Wolverine (Logan Howlett)

== History ==
: ... I'm Wolverine. I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn't very nice. 
: -- Logan
: 
=== Early Years ===
Wolverine's life began in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, sometime between 1882 and 1885,[31] a couple of weeks before the 19th of April.[32] The mutant who would come to be known simply as "Logan" was born James Howlett, the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Howlett (who was married to John Howlett, owner of a large estate) and the Howletts' grounds-keeper, Thomas Logan. As a boy, James was notably frail and prone to bouts of allergic attacks. He was largely neglected by his mother, who had been institutionalized for a time following the death of her first son, John Jr, in 1897. James was constantly under the pressure of his grandfather, Mr. Howlett, who believed that James required constant punishment by a strong hand, in order to be raised properly. "Firm, but fair," was what Mr. Howlett said to justify his abusive actions.[1]
James spent most of his early years on the Howlett Estate grounds with two playmates that lived at the estate with him: Rose O'Hara, a red-headed Irish girl who was brought in from town to be a companion to young James, and a boy nicknamed "Dog", Thomas Logan's son (and James's half-brother). The children were close friends, but, as they reached adolescence, the abuse inflicted upon Dog warped his mind. Dog made unwanted advances towards Rose, which James reported to his father. In retaliation, Dog killed James' puppy, leading to the expulsion of Thomas and Dog from the estate.
Thomas, in a drunken stupor and armed with a shotgun, invaded the Howlett Estate with his son and attempted to take his former lover Elizabeth with him. John, Sr. attempted to stop him and Thomas shot him in the head, in cold blood. James had just entered the room when this occurred and his mutation finally manifested; bone claws extended from the backs of his hands and he attacked the intruders with uncharacteristic ferocity, killing Thomas and scarring Dog's face with three claw marks. Already an emotionally disturbed woman since the death of her first son, Elizabeth, completely unhinged, drove James away and took her life immediately afterward with a blast from Thomas' gun.
Rose fled the estate with James in tow, hiding in a shed. James experienced his heightened senses for the first time telling Rose that he could smell apple dumplings.
Dog falsely reported to the police and James' grandfather that Rose had murdered John, Sr. and Thomas. Rose led James to his grandfather's house, but Mr. Howlett simply ordered them to flee by train, with cold, cruel eyes, but still used his influence in town to help the pair escape, due to blood ties. Rose then fled the estate with James, who appeared to have been deeply traumatized and his healing factor had somehow driven the trauma from his memories, leaving him partially amnesiac.
=== "Little Smitty" ===
James and Rose later found themselves in the Yukon Territories in Canada, taking refuge in a British Columbia stone quarry, under the guise of being cousins. James also assumed the name of "Logan", in order to hide his identity. Within months, as the hard work of mining and the tough environment provoked traumatic changes in his body, Logan grew to be unusually healthy and ferocious, displaying enhanced agility and strength, possessing animal-like heightened senses that rivaled any animal's and learning to break the rocks by hating and bullying them.
Later, Logan stated that it was a piece of his grandfather's devil personality. In his adulthood, James came to resemble the appearance of the groundskeeper much more closely than his legal father. Logan became a valuable and admirable figure amongst the small community of miners, due to his hard work and strong ethics, earning him the respect of his peers.
Even the foreman, Smitty, who became a surrogate father figure to Logan, was impressed with him. Logan even gained the nickname "Little Smitty", due to their similar work ethics, and this brought him into conflict with Cookie Malone, Smitty's original favorite.
Cookie took an instant dislike to Logan and continually hurt him, until Smitty came to his rescue. Cookie even shortened the fuse to an explosive of Logan's, killing five men. Cookie also cut Logan and Rose's rations, so Logan hunted deer in the woods and gave the extra to the neighbors, which made him more loved. Logan was immune to the elements, due to his healing factor, and even ran with the wolves in the forest, learning to hunt like an animal. Logan also defeated Cookie in a cage match, where he earned the nickname "the Wolverine". It was said that no one could beat Logan in a cage fight. After his victories, Logan would hear "It's not the size of the dog in the fight. It's the size of the fight in the dog" a phrase that he repeated out loud to make it come true. During this period, Logan developed strong feelings for Rose, but could not act on them for the sake of their guise as cousins. Smitty, who had been mentoring Logan all these years, had also grown close to Rose and the two eventually fell in love and became engaged, much to the scorn and surprise of Logan, who later accepted the situation for the sake of Rose's happiness.
Meanwhile, his grandfather, Mr. Howlett, was in failing health and asked Dog to find Rose and his grandson, so he could make peace with them before he died. Dog agreed; however, Dog (who had become a physically formidable man himself) decided to track them down, so he could kill Logan. Dog hunted Logan and Rose down so easily that it seemed he had a preternatural skill for tracking.
On the night that Smitty was due to leave the mining town with Rose, Logan fought him but allowed him to win, hoping to reconcile with him and Rose, but Dog finally found and confronted Logan. Dog reminded Logan of his past as James Howlett and that fateful night back on the estate that had changed all their lives. The two fought fiercely in the middle of the street and, despite being the physically stronger of the two, Dog was eventually overpowered by the enraged Logan.
As Dog lay unconscious, Logan unsheathed his claws, for the first time in public (to the shock of everyone watching), and was about to deal the deathblow, when Rose leaped in to stop him, but was accidentally impaled by his claws. Horrified, Logan held her in his arms as she died. Stricken with grief and guilt for the death of his first love, Logan fled into the nearby woods, where he lived in self-imposed exile in a feral state with a pack of wolves for months, if not years.
=== The Creeds ===
By 1907, Logan had found a family of wolves in the wilderness and began running with their pack. By suppressing the man beneath the instincts of the animal, Logan found a manner of peace. It didn't last. The sinister scientist Nathaniel Essex conducted an experiment by releasing an apex predator like a polar bear further south into the Canadian woods. The bear could not adapt its hunting techniques to the new environment, but its strength and raw power was enough to overcome Logan's pack while he was away, killing and eating the wolves. When he returned, Logan and the bear mortally wounded each other in a struggle, but only one had a healing factor. Logan survived and was alone again.[33]
His victory did not go unnoticed. Essex's hired men soon found the bear's corpse and the signs it was killed by neither man nor beast. One of the men began telling tales of the "savage" at the local watering hole, drawing the curious and entrepreneurial. A circus promoter named Hugo came to the North with a brother and sister team called Saul and Clara, his tracker and animal trainer, respectively. Their skills allowed them to locate Logan where the brute force efforts of Essex and his Marauders failed. Logan remained the wild man and was promoted by Hugo as a "missing link" when he appeared in the big top. Clara believed there was a human soul inside Logan and tried to encourage him to speak, but Logan refused and just accepted his inhumane treatment as a new form of penance.[34]
Essex was undeterred, however, and lured Hugo with Logan to his laboratory to "authenticate" his specimen. Essex killed Hugo and began experimental torture sessions on Logan to study his healing factor, including vivisection. Clara convinced Saul to help her rescue Logan, and the three of them escaped Essex's lab together. Clara spent the next month teaching Logan to behave like a man again, but their relationship made Saul jealous. He sold their location to Essex but, when it appeared as if Clara was killed in the crossfire, Saul and Logan joined forces to kill Essex. Clara and Saul were also mutants with healing powers, however, and when Clara tracked them down and Saul's misdoings were revealed, Logan was furious. Ignoring Clara's pleas, Logan drowned her brother in one of Essex's vats. Clara rejected Logan after that, retorting that the man inside him wasn't worth as much as the animal. (Logan never learned that Clara Creed told her older brother Victor about Saul's death, prompting an obsession that would last lifetimes.) [35]
=== Logan´s Women ===
Alone again, Logan wandered back out into the wilderness, but could not return to the wild as the animal he once thought he was. Fleeing Canada, Logan traveled down into California, where he worked in the fruit orchards. He met a young girl, a Mexican migrant worker, and despite the language barrier they felt an attraction for one another. One day, she led him without a word into the orchards and they made love for the first time. Logan never learned her name, and they never saw each other again. [36]
Around this time, Logan met and fell in-love with many women. Unknown to him, Logan also fathered a number of children. Romulus, immortal mastermind and ruler of the wolf-like Lupine, had taken interest in the Hudson line, Logan's mother's family, and over coming decades he, whether directly or through proxies, altered or erased Logan's memories to suit him.
