was told and had an amazing success rate. It’s too bad Sabretooth was playing them. He started stealing their secrets and using their technology for his own personal projects. One of those projects was torturing Wolverine.
Logan will tell anyone that he’s willing to take the punishment so his friends and family don’t have to. Sabretooth knows this and goes after Logan’s loved ones. Nightcrawler, Heather and James Hudson, Yukio, and his adopted daughter, Amiko, were all brutally beaten. To add salt to the wound, he hired Omega Red and Lady Deathstrike (who he betrays) to attack them. Sabretooth even took away Logan’s healing factor to make it tougher for him to fight. Just when things looked like they couldn’t get worse, Logan was forced to look for Amiko, who Sabretooth almost killed. Thankfully, she was saved by Weapon X.
This is one of the better Wolverine stories, and people don’t know about it. Writer Frank Tieri beat Logan down by making the physical torture a secondary thought. Seeing Yukio almost paralyzed and helpless, as Amiko is close to death, is difficult tough to see. It was also great that Logan wasn’t unstoppable. He had to use his superior skills to defeat Sabretooth.
Image Source: Digital Marvel Comics
Killing his son
Comic book series: X-Force: Final Execution
Daken has been a thorn in Logan’s side for years. Even after he found out that Logan wasn’t responsible for his mother’s death and that his father wanted to be in his life, Daken didn’t care. Daken still wanted revenge. He felt that all of the things Logan did for the young X-Men (like opening up the new school) were an insult. Daken decided to pay him back. He kidnapped Evan Ensabahnur, which forced Logan to assemble X-Force and go after him and his Brotherhood of Mutants.
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When Wolverine arrived, Daken captured him and told him why he’s jealous. Logan reminded him that it wasn’t his choice but Daken still didn’t care. Daken even tried to drown Wolverine. It was the only way that he would stay dead. Ultimately, Logan was saved and knew what he has to do. Logan met his future self and was told that for the sake of his new school, Daken had to die. Logan made sure that happened by drowning his son in a puddle of water.
Logan may not have liked Daken, but that was still his son, and he loved him. Daken was/is an evil person, but it wasn’t his fault. Romulus raised and tortured him for years. That programming isn’t easily destroyed. Daken may have had to die, but Wolverine regretted it, even after Daken came back from the dead.
Image Source: Digital Marvel Comics
Going to Hell
Comic book series: Wolverine goes to Hell
When someone says, “Go to hell” they usually don’t mean that literally. When a group of people who hate Logan talk about doing it, they meant it literally. Daken formed a group called the Red Right Hand. The only requirements to join were that you hate had Wolverine and want to see everything he cared about destroyed. After everything they lost, physical torture wasn’t going to cut it. Most of them tried that and failed. So they found a way to do something that would normally destroy someone. They found a way to send Logan’s soul to Hell.
When Logan arrived, hew was met by all of the people he killed. Sabretooth, Omega Red, and a ton of nameless Hand ninja and Hydra agents were there to try to get their revenge. Logan took them apart one by one,as Satan sat on his throne and watched. Once the Devil realized that physical torture wasn’t working, he brought out the love of Logan’s life, Mariko Yashida. Satan had her whip Logan until he hollered in pain. The Devil broke Wolverine and laughed. That didn’t last long. Puck (who was also in Hell) motivated Logan to get off the X Satan put him on and keep fighting. Logan then did something unbelievable. He beat the Devil in Hell.
Despite this being a major tragedy, Logan can say that he bested the Devil in a fight. Not only did he not have his adamantium bones, he also didn’t have his healing factor. However, the torture from the Red Right Hand continued.
Image Source: Digital Marvel Comics
Killing his kids
Comic book series: Wolverine’s Revenge
After Logan got back into his body and destroyed the demons that inhabited it, Logan set out to kill everyone involved. It wasn’t just that they sent him to Hell. He might have gotten over that. Logan couldn’t let it go after he found out they hurt his family. Yuriko was paralyzed, some of the X-Men were brutally beaten by Logan while he was possessed, and they tried to kill his girlfriend, Melita Garner. First, Mystique was killed. After that, it was time to kill every member of the Red Right Hand. First, he had to go through their goons called Mongrels.
One by one, they were all killed. Some were tougher than others, but it didn’t make a difference. It’s difficult to stop a bloodthirsty Wolverine who’s out for vengeance. When Logan finally got to the Red Right Hand, they were all dead. A video played with one of their oldest member telling Logan they won. The Mongrels Logan killed weren’t just mercenaries. They were the kids Logan didn’t know he had, trained specifically to fight Logan knowing that he’d kill them. The look on Logan’s face was a hurt we’ve never seen before.
Logan retired from the X-Men and climbed a mountain, which he kept jumping off to hurt himself. After he healed, he’d do it again. Eventually, Logan went back to being a hero, but this may have been the one thing he never truly got over.
