Wolverine (Logan/James Howlett) In Comics Powers, Villains, History | Marvel (2024)

A mutant with an unstoppable healing power, adamantium metal claws and no-nonsense attitude makes the man called Logan, one of the most ferocious heroes in the universe.

The man named Logan lives numerous lifetimes as a result of his regenerative mutation before losing his memories during a cruel experiment. But he finds a new home when he joins the ranks of the X-Men as Wolverine. With his brooding demeanor and brawling behavior, he becomes a force of good.

A Long History

James Howlett is born to wealthy parents John and Elizabeth Howlett in Alberta, Canada, and grows up in the late 19th century. As a child, he’s frail and unhealthy due to his overactive mutant immune system and neglected by his mother, who’s institutionalized following the death of her first son, John Jr., in 1897. James’s mutant abilities are triggered when his father is shot by the Howlett groundskeeper Thomas Logan, whom he did not know was his real father. James kills Logan, slashes the face of Logan’s son and his friend Dog, and leaves Alberta with a childhood friend, Rose O’Hara.

His healing abilities drive trauma from his memories, leaving him partially amnesiac. He and Rose find refuge at a British Columbia stone quarry, where Rose, claiming James is her cousin, gives his name as “Logan.” Within months, Logan’s powers due to the environment around him. He becomes healthier and gains senses to rival those of an animal, but also becomes more violent. To divert some of this pent-up rage, Logan partakes in cage fights where his prowess earns him the nickname “Wolverine.” Though he accidentally killing Rose with his claws, and retreats into the woods where he lives as a feral beast, losing all of his former memories.

He later reenters society and travels the world, partaking in every major conflict of the 20th century (WWI, WWII, the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam War) as a soldier, criminal, or mercenary for hire. This causes him to coin the phrase, "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn't very nice.”

While on the run from the law, he’s abducted by the Canadian super-soldier program known as Weapon X, a program he had previously been a willing participant in during the early 1960s as an international operative of Team X. Logan is a prime candidate for this new iteration of Weapon X due to his incredibly fast healing and endurance, which allows Doctor Cornelius and his team to fuse adamantium to his skeleton. The experiment is successful and gives Logan more control over his berserker nature, but also wipes him of any residual memories lingering in his head.

When Bruce Banner, AKA Hulk, blunders his way into Canadian territory, Logan is mobilized against the green gargantuan. He’s also used to kill the entire population of a small town in a field test, but eventually breaks loose from his captors, slaying almost everyone at the Weapon X facility. Despite this, they retain his DNA and use it to create new mutants like Avery Connor and the clawed clone Laura Kinney, AKA X-23.

His real sense of belonging arrives when he joins the X-Men.

Slashing Skills

Wolverine’s rapid regeneration powers allow him to bounce back from almost every type of bodily wound on the condition that his head remains firmly attached to his shoulders. Nevertheless, the time of each healing is understandably proportionate to the severity of the injury. His body is also immune to most poisons, drugs, and diseases; his agility, reflexes, and senses are similarly enhanced. Wolverine sees and hears things at distances far greater than those of ordinary humans. His sense of smell is even more magnified and he can recognize people and objects by scent alone, which, combined with combat and stealth training, makes him one of the world’s foremost trackers.

The most iconic of his natural weapons are six retractable, slightly curved, foot-long bone claws, three in each arm, beneath the skin and muscle of his forearms. He can, at will, release these claws through the skin beneath his knuckles. The claws are naturally sharp and tougher than normal human bone, allowing them to penetrate most types of flesh and natural materials.

He has an extra defense from the Weapon X program, where his skeleton is coated in the near-indestructible steel alloy known as adamantium. This alloy adds an extra 105 pounds to his frame—or 47.6 kilograms in Wolverine’s native metric system. This procedure slows his healing factor so that it might take weeks to recover from multiple wounds, but eventually the factor returns to full strength and speed. The adamantium renders his bones virtually unbreakable and his claws capable of penetrating almost any substance depending on its thickness and the force he exerts. His reinforced skeleton also enables him to withstand heavy physical pressure, giving his muscles sufficient force to briefly lift 800 pounds or more.

To top things off, Wolverine is trained in hand-to-hand combat, computer systems, vehicles, weapons, and is fluent in Cheyenne, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Lakota, Russian and Spanish, with some French, Thai, and Vietnamese.