=== Birthday Surprise ===
Apparently under Romulus' guidance, Logan became a mercenary in Madripoor. Sometime later he met Chang, a businessman working for the firm Landau, Luckman & Lake. He met and romanced Seraph, a diminutive woman employed by Romulus, who had instructed her to form such relationship. In the next years Logan realized that Seraph and other acknowledges were under a single authority, but he didn't know, or care who it was. Possibly on his first trip to Japan, Logan encountered members of the ninja sect known as the Hand. The Hand extorted Logan into fighting Sabretooth, who was another Romulus operative murdering women in Tokyo. Logan defeated Sabretooth and thought he was dead, without knowing of Sabretooth's healing factor.
At some point later, Logan traveled to another frontier community in the Canadian Rockies and met a young Blackfoot Indian woman, named Silver Fox, with whom he fell in love. The two shared a cabin together and lived happily for a time. Logan had made a new life for himself: hunting and farm chores around the homestead now his daily routine, but, as ever, there were other forces at work in his life. On Logan's birthday, Sabretooth, possibly under Romulus' orders, brutally attacked Silver Fox, raping her and leaving her for dead, the first of many birthday "surprises" from him to come. Enraged, Logan battled him in a bar, only to be defeated and left for dead. Sabretooth then manipulated a feral, mindless Logan into believing the people of a nearby town had ordered Silver Fox's death, prompting Logan to slaughter the inhabitants of the town, persuading him that "the townspeople are afraid of you--they don't want you around. So, they got rid of the one thing keeping you here".
Later, employed by the Hudson's Bay Company as a fur trader to the Blackfoot Indians, Logan defeated the demonic snake-worm, known as Uncegila, a feat which earned him the Blackfoot warrior name of "Skunk-Bear" (or "Wolverine").
A broad, largely unseen conspiracy thus began to shape Logan, now robbed of his conscience and free will, into the perfect killer. Wherever Logan went, Creed, one of his handlers, was not far behind. On one occasion in Madripoor, Logan was rescued from Victor, by Viper and Seraph. Seraph died, but not before making Logan swear an oath of loyalty to Viper
=== World War I ===
When World War I began in 1914, Logan joined the Canadian Army, where he was assigned to the Devil's Brigade, a special Canadian military unit sometimes used by Romulus. Logan's commanding officer was a super-humanly strong man known as Silas Burr (who would later become the mercenary Cyber), who was formerly an agent of the Pinkerton Private Detective Agency, where he abused his position, committing several atrocities, even burning down a schoolhouse full of children once. After being sentenced to death for his crimes, Burr was rescued from the courthouse, by Creed, and brought to the facility, hired by Frederick Hudson due to his sadistic nature. Yet another Romulus operative, Logan fell in love with female operative Janet per Burr's manipulation.
Later in the war Logan and other soldiers were sent to Europe, and while fighting in Ypres, Belgium, on April 22, 1915, Logan encountered a being, called Lazaer (an anagram of Azrael, the Angel of Death), who was armed with a large broadsword and had been using it to kill soldiers on the same battlefield. They began to fight one another, with Lazaer initially gaining the upper hand, but, after being impaled with Lazaer's sword, Logan pulled it from his chest and stabbed it through his surprised opponent.
Besting Lazaer in combat sent Logan in to a deep depression, even causing him to put a gun to his own head at one point. Logan started drinking considerably more as the war dragged on and ate less and less, until Lazaer finally confronted him. Lazaer explained that the depression was a punishment for defeating him and defying the natural order of things. It was also later revealed that because Logan defeated Lazaer, whenever Logan was wounded severely enough to tax even his healing factor, he recovered by defeating Lazaer in an astral arena.
Afterwards, Logan was re-stationed in Canada, and Burr, under orders from Romulus' proxy, killed Janet as a lesson that whenever Logan overcame his inner bestial nature to care for someone, that person would die. Seeking for vengeance, Logan fought Burr, who severely beat him and gouged out his left eye. Logan descended to a near-feral state, his healing factor again obscuring his traumatic memories, and he fled Canada to travel abroad, as Romulus intended. Logan went to Shanghai, China, and he intervened in a conflict between locals and Ogun, a Japanese soldier, samurai and sorcerer. Impressed by Logan, Ogun offered to train him in the martial arts, but he declined.
: 
=== Kansas City Bank Robbery ===
In 1921, Logan found himself in the Mexican Sondran Desert beaten, locked up by the local police, and accused of horse thievery. As Logan was blindfolded and tied to a post to be shot, by a firing squad, a voice next to him asked if he was a murderer. Logan answered, “…worse, a horse thief.”, and the person next to him turned out to be Mystique, who was also about to be killed for having blue skin. The locals thought she was a witch, even though she explained that she was simply born different, and Logan laughed at meeting someone like him there of all places. Mystique managed to untie herself, just before the firing squad shot, and Logan survived, due, once again, to his healing factor, and killed the guards.
After they both escaped, Mystique stood surprised that Logan was able to survive and asked how he knew she would be able to free herself and escape. Logan responded, “I didn't.”, and, when she asked where he was going to next, he said the nearest bar. Mystique introduced herself to Logan and said that she had a group of friends in Kansas City that he would probably like to meet.
Once in Kansas City, Mystique told Logan about her group, who scammed people. After meeting her crew, and saving one of them from an angry customer that was scammed, Mystique informed Logan that she and her crew were planning a bank heist and she wanted him to take part in it. When Logan expressed his reluctance to get attached to people, she told him that she knew it was hard to trust people, but that they could be a family and to trust her. They both kissed and Logan decided to help her.
However, he tipped off the police about the planned bank robbery. Mystique cut and ran, and despite Logan's protests, her crew was killed by the police. Logan again found himself alone and with a festering hatred for the woman he had come to trust. He continued his own criminal activities for a few years, smuggling bootleg alcohol during Prohibition of the mid-1920s.
By 1932 Logan was in Madripoor again, and Seraph taught him how to be a better assassin. Around this time, Logan started to use his recurrent alias "Patch", if not before. Some time later, Logan remembered Ogun's offer and he went to Japan to better learn self-discipline. There, he spent years under Ogun's tutelage, and Logan regarded him as a surrogate father. Around the mid-1930s, Logan formed a partnership with Raven Darkholme and Irene Adler, two mutant adventurers and lovers. Maybe because of memory alteration, Logan was unaware that the apparently male Raven was Mystique. Later, Logan went into action in Spain during its Civil War. In 1937, Logan, under Romulus' orders, spent two years learning espionage from Taras Romanov, and in turn Logan gave hand-to-hand combat lessons to Natasha Romanoff, Taras' ward. Taras then told Natasha to kill Logan, but Logan instead killed him and allowed Natasha to depart.
=== World War II ===
In 1939, when World War II began, Logan returned to the Devil's Brigade, again under Burr's command, although his memories of Burr's crimes were mostly purged. Seraph was like Logan's handler in Madripoor, and she prepared him for more covert missions for Romulus. In the summer of 1941, both she and Logan worked with the US super-soldier Captain America and others in order to sabotage an alliance between the Hand and Baron Strucker, luring the Hand's Jonin, their leader, out of hiding. Natasha Romanoff, now a Romulus operative, wanted to kill the Jonin, but Logan, regretting how he trained her to be an assassin, killed the Jonin himself. Later that same year, Logan, under orders to recruit or kill the Cap, worked with him and Bucky in Tunisia, where Logan met Sgt. Nick Fury. Finally, Logan decided not to kill Captain America, creating a rift between Seraph and himself.
In 1942, Logan participated as a paratrooper for the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, during the Normandy landings on D-Day, as well as the liberation of the Netherlands. Logan may have also been a spy for the Allied Forces and he spent time in the Sobibor Death Camp in Poland, where he psychologically tortured three Nazi commandants by simply never speaking and returning every time they ordered him executed. While at Sobibor, Logan was known as "Prisoner Zero". A year later he surfaced in Newell, California, overseeing inhumane experimentation on Japanese prisoners of war. Even though Logan had been a hardened killer, he was atypically cruel during this period, his personality probably altered by Romulus. In 1945, Logan was captured by Japanese soldiers in Japan, where he was sent to a prison camp in Nagasaki. Logan escaped from his cell along with Lt. Ethan Warren, an American soldier who was also captured, and found refuge and love in a local Japanese girl, named Atsuko. Unfortunately, Lt. Warren, himself a mutant, returned and murdered the girl and the two men fought, until both were caught in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that destroyed much of the city. Logan survived, but was devastated to lose another woman in his life.
=== Fathering Daken ===
After the war ended, Logan sought redemption in Jasmine Falls, Japan, and he studied with Bando Saburo, in order to learn how to be a man and leave his warrior nature behind. Finally at peace since Silver Fox's supposed death, Logan met and fell in love with a local woman, named Itsu Akihiro and they married and conceived a child together, unknown to Logan.