Image source: Marvel Digital Comics
Old Man Logan
Comic book series: Old Man Logan
There’s a reality in the Marvel Universe in which the villains win. They came together and attacked the heroes as one giant unit. All of the world’s heroes were killed, with the exception of a few. Among them was Wolverine. Not because he fought his way to survival. As writer Mark Millar put it, they hurt Logan more than anyone has. It wasn’t physical. Mysterio used his ability to make it look like Wolverine was fighting villains. What he was really doing was killing the X-Men. After that, Logan swore to never pop his claws again.
After walking around the country (and somehow Asgard) Logan met his wife, Maureen, and has two kids (Scott and Jade). Life was good, but we all know good things don’t last with Logan. Logan and his family were short on rent. He was beaten by the Hulk’s inbred children as punishment, despite never being late before. He had to come up with double by the end of the month or they would kill him and his family. After a long journey with a blind Hawkeye, Logan got the money, but they killed Logan’s family before he got back. Logan popped his claws for the first time in over 50 years, and Wolverine was reborn.
Despite killing the leader of the country (Red Skull) and his landlord the Hulk, there was still a lot of work to do. People in this world gave up hope. Logan is back and looking to try to save his world. We won’t know if he succeeds until the end of Dead Man Logan.
Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics
Killing Mariko
Comic series: Wolverine: Death in the Family!
For years, it seemed like the only women Logan loved were Jean Grey and Storm. Sure, he may have went on a few dates, but he didn’t love them. One day, he met a woman in Japan named Mariko Yashida. Logan kept in touch with her, despite his hectic life. One day, after saving her from marrying someone she didn’t love, they got engaged. Just as it looked like Logan was going to get a happy ending, Mariko was hypnotized by Mastermind into making Mariko call of the wedding.
Logan eventually made his way back to Japan to help Mariko is a crime war. She was tricked into poisoning herself after she cut of her finger with a poisoned knife. Rather than die slowly via the poison, Mariko asked Logan to kill her with his claws. Logan begrudgingly agreed and killed her. Logan found the man responsible and made him a promise. Every year, on the anniversary of her death, Logan would find him and take a piece of him. Wolverine made good of this promise every year until a battle with Sabretooth (the one mentioned above) prevented him.
The only X-Man who knows about Logan killing Mariko is his best friend Nightcrawler. It’s too painful for him to talk about. Logan still makes it a point to visit her grave every so often. It will be interesting to see how he reacts when he discovers she’s back from the dead.
Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics
Enemy of the State
Comic book series: Enemy of the State
Wolverine has been mind-controlled and had his memory wiped more times than he probably remembers. Nick Fury, Weapon X, and even Professor Xavier have tampered with his mind with the intention of using him. Of all the people who have, the Hand and Hydra have done the worst. Logan was killed, resurrected, brainwashed, and used as their killing machine. For weeks, Logan terrorized the world. No one knew where or when he was going to pop up or what he was going to do next. Logan wasn’t stopped until he went into the X-Men’s home, and Rachel Grey disabled the machine he was threatening them with. It took the combined efforts of the X-Men and Avengers to beat him.
This may not seem as bad as the rest of the moments on this list, but it’s still terrible. Wolverine was out of control. He made mutants look bad and became one of the reasons why the Superhuman Registration Act was put into effect. While this wasn’t his fault, he blamed himself, especially since the Hand kidnapped and later killed the son of one of his friends to draw him in. Northstar was also killed in action. The last thing he saw was Wolverine stabbing him in the chest.
Image Source: Marvel Comics
Death and resurrection
Comics book series: Death of Wolverine and Return of Wolverine
Logan lost his healing powers. Everyone knew that he would get them back, but we were wrong. Logan went on a world tour, trying to find out who put a hit out on him and why. It ended up being one of the old Weapon X scientists named Dr. Abraham Cornelius. He was still working on the adamantium process and using innocent people to experiment on. After defeating Dr. Cornelius’ henchman, Logan freed Dr. Cornelius’ victims. This came at a price. Logan was covered in liquid adamantium, as he cut the tubes. Before the liquid metal hardened, Logan killed Dr. Cornelius and rests. His last thought was, “Enough.” Logan was dead.
Years later, Kitty Pryde discovered that Logan wasn’t in the grave they put him in. This began the Hunt for Wolverine. The X-Men didn’t know, but Wolverine was brought back by a mutant named Persephone. We find out in the series Return of Wolverine that Persephone used her powers to bring Logan back and made him do all sorts of heinous things. Among them was attacking the X-Men. It took some time, but Logan got his old memories back and is currently with the newly reformed X-Men.
It’s debatable which was worst; his death or resurrection. Wolverine went through the trauma of suffocating to death, but he was finally at peace. His “rebirth” led to him being manipulated, which he hates. Either way, it’s good to have him back. Wolverine will more than likely have a new set of horrible things happen to him as time goes on.