The Snikt List

Wolverine’s enemies are numerous and it is often hard not to blame them. After all, he is a hard guy to get along with. However, an adversary, with abilities to match Logan’s, is Victor Creed, AKA Sabertooth, who also has retractable claws and a healing factor. The two first clash in Japan with Logan coming out on top and leaving Creed for dead, unaware that he had regenerative powers as well. Creed is an operative of the mastermind Romulus, ruler of the wolf-like Lupine and a worldwide criminal empire. Two of Wolverine’s maternal uncles, Elias and Frederick Hudson, work for him, although he is unaware of it. Romulus keeps an eye on Logan for a good portion of his life and mentally manipulates him at times.

Logan’s Heroes

While a brief member of the Canadian Super Hero team known as Alpha Flight, Wolverine joins the X-Men at the behest of Professor Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X. This is his most iconic home and the place where he enters into an on-again, off-again relationship with telepath Jean Grey. Her existing relationship with Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, however, creates a complex love triangle between all three.

For all his brooding nature and solitary preferences, Wolverine is a big softy. Not literally, though, because remember, every bone in his body is covered in an unbreakable material. Figuratively speaking, Logan is a very good guy, willing to stick his invincible neck out for those in desperate need of help. Over the years, he becomes a mentor or father figure to X-Men members like Kitty Pryde and Jubilation Lee, AKA Jubilee, and both learn much while at his side.

Wolverine becomes close friends with the kind genius and feral-looking mutant Dr. Hank McCoy, AKA Beast. But their long friendship ends in betrayal by Beast who uses Logan against his will for his own ends.

While the X-Men are certainly Wolverine’s number one team, he becomes a prominent member of X-Force, often operating from the shadows, and joins the likes of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers, and the Secret Defenders. At times, he’s affiliated with the Fantastic Four, Clan Yashida, the Horsem*n of the Apocalypse and X-Treme Sanctions Executive (XSE).

Universe, Other Aliases, Education, Place of Origin, Identity, Known Relatives, Powers, Group Affiliation

A Lifetime of Generations

For all the moments of infatuated bliss, there is no denying that Wolverine has had a hard life, or still does, because he can’t die. He just keeps on living, waiting to see what horrors humanity can cook up next. In the 1993 crossover of “Fatal Attractions,” Max Eisenhardt, AKA Magneto, ripped the adamantium out of Logan’s body. Ten years later, he was brainwashed by Hydra and the Hand to attack his fellow Super Heroes. Not everything was horrible, though. After this, he regained all of his memories thanks to Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch, altering reality and then restoring it in House of M.

Logan also did major favors for other established heroes including T’Challa, AKA Black Panther. He helped transport a young girl across the border of her native African country to safety at great risk to himself, and that’s no joke. Many bullets and arrows found their way into his durable flesh.

Wolverine met his doom when a virus from the Microverse robbed him of his regenerative powers. Word soon spread and a bounty was put on his head, resulting in many battles with his enemies. For help, he sought out Dr. Abraham Cornelius, the very man who gave him his adamantium skeleton in the Weapon X program. Far from reformed, Cornelius planned to replicate the experiment on more victims. Logan prevented this by slashing open Cornelius’ vat of molten adamantium, which coated his now vulnerable body, killing him. To honor his memory, Laura Kinney took up the post of Wolverine.

Several months following Logan’s death, the mutant leader of the crime organization Soteira, Persephone, resurrected him as her personal undead killer. Thankfully, Logan’s healing factor restored him to life, though without his memories. Freeing himself from Persephone’s hold, he took down some of her minions. He ended up fighting the X-Men, foiled Persephone’s plan to create a perfect, albeit controlled society, and eventually regained his lost memories.

After a few more side quests on his way to the X-Men, he joined mutantkind on the living island of Krakoa, a safe haven for his people. He soon joined the X-Men against the anti-mutant organization Orchis. Their mission: to destroy the Sentinel Mother Mold and prevent the creation of Nimrod at the Orichis space station. As they tried to destroy it, several team members perished. Wolverine and Nightcrawler ended up teleporting to Mother Mold near the sun. While Nightcrawler died from the immense heat, Wolverine lived long enough to take out Mother Mold. Despite losing the entire team, Xavier had backed up their consciousnesses into Cerebro and in combination with the Five—five mutants with the power of resurrection—all fallen X-Men were restored to life and lauded as heroes of Krakoa.

Soon, all mutants including the most vile and villainous were allowed to join Krakoa’s sanctuary, but Wolverine thought that some were irredeemable. When the United Nations recognized Krakoa as a sovereign nation-state, Wolverine celebrated with all of Krakoa, arm in arm with Jean and Scott and happily handing out drinks to fellow mutants.