In 1946, while Logan was proving himself worthy of being a father in combat, the demon sword-smith, Muramasa, created an explosion that caused Logan to accidentally stab a villager with his claws. Logan was banned from the village, but wanted to say good-bye to Itsu. Returning to their self-built home, Logan found Itsu murdered, by Bucky Barnes, now the brainwashed Winter Soldier. Although Barnes ostensibly served the USSR, he was acting under Romulus' orders. Believing their child to be dead, Logan mistakenly blamed Muramasa, who captured and tortured him. When Muramasa's underlings prepared to dispose of Logan, Romulus, or maybe his operative, killed them. Unknown to Logan, Romulus took the child from Itsu's womb, and he was safely born and adopted by a Japanese couple. This child was named Akihiro, but he eventually took the name "Daken", which means "Mongrel". Nine years later Daken fell under the influence of Romulus, and he was told lies that his father despised him and abandoned him, filling Daken with hatred.
=== CIA and Cold War ===
Logan resurfaced as a mercenary. It's unknown if he retained his memories of Itsu. Chang arranged for Landau, Luckman and Lake to handle Logan's business affairs and find assignments, and Logan would in exchange do occasional services. He operated most of the times from Ottawa and Calgary, with few exceptions into South America and Madripoor, working for government agencies, and he became one of the deadliest free agents of the intelligence field. Working for the CIA, Logan, indulged in this brutal mission per Romulus' command, helped participate in turning a boy, named Frank Simpson, into the deranged super-soldier, Nuke. In 1953 Frank, growing up watching his alcoholic mother constantly verbally abuse his meek father, was influenced by his babysitter into killing his mother. Meanwhile, as Frank's father drove the babysitter home, she abruptly pulled out his flask and began to drink it and then seduced him. After pulling over into the nearby woods, the couple was interrupted by a police officer, who was revealed to be Logan. Logan asked Frank's father to sit back in his seat and shot the babysitter, with Frank's gun. Logan then suggested that Frank's father had taken advantage of the babysitter, plying her with alcohol and even going so far as to shooting her because she resisted. Frank's father realized the gravity of the situation and, seeing no other way, he shot himself.
Logan continued his espionage work, becoming a favorite of both America's and Canada's secret services, even teaming up with Ben Grimm (later known as the Thing) to participate in a Cold War-era government mission. When guarding Michael Carling, a scientist, for Landau, Luckman and Lake, Logan fought Kimora, who was after Carling's expertise in large-scale transportation between Earth and Kageumbra, his home dimension. Kimora defeated Logan, and even called him a beast in a man's clothing; however, Chang seemingly decapitated Kimora after this. Logan retired for a while, returning to Jasmine Falls and spending years there seeking his lost tranquility, until Chang found him and asked for his help to prevent Kimora from conquering Earth via Carling's technology. They both traveled to Kageumbra, where Logan and Kimora fought once again. Logan relied this time upon meditative training and berserker rage, and he hurled Kimora into a dimension-travelling device, which he destroyed. Again on Earth, Chang offered Logan a position with Landau, Luckman and Lake, but Logan declined.
During his time into the CIA, Wolverine had also allegedly participated in strikes against three African leaders, stating on records and information of the Mbangawi rode by the Doctor Crocodile.
=== The Team X Project/Weapon X Program ===
By 1961, Logan, known as Wolverine now, joined the Weapon X Project, part of the Weapon Plus Program, which had been created to fight the mutant menace. Nevertheless, Weapon X only used mutants as superhuman operatives on international tasks. He was then placed on the Black Ops squad run by the CIA, called Team X, with Sabretooth and Silver Fox (it's unknown if they remembered their past history at this point), Maverick, Kestrel and Mastodon. During this time, Logan and the others received memory implants via staged scenarios, telepathic manipulation by Aldo Ferro, and other technology. Weapon X also duplicated Wolverine's healing factor and implanted it in Team X, slowing their aging processes. In 1963 Silver Fox betrayed Wolverine and Sabretooth to enemy soldiers, and she fled Weapon X.
In 1968, Wolverine was shot with Carbonadium bullets, which slowed his healing factor so that Weapon X or Romulus could know how to kill him. The bullets were removed, but he awoke earlier than expected, and he regained his memories for the first time in years, because they hadn't been altered yet. Logan tried to keep the secret, and he rendezvoused with Team X in Berlin, East Germany. The team retrieved the Carbonadium Synthesizer and Janice Hollenbeck, a double agent. However, Sabretooth, apparently was aware that Wolverine had regained his memories, killed Janice to reinforce Wolverine's conditioning about innocents dying when he overstepped Romulus' boundaries. He quit Team X, but fell back under Romulus' influence, turning to atypically sadistic activities. On that same year, while in Vietnam as a Russian adviser, Logan tortured and brainwashed Frank Simpson, now a soldier, into becoming a murderous madman, known as Nuke.
By 1972, Wolverine joined Department K, a secret Canadian Defense Ministry branch with ties to Weapon X. Based in Ottawa, he partnered with Neil Langram and worked with Nick Fury, now a high-ranking CIA agent, and with Richard and Mary Parker. Years later, Langram was sought as an operative by the Hellfire Club, but he refused, and he was then slain by Sabretooth, hired as a mercenary. Wolverine and Carol Danvers, a young US spy, investigated and confronted Sabretooth at the Club's Canadian facility. Sabretooth told Wolverine details of the Club's intent to guide a war between mutants and humans. Sabretooth then bombed the facility, but he, Wolverine and Danvers survived. A troubled Wolverine turned to drugs and alcohol, and he was dismissed from Department K after accidentally shooting a fellow agent. Disgusted with himself, he planned to lose himself in the Yukon.
: But before leaving Canada, while in his Lotus Seven, Logan was pumped full of Thorazine, beaten, and kidnapped, by a group of armed men from the Weapon X Project, possibly under Romulus' orders. The man known only as the Professor, Dr. Abraham Cornelius, and Dr. Carol Hines began to examine Logan while he floated in a containment tank. Logan's skeleton, including his claws, was bonded with the indestructible metal known as adamantium, making it unbreakable, and his personality was buried beneath the most intense brainwashing he had ever undergone. While in the tank, Logan was put under deep hypnosis, telling him that he was not a man or individual, and being a man disgusted him. The Project wanted Logan to believe that he was an obedient animal and that individuality lead to suffering and death. Reduced to a near-mindless state, Logan was forced by Weapon X to slaughter every inhabitant of the small town of Roanoke as a test. Logan proved too difficult for the Weapon X Program to control and, after many years, he broke free of the programming, fell into a berserker fury and escaped the facility, with the help of the Winter Soldier, killing nearly everyone except for the Professor, Dr. Cornelius, Dr. Hines, and Malcolm Colcord, who later became the Director of a new Weapon X Program. Wolverine's healing factor was probably exhausted by his ordeal, since over the next few years he healed more slowly than ever before.
Driven into savagery by the experiment, Logan wandered the forests of the Canadian Rockies for months, living in a feral state, ironically, not far from the place of his birth. It was during this period Logan saved the life of a creature, known as Hunter in Darkness, one of a race of feral beings apparently mystical in origin. A psychic link of some sort was established between the two, to resurface in later years. On occasion, Logan's human personality surfaced, to the extent that, years later, he was able to recall pleasant experiences in these woods. Years after this experience, Logan's memories of much of his past would remain clouded, as a result of the Weapon X experiment and additional false memories during the procedure as well.
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=== Department H ===
Wandering the woods, Logan was eventually discovered by Heather and James "Mac" Hudson, a young couple honeymooning in the Rockies, whom he attacked, only to be shot by Hudson, whom neither knew was Wolverine's cousin from his maternal Hudson line. While he recovered, Logan regained enough of his human persona to be horrified at his claws, believing them to be artificial implants. Recovering his mental faculties with the Hudson's help, Logan became a member of Canada's Department H, the superhuman-oriented government agency James Hudson founded. Sometime later, Wolverine consulted adamantium expert Myron MacLain, and he was targeted by Sabretooth and, under Silver Fox's leadership, Hydra. Wolverine was aided by Nick Fury, Carol Danvers and Natasha Romanoff, now the Russian super-spy Black Widow. Even though Wolverine and his allies triumphed, his full memories remained not restored, and he didn't recognize former friends or enemies. Logan eventually regained memories of Burr, Seraph, Captain America and other parts of his life, but due to Weapon X intervention and his healing factor, some areas were left blank, like his life with Itsu and much of his Team X service. Logan also underwent ongoing intense psychotherapy to help him control his berserker rages. As a Department H operative, he returned to espionage and served primarily in Siberia and the Western Pacific, like Asia's Pacific Rim and its adjacent islands, including Japan. He accepted deadly and brutal assignments that no other agent would, and he soon rose to Captain in the Canadian Armed Forces. Eventually, Romulus or his proxies contacted Wolverine, who received secret orders to facilitate Romulus' interests even while on Department H missions.
After the Fantastic Four's debut, Hudson steered the Department H's resources to form a super-team sponsored by the government. He nominated Wolverine for leadership of this team, which was called the Flight. Contemplating the wisdom of this move, Wolverine temporarily returned to Madripoor to reunite with Seraph. He helped her and Viper, her new student, against Sabretooth, probably a case of infighting in Romulus' forces. Seraph sacrificed her life for Wolverine, but before dying, she made him promise to help Viper in the future. Seraph's heroism influenced Wolverine to agree to Hudson's proposal, although he also continued espionage missions abroad.
When a 40th century time-traveler called D'von Kray invaded Canada trying to hunt fellow time-traveler Cable, Wolverine captured Kray and turned him over to Department H. Hudson hoped Kray's technology could empower super-agents, but Kray soon escaped and resumed tracking Cable, pursued by Wolverine. Kray was defeated by Wolverine and Cable, and Cable became a mercenary whom Wolverine encountered during select missions. After this, Wolverine worked with CIA agent Rick Stoner to retrieve one of Hudson's prototype empowered-armor suits, stolen by Hydra. Meanwhile, Hudson subjected William Nowlan, a convicted murderer, to experimental procedures to manifest superhuman powers. Wolverine, maybe remembering his Weapon X experimentation, warned Hudson that Nowlan, now called Bedlam, might prove uncontrollable. His prediction accurate, Wolverine assisted Hudson in placing the insane Bedlam in suspended animation. Months after the Avengers' debut, Wolverine recruited Canadian Detective Sean Bernard to be a member of the Flight. As Groundhog, Bernard wore Hudson's Guardian armor. Some weeks later, the criminal Egghead led superhuman mercenaries to extort funds from Canada, threatening via a nuclear warhead. Wolverine led Flight trainees against Egghead and his minions, and even though the mission succeeded, trainee Saint Elmo died, Groundhog resigned, and some other trainees proved unsuited for such missions. Hudson, taking notice of this, divided the Flight into three divisions of increasing proficiency: Gamma Flight, Beta Flight and Alpha Flight.[citation needed]
Later, on an espionage assignment, Wolverine went to Vladivostok, Russia, where he worked with Nick Fury before him being appointed director of SHIELD. While Alpha Flight's preparation continued, Wolverine traveled to Japan to seek Ogun's advice, but he found out that Ogun had surrendered himself to dark magic and he was now an assassin, a role into which he intended to enslave Wolverine. Escaping this situation and deeply disturbed, Wolverine vowed to never return to Japan.
As Wolverine prepared to publicly debut as a super hero, he was kidnapped by the Leader, as were Hercules and Karkas, all of whom the Leader intended to use against the Hulk. Wolverine and the other prisoners escaped, but coincidentally the Hulk arrived in Canada shortly before Wolverine. The Canadian military mobilized to fight the Hulk, but Wolverine received orders from Romulus to attract an unidentified party's attention by fighting the Hulk. Wolverine started a battle with the Hulk and a Wendigo. Wolverine's speed and maneuverability proved to be a match for the two plodding powerhouses, but after realizing Hulk was a more formidable opponent, he changed tactics. Teaming up with Hulk to take out the Wendigo, Hulk threw the Wendigo into a patch of trees and Wolverine then delivered the finishing blow. The Hulk and Wolverine kept on fighting, and as Hulk had by now grown so enraged that Wolverine's adamantium claws failed to penetrate Hulk's skin, the Hulk emerged victorious and Hulk abandoned the unconscious Wolverine, unaware of his healing factor. The defeated Wolverine returned to Department H.[38] Still slated to take leadership of Alpha Flight, Wolverine spent weeks completing some espionage missions, even when various factors made him increasingly troubled by his service to Department H.
=== Joining the X-Men ===
During his leadership of Alpha Flight, Wolverine was approached by Charles Xavier, attracted by his fight with the Hulk (as Romulus expected), who was looking for mutants to help his students, the X-Men, to escape from the island-being known as Krakoa. Wolverine resigned from Department H to accompany Professor Xavier and rescue the captured X-Men.[39] Wolverine, under Romulus' instructions, tried to assassinate Xavier, but he broke Romulus' hold on Wolverine by blocking the effects of his programming. Neither man knew their enemy's identity at the time. After Krakoa was defeated, Wolverine decided to stay with the X-Men, at the School for Gifted Youngsters, with fellow new recruits Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Thunderbird, and Banshee, as the original members left to pursue a normal life.[40]
Logan remained with the X-Men for quite some time, but a rivalry grew between him and Cyclops, one of the reasons being that he had fallen for Scott's girlfriend, telekinetic telepath Jean Grey, who soon rejoined the group. Despite decades of hard-earned cynicism and at first skeptical of Xavier's hope for mutant and human coexistence, Wolverine began to respect his ideals, determination and goals, and grew to be a loyal and trusted member of the X-Men. Wolverine also developed a strong friendship with Nightcrawler.
When the X-Men traveled to Agarashima, Japan, the first time for Wolverine since breaking with Ogun, he met Lady Mariko Yashida and aided her cousin, former X-Man Sunfire, in battling Moses Magnum. Although she was unable to requite his love, Wolverine fell in love with Lady Mariko, heir to an extremely powerful Yakuza family in Tokyo. Initially frightened, Mariko was soon set at ease by Wolverine, who was attracted to her gentle demeanor, and both fell in love.[41]The X-Men departed, but they were diverted to Calgary, Alberta, where they battled James Hudson, now calling himself Vindicator, aided by Alpha Flight, who wanted to arrest their former would-be leader. Wolverine surrendered to the Canadian team, but somehow escaped and returned to the mansion with his team.
After Wolverine and Nightcrawler sneaked into the Hellfire Club, the Phoenix fell under Mastermind and the Hellfire Club's control and transformed into the Black Queen. After the X-Men battled the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle, Phoenix underwent another transformation into the Dark Phoenix and soared through the universe, where she devoured an entire star and the five billion inhabitants of one of its planets. When Phoenix returned to Earth, she threatened to kill everyone, but Professor Xavier was able to keep Phoenix under control and helped her will herself back to normal. The X-Men were then teleported away by the Shi'ar. The Shi'ar Empire had witnessed Dark Phoenix consuming the star and the X-Men were forced to battle with the Imperial Guard over Phoenix's fate. The battle triggered her transformation into Dark Phoenix once more. Phoenix understood that she would never be able to fully control the dark hunger inside and sacrificed herself on the Moon.
Wolverine later made the first change to his costume and journeyed to Canada to make things right with Alpha Flight and Department H, accompanied by Nightcrawler. Together with Alpha Flight, they battled a Wendigo. Logan grew closer to his friends and even dared Nightcrawler to walk down the main street of Salem Center undisguised, in his natural shape and took the underage Colossus to bars. Logan also aided Spider-Man in battling Mentallo. Later, the Brood retaliated by implanting embryos in all of the X-Men, but Logan's healing factor and Storm's new connection to an Acanti saved them all. The X-Men returned home to battle the Brood Queen that was inside of Professor Xavier and saved his life by transplanting his mind into a cloned body.
After the X-Men watched a televised debate, between Professor X and Reverend William Stryker, they received news that Cyclops, Storm, and the Professor had died in a car accident. While investigating the scene of the accident, the X-Men were attacked by the Purifiers and rescued by Magneto. After capturing their attackers, the X-Men and Magneto tortured them for information and rescued Kitty, who was being pursued by Purifiers. After arriving at Stryker's base, the X-Men and Magneto rescued Cyclops and Storm and Magneto resuscitated them. Professor X was taken to Madison Square Garden, where he was attached to a machine that, using his brainpower, would kill all living mutants. Magneto, with his psi-shielded helmet, was able to distract the Professor enough for the X-Men to destroy the machine. Televised, Cyclops entered into a debate with Stryker about his actions and Stryker pulled a gun, attempting to kill Kitty. Before he could fire, Stryker was shot-down, by a police officer. Later at the mansion, Professor Xavier admitted that Magneto was right and began to accept his offer to join, until Scott stopped him and stated that he believed in the Professor's dream and will see it come true. Following Storm, Kitty, and Colossus, the X-Men battled Dracula again, this time Logan was bitten by Dracula and attacked Cyclops until Rachel van Helsing destroyed Dracula. Logan stopped Storm from assisting Rachel in suicide, per Rachel's request, stating that killing was his profession and while embracing her, drove a wooden steak through her heart.