With X-Force and help from mutant weapons expert Forge, they investigated the organization behind the enhanced Reavers known as XENO. While working with Forge, Wolverine came upon liquid adamantium in his lab and learned that if Wolverine should fall in battle, there would be adamantium at the ready for his resurrection. The Fist was soon deployed to intervene in Xeno’s attacks on Krakoan businesses, but the humans were prepared. They detonated the Krakoan gates at the clean-energy facility in Silicon Valley, leaving Domino stranded on Krakoa with Kid Omega and Wolverine on the other side. Wolverine was partly inside the gate during the explosion and he ended up cut in half. His healing factor kicked in and he was soon reunited with his other half thanks to the Head coordinating with mutant teleporter Gateway.

After healing, Wolverine helped X-Force with a new menace in the country of Terra Verde, Hadwin Cocom, who created the potential for an organic Nimrod. He also tracked Serafina from the Children of the Vault, and allowed Laura Kinney take his code name and continue his mission as he had other pressing business. Alongside Xavier, Wolverine soon attempted to convince Franklin Richards to join mutants on Krakoa.

Wolverine was then tasked to find those responsible for stealing Krakoan flower petals and turning them into a new street drug known as “pollen,” which rapidly gained popularity. Concurrently, the CIA’s Jeff Bannister was investigating the same drug and discovered the Flower Cartel controlling the drug’s distribution with a psionic enforcer called “the Pale Girl.” Wolverine and X-Force pursued the trail of breadcrumbs to Alaska until Wolverine mysteriously killed his teammates and was found incoherent by Bannister and his agents.

He joined Bannister against the trafficking organization until the Pale Girl turned Wolverine against his new ally. After being controlled, he stole Magneto’s helmet and concocted a plan with the X-Force against the Pale Girl using Kid Omega as a faux Logan. While the Krakoan Marauders destroyed the crop of pollen, Wolverine confronted the Pale Girl who used Bannister against him. Saving Bannister allowed the Pale Girl to escape, but Wolverine made a friend in Bannister. Learning Bannister’s daughter was sick, Wolverine helped get healing Krakoan medicine to her and planted a Krakoan gate at their house.

When Magneto insisted Wolverine investigate potential killings by the villainous Arkady Rossovich, AKA Omega Red, who sought amnesty in Krakoa, he reluctantly agreed. His investigations led him to a Vampire Hunter, Louise, and Vlad Dracula, AKA Dracula, leader of the Vampire Nation with Omega Red under Dracula’s control. Soon a prisoner of Dracula, Wolverine was forced to undergo a blood transfusion that would allow Dracula to walk in the daylight, but in true form, he clawed his way to freedom.

Champions of Krakoa were soon selected to each retrieve a sword to participate in a cross-dimensional tournament against the Champions of Arakko. Wolverine was chosen and tasked to find the Muramasa blade. Retrieving it, he then fought Blightspoke and slayed him Though he thought he’d won, Wolverine lost on a technicality and the point went to Arakko.

When Beast’s efforts to eliminate Krakoan enemies crossed a line, Wolverine faced his long-time friend and ended up beheaded. He was soon resurrected without his full memory or cognitive function and under Beast’s control, used as an assassin to Beast’s own grisly ends.

Regaining his memories in Krakoa’s Pit of Exile, Wolverine soon discovered that Beast created clone backups of not only himself, but Wolverine as well, going around Krakoa’s Resurrection Protocols in an organization he called Weapons of X. Wolverine was soon able to contact the governing body of the mutant nation, the Quiet Council of Krakoa, thanks to Sage’s assistance, but the Council motioned to not intervene. Meanwhile, an older version of Kid Omega met with X-Force letting them know about the dystopian futures that Beast would create.

Beast soon captured Wolverine’s trusted ally, Bannister, and offered Wolverine a prisoner exchange, Bannister for Christoph Nord, AKA Maverick, on the grounds that Wolverine and X-Force would leave him to his work of protecting Krakoa at any cost. But Wolverine and the X-Force weren’t about to let Beast’s terrible futures come to pass. Wolverine attended the exchange while X-Force infiltrated Beast’s mobile, kaiju headquarters headquarters and destroyed all his clones, his clone factory, and his HQ. Though three Wolverine clones escaped as did Beast Prime. Disturbed by the Council’s lack of action, Wolverine was fed up with Krakoa but promised Sage that he’d be there for her and X-Force.