=== Engaged to Mariko ===
After investigating the return of his letters to Mariko, Logan learned that she had been married to an abusive husband, Noburo Hideki. Logan intended to kill her husband, but was then drugged and challenged to a duel of wooden swords by Mariko's father, Lord Shingen. During the duel, Logan was soundly beaten and humiliated in front of Mariko, due to the poisoning and Shingen using deadly pressure points. Logan then threw the sword and unsheathed his claws, only to be beaten more and revered as an "animal cast in a semblance of human form", for using deadly force in a non-lethal duel. With this act, Logan had dishonored himself to Mariko and was cast into the streets, where he was rescued by Yukio, later his close friend and sometimes lover. After being attacked by the Hand, Yukio manipulated Logan into helping her, which led to further embarrassment in front of Mariko. Upon realizing his deceit, Logan took the fight directly to Shingen. After Yukio killed Mariko's husband, Wolverine was forced to kill Lady Mariko's father, Lord Shingen, in a duel. Afterward, Mariko gave Logan the Clan Yashida Masamune sword, stating he was worthy.[42] Forged 800 years ago by the supreme sword-smith Masamune, the sacred blade represented everything that was best and most noble in the family and the samurai, the lord’s champion, who wielded it. With the deaths of her father and husband, Mariko was named head of Clan Yashida. Logan stayed with her, and they later announced their engagement.
Before the wedding service, Viper and Mariko's half-brother Silver Samurai poisoned the X-Men and battled Logan over control of Clan Yashida, from Mariko. At first enraged at seeing Rogue had joined the X-Men, Logan gained her respect after she saved the life of Mariko, by jumping in front of a shot from Viper intended for her. Mariko and Logan became estranged, due to the honor customs of her family, as well as the manipulations of the villain Mastermind, and Logan returned the Masamune sword to her.[43] After the X-Men defeated Mastermind, Mariko returned the honor sword to him and stated that she had to break her Clan’s criminal connections. Mariko felt that she could not marry Wolverine until she did this. The X-Men again battled with Mastermind, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and the Morlocks.
Weeks later, the X-Men battled a giant dragon when they were teleported to Japan. Unable to save a dying woman, Wolverine vowed to protect her daughter, Amiko Kobayashi.[44] Logan initially left Amiko in the care of Mariko and the X-Men next battled Selene. Amiko would eventually become Wolverine's foster daughter.
=== Kitty Pryde and Wolverine ===
Following a distress call from teammate Kitty Pryde, Wolverine traveled to Japan. Kitty was then captured and put under the mental control of Ogun. Ogun mentally controlled her, transforming her body and soul as he had originally intended to do to Wolverine. After arriving in Japan, Kitty was sent to kill Wolverine and injured him greatly, but with help from Yukio, she was restored. Wolverine undertook a crash program to teach Kitty's body, just as Ogun had taught her mind, to become skillful enough in the Japanese martial arts to contend against Ogun and to help her overcome his evil. Kitty went to face Ogun herself, who was attempting to kill Mariko and Amiko to punish Wolverine. After being defeated by Ogun, he offered Kitty, calling herself Shadowcat, to join him or die. At that time, Wolverine came to her rescue. Sadly, Wolverine was also overwhelmed and the two of them sat helplessly at Ogun's mercy. In a turn of events, Kitty informed Wolverine that she was scared until he arrived and when he apologized, she stated that she did not want an apology, but life. At that moment, Wolverine turned the battle and defeated Ogun and Kitty regained her innocence that Ogun had taken. After killing Ogun, although his spirit survived, Logan and Kitty became very close friends, with her as a near-foster daughter to him.[45]
Later, Logan was attacked by Lady Deathstrike and her first Reavers and he was aided by Katie Power. Unable to heal on his own, Wolverine was taken by the X-Men to the Morlock Healer and his teammate Phoenix attempted to telekinetically heal him. Rachel opened her mind to Wolverine's and, soon after, Rachel decided to kill Selene for her attack when she first arrived in the mainstream timeline. Wolverine, mentally sensing Rachel's intentions, stabbed Rachel in the chest to prevent her from vengefully murdering Selene.
The X-Men attempted to rescue the Morlocks after the Marauders began to indiscriminately massacre them and, after the team was defeated, Wolverine was charged with staying behind and bringing a prisoner, where he faced Victor Creed, now calling himself Sabretooth.
Logan assisted Captain America to defeat Overrider and his adamantium-coated robot TESS-1, who were attempting to fire all of America's nuclear missiles and send them into the sea. Due to Wolverine's disrespect and brash methods, Captain America stated that the X-Men better not ever get tired of him, because the Avengers would never have him.
Wolverine and Storm investigated the recently bombed home of Sara Bailey and Logan sensed Scott Summers (Cyclops) and, the thought dead, Jean Grey (Marvel Girl), which sent him into a berserker rage as he began to search for the woman he secretly loved.
On the anniversary of his wedding to Mariko, the team was abducted by Horde, to use as his lackeys to retrieve the Crystal of Ultimate Vision, of which he wore a shard on his forehead. The X-Men were sent to the Citadel of Light and Shadow, where the crystal was hidden. As the X-Men progressed through it, the citadel created illusions of each of their most powerful desires. Only Wolverine, Storm, and Psylocke were able to resist. Wolverine reached the Crystal and Horde cut him down and removed his heart as a trophy. However, a lone drop of Logan's blood splattered on the Crystal, which gave out enough energy for Wolverine to be restored. Empowered to godhood, Wolverine plucked the crystal shard from Horde's forehead and the tyrant quickly aged and crumbled to dust within seconds. Wolverine rejected the god-like power and returned the X-Men and their friends home, ensuring that the human race would be able to evolve to its full potential.
After the deaths of ex-KGB agents all over Manhattan, Logan was reminded of an old freelance operative from the Cold War, Charlemagne. The last time Logan had seen Charlie, she was working in West Berlin. It was a mission that Logan had protested, but Charlie insisted and her handler double-crossed her. Charlie called for Logan's help and he understood that it was serious. After fifty Soviet operatives couldn't take them down, they sent in KGB agents that had been undercover for years and Wolverine's berserker rage finished them all. After the slaughter, all that was left was a little heart shaped pendant. After leaving the X-Men in a time of need, Logan traveled to Potsdammer Platz, West Berlin, where two KGB agents blew their cover by killing muggers and Charlemagne killed them while Logan's back was turned.
While in Kurfurstendamm, Logan got the scent of Spider-Man in civilian clothing and deciphered his secret identity. Logan warned Spider-Man to stay away from Berlin and forget about Charlemagne, but when Spider-Man returned to his hotel, KGB agents killed Ned Leeds and were asking his involvement. Logan arrived and killed all of the agents and again warned Spider-Man to leave. Logan tracked Charlie to a steel mill just outside of East Berlin and the two stay together for a while. When the couple went to dinner at The Ganymed on Friedrich Strasse, Spider-Man arrived to inform them that everyone in the restaurant was an agent wanting to kill Charlie, a fact that Charlemagne and Wolverine already knew, and a gunfight broke out. After losing Charlie in the fight, Wolverine and Spider-Man attempted to track her down, by getting to her marks before she did, but were always one step behind. After the pair split, Charlemagne called Wolverine to a Soviet cemetery at Teptow and he understood that she wanted him to end her life, so that the Soviets wouldn't have the chance to torture her. After flinching, Wolverine pulled too much and Charlemagne was bleeding to death. At that time, Spider-Man arrived and attempted to stop Logan from killing her. A brutal fight broke out between the two. While on top of Spider-Man, Wolverine stated Spider-Man would have to use all his strength to break Wolverine's neck, while he would just have to lash out his claws to kill Spider-Man. At that time, a government chopper arrived and the two split. In the confusion, Charlemagne sneaked up on Spider-Man, aware that he was tense, and he gave a punch of super strength, killing her. Charlie died in Wolverine's arms and the agents left. After giving Spider-Man a fake passport, the pair returned home.
When Storm left to regain her powers, Wolverine led the X-Men and rescued Madelyn Pryor-Summers, Cyclops' wife that he had abandoned to a coma, from the Marauders. At this time, Logan aided Dazzler, O.Z. Chase, and Henry Gyrich with a drug dealing mutant, Vladimir Zaitsev. Tracking Storm, the X-Men arrived at Forge's Eagle Plaza, in Dallas, Texas, where they were attacked by the Freedom Force. After the initial battle, a rift opened in the sky of Dallas and a chaos ensued of different weather patterns right next to each other and beings and creatures from the past appearing and attacking. The X-Men and Freedom Force formed a temporary alliance with each other to save the citizens of Dallas, until Colossus, recently recovered, decided to enter Eagle Plaza. After gaining access into the Starlight Citadel, the X-Men battled the Adversary and, after Rogue absorbed his power and opened a portal to seal him in, gave their life to imprison the Adversary, with a spell used from Forge. However, the Omniversal Guardian, named Roma, restored the X-Men to life and freed the Adversary, under the notion that there could be no order without chaos. The events had been broadcast over a live television news feed and the world believed the heroes to be dead. After being resurrected, the X-Men decided to use the opportunity to go underground and keep their rebirth secret.
The X-Men resurfaced in Australia, where they defeated the Reavers, who were holding Jessán Hoan as a hostage. They released Jessán and claimed their base and teleporter, Gateway, a mute, mutant aborigine with the ability to create gates with his bullroarer. Roma appeared and presented them with the Siege Perilous, a gem that created a portal which granted any person who walked through it judgment and a new chance at life, with a new career, home, and so forth and had magically made them invisible to any sort of mechanical perception. Around this time, Logan ordered a new armor costume for Psylocke from Landau, Luckman & Lake.
: 
=== Patch ===
After finding Dave Chapel in the desert tortured and dying from exposure, Wolverine returned to Madripoor, perhaps the first time since Seraph's death, to the Princess Bar, and saved O'Donnell from thugs of a crime boss, Roche, while searching for "the Tiger". While at the bar, Logan realized that he was being watched and confronted the woman, who turned-out to be Jessán Hoan. After a brief battle with Jessán, Wolverine was beaten by Sapphire Styx and Razor-Fist and delivered to Roche. After surviving torture from Inquisitor, Wolverine escaped and was brutally attacked by Razor-Fist, who stabbed him in his throat and torso and left him for dead. Wolverine was rescued from a harbor and looked after by Jessán. After healing, Wolverine began wearing an eye patch, to keep the resurrection of the X-Men a secret, and learned that Jessán was in fact Tyger Tiger and vowed to aid her in overthrowing Roche and taking his place as the Madripoor crimelord. After defeating Razor-Fist, Wolverine and Tyger Tiger rescued O'Donnell, killed Roche, and Wolverine declared that he would become Tyger's conscience to remind her that if she became like Roche, he would come for her. After declaring that he was to be called Patch while in Madripoor, Tyger responded that he had won her heart and the two kissed.
While rescuing an agent of Mariko's, Kojima Noburo, Logan killed Banapur Khan and his pirates and found-out about the Cult of the Black Blade's quest to steal the Muramasa Blade, a blade that all who wielded were possessed by its demonic essence, except for the one warrior destined to be its true master. Returning to Madripoor, Logan saved Lindsay McCabe, who he met while the X-Men lived in San Francisco with Jessica Drew, but didn't recognize him, due to his Patch identity. After intentionally holding back in a fight with the Silver Samurai, Patch chased Jessica, who had been corrupted by the sword, through the streets of Madripoor, until he caught the blade with his bare hands and defeated her, claiming the sword. Holding the sword, a voice came from within the Black Blade, telling Patch that he and the Blade were destined to be one. The blade transformed Patch's clothing to a leather ninja outfit and he attempted to sacrifice Jessica. Patch was tracked to the Cult's hide-out and Lindsay stopped him from killing Jessica, by snipping him in the head. After fighting the Silver Samurai, Patch fought the influence of the blade and the Samurai left with the sword.
The X-Men next investigated a Brood Star-shark that Havok had found and tracked the source to Harry Palmer, who was unaware he was infected and had made an entire crèche of mutant hosts. The X-Men were too conflicted with killing the human hosts and Wolverine was captured and implanted with an embryo again. Once again, Logan's healing factor fought-off the transformation in time for him to kill Temptress, freeing Psylocke, and kill Harry, ending the Brood threat. Following Storm, who abruptly left in the middle of the night, the X-Men tracked her to the Savage Land. Upon arrival, the Savage Land was scorched and barren and the X-Men battled Garrok, in the armor of Terminus. After the initial battle, Longshot was lost and Wolverine followed him to another dimension. Storm's Cameo Crystal opened a portal to M'Rinn's dimension, where the Fall People escaped to. Together with M'Rinn's people, the High Evolutionary, and the Fall People, the X-Men separated Garokk from Terminus and, with his sacrifice, restored the Savage Land. After Maddie went missing, the X-Men battled the Press Gang and Genoshan Magistrates, where Logan and Rogue were captured and taken to Genosha. While in captivity, Logan and Rogue were stripped of their powers, by Wipeout and contained, until Rogue escaped and rescued Logan. Logan and Rogue followed Phillip Moreau to the Mutates' camp, until they were attacked and the X-Men arrived to rescue them.
Later, Havok tracked the Marauders in the Alley, and the X-Men ambushed them. The Marauders fled and, as the X-Men gave chase, they found themselves also battling a demonic invasion of New York, slowly becoming demonic themselves. Wolverine recognized familiar scents and the X-Men confronted X-Factor, the original X-Men, harassing Madelyne and her baby. After Logan forcibly kissed Jean, Madelyne instigated a battle between the X-Men and X-Factor, having the X-Men under her demonic influence and believing that X-Factor was attempting to kidnap Nathan Summers, her and Scott's child. After the demon N'Astirh attacked, the X-Men and X-Factor combined efforts to defeat him, assuming that he was controlling Madelyne, calling herself the Goblin Queen, and Havok, calling himself the Goblin Prince.
At that moment, Marvel Girl was captured, by Maddie, and another battle was instigated between the X-Men and X-Factor. The Goblin Queen attempted to sacrifice baby Nathan atop the Empire State Building to permanently open a gateway between Earth and the demonic Limbo. The Goblin Queen locked herself, Nathan, and Jean inside a psionic barrier. Both the X-Men and X-Factor's combined efforts seemed to be futile in an effort to break through the telekinetic bubble. The invasion was thwarted after Madelyne committed suicide in combat with Jean, attempting to kill everyone in her power, but the X-Men and X-Factor protected each other while Jean protected Nathan Christopher.[46] After Madelyne's death, Jean began to scream in pain and Storm ordered Psylocke to take Scott and the X-Men into her mind, where Mr. Sinister was attempting to erase all of Jean's memories, until Jean defeated him on the Astral Plane. Following Mr. Sinister's psychic trail, Marvel Girl tracked him to the School for Gifted Youngsters and the X-Men and X-Factor were ambushed by the Marauders. While interrogating Malice/Polaris, Mr. Sinister destroyed the school. While the X-Men and X-Factor battled Sinister and Malice, Wolverine defeated Sabretooth and Sinister attempted to claim Marvel Girl, but Cyclops seemingly killed Sinister with an unchecked optic blast.
Attempting to comfort Havok after the recent loss of both the women he loved, Wolverine suggested that the men of the X-Men go to a bar in Sydney, taking the idea from Dazzler who took all of the women out. While at the bar, the four X-Men stopped an alien invasion of the many aliens in the Conquest. Shortly after, Wolverine and Havok were vacationing in Mexico and saved a woman from terrorist attackers. The woman was actually Scarlett McKenzie and was working for the Russian scientist, Dr. Neutron (Meltdown), who wanted to use Havok as a means to absorb the entire energy of a breaking down atom reactor and transmute it into himself. Scarlett gave Alex Summers false information that terrorists were trying to sabotage the plant and when he ventured into the heart of the reactor, he found it shortly before reaching critical limit. The timely arrival of Wolverine prevented a full disaster and after Logan killed the scientist, Alex redirected the nuclear radiation into space. For Alex's sake, Logan kept Scarlett’s betrayal secret, as he was still trying to get over the back-plotting of Madelyne.
At this time, Logan left the X-Men, with no explanation and returned to Madripoor. After following the scents of suspects for a murder case, Patch ran into Karma, of the New Mutants, working for her uncle, who was attempting to overthrow Tyger Tiger, and made an uneasy ally with Police Chief Tai. After informing Tyger that he would not assassinate or kidnap for her, Patch and Tyger were beaten by Roughouse and Bloodsport and rescued by Karma. Patch left Tyger with Jessica, Lindsay and Chang (who was killed by Roughouse and Bloodsport) while he destroyed General Nguyen Ngoc Coy's opium supplies, where he encountered the Harriers. After disrupting Coy's drug activities, Patch took the fight directly to Coy and battled and defeated Roughouse and Bloodsport, while rescuing Lindsay, Jessica and Tyger. Patch had General Coy at his mercy, until Prince Baran intervened and, thanks to Lindsay, considered them all honored guests of his. The Prince offered that Tyger and General Coy worked together, to stop a power vacuum and warzone in Madripoor and Patch convinced Tyger to accept.
Next, Patch began his quest to save Karma from her uncle's service, but was sidetracked when he learned that disrupting General Coy's drug activities planted a target on the General's head and Karma needed him to help her find her missing brother and sister. Patch accompanied Xi'an Coy Manh to the airport to witness the arrival of Joe Fixit, who Patch smelled right away and recognized as the Hulk. Patch went-on to use Joe to disrupt General Coy's drug and slave operations. Later, Police Chief Tai informed Patch that he was aware the Patch and Wolverine were one and the same. Remembering his first "birthday gift" from Creed, Patch saved a couple from being mugged and was later targeted by the thugs. After escaping an attempted hit, Patch tracked them to the Princess Bar only to find them dead and a note from Creed reading "Nobody kills you but me - especially today".
Patch returned to San Francisco with Jessica, when Archie Corrigan asked for help with his mentally unbalanced brother, Burt Corrigan, who was in danger of losing his inheritance. While at the trail, Burt burst through the window, dressed as Indiana Jones, screaming that he needed help from Ba'al.
When the X-Men temporarily relocated to the Australian Outback, Wolverine took the runaway mutant Jubilee under his wing, after she saved his life from an attack by Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers.[47] Jubilee eventually became like a daughter to him, much like Kitty before. While based in Australia, a man would ask Wolverine to go to the Savage Land, where he encountered a tribe of humans. Arriving in a lightweight plane, the tribe believed him a god, with the exception of Gahck, the tribe's female chieftain. Gahck challenged Wolverine to combat, and once it was established that he wasn't a god, he offered to help their hunting parties. Logan subsequently started a relationship with Gahck. When members of the tribe were captured, Wolverine discovered that a robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex would attack the tribe and take their members to a secret base. Wolverine discovered that experiments were performed on the tribe members by Apocalypse, and after freeing himself and the captured Gahck, he battled Apocalypse, though it turned out to be a robot. In the Apocalypse robot's lab, Logan learned that the real Apocalypse was the man who had told him to journey to the Savage Land. After defeating the robot, Wolverine left the Savage Land, despite Gahck's feelings for him.[48]
After the X-Men returned to America, Wolverine began wearing his original blue and gold uniform again. Greatly troubled by his lost memories, Wolverine investigated the abandoned Weapon X Facility in Canada where he had been transformed years before. There, he inadvertently activated the artificial intelligence Shiva, which was designed to kill rogue Team X members. Wolverine also became much darker, as he learned many of his memories were implants.[49]
Wolverine returned to Japan, where Clan Yashida, besieged by internal dispute, was attacking Hand ninjas. Silver Fox, still with Hydra, observed the proceedings and cooperated with Matsu'o Tsurayaba, the Hand leader, to poison Mariko. Faced with a slow, painful death, Mariko asked Wolverine to end her life quickly and mercifully. Wolverine reluctantly complied.[50] This changed Wolverine's character significantly, making him even more disciplined and emotionally distant. Wolverine then vowed to Matsu'o that on each and every one of his birthdays he would slice off a body part until there was nothing of him left.
Shortly after Mariko's death, he investigated with Team X survivors Sabretooth and Silver Fox, after the alumnus Mastodon died from reversal of his age suppression factor. Wolverine was shocked to learn that Silver Fox was still alive. To his surprise, Silver Fox despised him for something she believed he had done. Tracing Mastodon's death to Aldo Ferro, now Psi-Borg, they were overwhelmed by his illusions, and Sabretooth, under Psi-Borg's control, killed Silver Fox, before Wolverine could figure out what she believed he had done. Ferro himself died soon afterward.
After his encounter with the mutant assassin Omega Red, Logan began to question the memories he possessed, but his searches to find his true identity and memories proved fruitless. Logan possessed memories of being a samurai in Japan, a mercenary operative for the CIA, and a "wild man" in the Canadian wilderness. He also had remembered romances with Mariko and Silver Fox. Wolverine suffered a mental breakdown which stemmed from the deaths of Mariko and Silver Fox and Weapon X's mental tampering.
Due to extensive memory implants given to Logan through the Weapon X Project, any or all of these memories are suspect. Logan has at least one memory of meeting Captain America in World War II while he was in the Canadian Army which has been verified as true.
=== Magneto's Revenge ===
During an encounter with Magneto on his space station called Avalon, Wolverine slashed Magneto with his claws. Magneto retaliated, using his powers of the magnetic field to tear the adamantium out of Wolverine's skeleton, causing extensive injuries.[51] These injuries overloaded Wolverine's healing factor for a time, and Logan also discovered that the claws that he believed a result of the Weapon X program were in fact part of his actual bone structure due to his mutation. Around this time Professor Xavier, Beast, and Heather Hudson conducted experiments on Wolverine. These showed that Logan's mutation was actually ongoing, and whilst his healing factor and senses would accelerate it would also cost him his humanity- for it would slowly change him into a bestial, wild, animal-like creature. It also turned out that the presence of the adamantium slowed his mutation process down; his healing factor treated it like a foreign substance in the body and tried constantly to expel it.
As a result of his injuries, Logan left the X-Men for a time. He visited Muir Island at the request of Kitty Pryde, and was also attacked by Cyber. During the Phalanx invasion, Logan and Cable were asked by Professor Xavier to find and rescue the captured X-Men. They joined with Cyclops and Jean Grey, returning from their honeymoon (and secretly the future), and freed their teammates in Tibet.
Later, Logan was kidnapped by Tyler Dayspring, calling himself Genesis, who wanted to make Wolverine one of his new Horsemen of Apocalypse. Genesis had acquired adamantium by destroying the body of the mercenary known as Cyber, and had planned to recreate the bonding process used on Logan years ago. This time, however, Logan's body rejected the adamantium, and he regressed for a time to a feral-like state. Logan slowly regained his lucidity with help from ninja Elektra Natchios, and rejoined the X-Men. Some months later, Viper invoked Logan's promise to Seraph many years before. Wolverine married Viper, giving her the status to become ruler of Madripoor.
=== Horseman of Apocalypse ===
Logan was subsequently kidnapped by the would-be conqueror Apocalypse and forced to fight the savage assassin Sabretooth for the mantle of the Horseman Death. Knowing that he might be able to resist Apocalypse's programming and that Sabretooth would be a very dangerous villain with the support of Apocalypse, Logan fought and defeated his nemesis. As a result, Apocalypse succeeded where Genesis had failed, rebonding adamantium to Wolverine's skeleton. Meanwhile, one of a Skrulls faction allied with Apocalypse impersonated Wolverine while in the X-Men, but he was slain by the actual Wolverine. Under the control of Apocalypse, Wolverine fought the X-Men ferociously in his Death persona. But with the help of his teammates, he eventually broke free from Apocalypse's control and returned to the X-Men.[52]
=== Weapon Plus ===
Wolverine returned to Madripoor to battle Ogun, now a possessing spirit, and Viper divorced him, freeing him from her debt. Some time after this, Malcolm Colcord, a survivor of Wolverine's rampage in Weapon X years before, revived Weapon X and Wolverine's ties to it, controlling him as an assassin. Wolverine escaped from Colcord's control, and with Cyclops and Fantomex, a fellow Weapon Plus victim, they penetrated the World, Weapon Plus' base. There, Wolverine learned how he had been used in the Roanoke slaughter years before, and other Weapon Plus secrets.
Later on a mission with the X-Men, Wolverine and Jean were lured onto a Weapon Plus satellite by the villain Xorn. Although Logan was able to access detailed files on his past, they realized it was a trap as it hurtled toward the sun. As the heat slowly began to intensify, Jean could no longer stand the pain and asked Logan to take her life with his claws. Obliging his love's last wish, Jean's death unlocked the power of the Phoenix. Thus empowered, Jean returned Wolverine and herself back to earth as Logan slowly healed. However, as the duo confronted Xorn alongside their fellow X-Men, he injected Jean with a lethal electromagnetic pulse and she died in Cyclops arms. Wolverine greatly mourned Jean's loss and was not pleased with Cyclops' and Emma Frost's new relationship, but he has remained a valued member of the X-Men, serving on as many missions as he can while also indulging in the occasional solo mission.
=== Enemy of the State ===
Wolverine was ambushed by the Hand. Transformed into a killing machine and outfitted with several devices, he battled various other heroes. He stabbed both Hornet and Northstar. Also, one of the Hand's mystics, Phaedra, retained a fragment of Wolverine's soul, which became the warrior Shogun. Wolverine escaped from the Hand's control, and he helped S.H.I.E.L.D. defeat the Hand and their allies in Hydra.
=== The New Avengers ===
While on a mission in the Savage Land, he met the recently reformed Avengers and eventually accepted membership, as Tony Stark felt that Logan could provide a useful perspective to the team in this modern world.
==== House of M & M-Day ====
As a result of the House of M, during which Scarlet Witch altered Earth's reality and then restored it, Wolverine regained all of his memories due to the Witch attempting to give all the heroes their perfect worlds, finally being able to sort between what was true and implanted. He was last seen traveling to Japan in an attempt to come to terms with his past. He went to visit the Silver Samurai, who serves as a guard to the prime minister of Japan. Wolverine battled with Silver Samurai, cutting his hand in the process. Later, he visited the site of the original Weapon X program, which led to a clash with Bucky, who apparently killed Wolverine's wife, the Japanese Itsu, and Daken. Bucky apologized to Wolverine, telling him that he was not in control of his actions at the time. Wolverine then began to reminisce about his wife, Itsu, and the events that led up to him meeting her. US government officials, probably under Romulus' command, sent a Shiva robot and Nuke to kill Wolverine. However, he survived. Emma Frost later learned that Daken, Wolverine's son, was still alive and had been manipulated into hating Wolverine. Wolverine swore to locate him.
==== Civil War ====
After the destruction of Stamford by the super-villain Nitro, which started the Civil War, Wolverine went after Nitro himself. Although the X-Men were neutral in this conflict, Wolverine, also a member of the New Avengers, led a S.H.I.E.L.D. team to apprehend Nitro. This went badly, with Wolverine as the only survivor, and a conflict with several Atlantean guards, and the king of Atlantis himself, Namor. Nitro was eventually brought to Atlantis, where he lost a hand to Wolverine's adamantium claws. Working with Atlanteans, Wolverine fell in love with Amir, an Atlantean woman, but she was killed by Scimitar terrorists, who attacked Wolverine. Lazaer then defeated him in the astral plane, leaving him brain-dead. He recovered with help from Doctor Strange, and then confronted Scimitar members Shogun and Phaedra, who resurrected Shingen Harada to fight him. Wolverine defeated Shingen and apparently slew Shogun and Phaedra. Lazaer also returned the stolen soul fragment, but warned Wolverine he could never again escape death by defeating him in astral combat.
=== The Return of Daken ===
Finally, Romulus made himself known by sending his own ancient memories into Wolverine's mind, and inserting himself into Wolverine's memories. Now aware of the manipulator in his life, Logan teamed up with Deadpool to find his son, who had many similarities to his father such as aspects of his personality, abilities, and powers. Wolverine arranged for Daken to be shot with carbonadium bullets, which would slow his healing factor so Wolverine could capture him and remove Romulus' influence. However, Sebastian Shaw abducted Daken, intending to brainwash him into servitude. Wolverine fought against Shaw's Hellfire Club. Blocked by a psychic booby trap in Daken's mind, Shaw manipulated Professor X into triggering the trap and absorbing most of the damage, which restored Daken's memories. Both Wolverine and Daken defeated Shaw and resolved to seek vengeance in Romulus together, but the two parted ways when Daken decided to join Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers.
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=== Leading X-Force ===
A new X-Force consisting of Wolverine as team leader, Warpath, Wolfsbane and X-23 was born to take care of the dirty business the rest of the X-Men wouldn't do normally, including murder. Their first mission involved infiltrating a North Dakota S.H.I.E.L.D. facility to root out a group of Purifiers who had infiltrated the base and stolen valuable technology required to resurrect the Sentinel known as Bastion. In the planned raid Wolfsbane and X-23 disobeyed Wolverine's orders and entered ahead of the team and got Wolfsbane captured. Wolfsbane was later rescued but suffered from a seizure.
=== The Return of Weapon X ===
Logan's former Team X teammate, Maverick, contacted Logan to inform him that a private military contractor called Blackguard had got their hands on the old Weapon X files, including the recipe for synthesizing adamantium, and created a group of twelve mercenaries called Strikeforce X, an elite unit of men armed with healing factors, unbreakable skeletons and laser claws. Not only that, but they were being used to carry out atrocities in the name of Blackguard's corporate interests. With the help of reporter Melita Garner, Logan was able to expose Blackguard to the world and kill most of Strikeforce X, but the Chief Executive somehow managed to survive. What Logan didn't know was that Maverick was the man who stole the Weapon X files in the first place and sold them on the black market. In an effort to cover up his involvement in kick-starting the Strikeforce X program from Wolverine, Maverick killed the man whom he sold the files to.
=== The Asylum ===
Later, Wolverine found himself in Dunwitch Sanatorium in a foggy haze with a hospital full of misfits and few memories of a past that seemed to point to the fact that he was insane. A fellow patient warned him that the director, Dr. Rottwell, has a penchant for harvesting brains; which seemed to be proven out when, the very next day, Logan discovered that the patient has been lobotomized.[53] Logan lost his identity in an insane asylum and Dr. Rottwell tried to get him to release the aggressive killer inside of him while still sublimating the rest of his past. A pair of mob goons came looking for someone to pull off a contract killing and Dr. Rottwell offers them Charlie Chainsaws from whom he has removed his hands and attached actual chainsaws; as Logan reached the end of his tolerance for abuse and torture, he finally popped his claws and took out an orderly while Rottwell looked on and smiled.[54] Unable to warp Logan's mind into becoming a feral killer using conventional brainwashing, Dr. Rottwell decided to take the direct approach by cutting directly into his skull. When Rotwell kept wrecking blades on adamantium, he plugged Wolverine into his innovative God Brain machine to get some readings. Logan was able to make a mental cry for help to reporter Melita Garner (the very same journalist who helped him expose Blackguard) before the machine takes full effect.[55] Melita received the desperate psychic message from Wolverine and called in the X-Men to help; Nightcrawler and Psylocke invaded Dunwitch Sanatorium and dismantled Rotwell's God Brain machine. The mob later showed up looking for their missing goons; with chaos abounding as the mob, the patients and the staff all try their best to kill each other, Logan took the opportunity to try and carve up Dr. Rottwell but finds his tormentor impossible to kill; Rottwell then escaped as Wolverine made his way to Melita to recuperate.[56]
As his relationship with Melita blossomed into something more, Logan received relationship advice from the women in his life; He tried to warn Melita away from him because of his lifestyle and his past history with women who end up dead but she simply replied that she could handle it. Mystique found out about the affair.
Wolverine took Steve Rogers to a bar to celebrate his resurrection. However, they were attacked by Deathloks.[57] In the present, Miranda told Wolverine that the Deathlok cyborgs from the future had killed all of their targets except for one: Captain America. Wolverine and Cap battled the Deathloks. In a dystopian future an aged and damaged Wolverine helped Miranda and her troops try to destroy the Deathloks' time portal.
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=== Spider-Man and Wolverine: Time Travelers ===
During what seemed to be a routine robbery, Spider-Man and Wolverine were thrown back in time by magical diamonds, to the time of the dinosaurs. While Spider-Man secluded himself, Logan befriended a tribe of early humanoids. His involvement with them allowed them to survive the K-T Extinction Event. When the meteor came, Spidey and Logan found themselves flung into the future, where the extinction of humanity allowed the tribe to dominate the world.
The world was menaced by Doom the Living Planet. Despite Spider-Man's protests, Wolverine used the Phoenix Gun to destroy Doom. The Phoenix Gun was a weaponized piece of the Phoenix Force, capable of destroying anything at the price of the life of the one who fired it. As such, Wolverine died. However, Spider-Man resurrected him with a Cosmic Cube, much to Logan's dismay. They were then assaulted by the pair of Czar and Big Murder, who sent them through time once again with the diamonds.
Logan wound up in a wrestling ring, facing down Peter Parker. He realized that this was before the death of Peter's Uncle Ben. Meanwhile, Spider-Man found himself in a frozen wilderness as a feral Logan was hunted by Dog. They were then transported to Mojoworld; Mojo had been using Czar and Big Murder to arrange the entire list of shenanigans.
Wolverine became overcome with uncontrollable anger. However, he did not enter a berserker rage, but instead became something far worse. The fragment of the Phoenix Force from the Phoenix Gun had stayed within him, and it manifested. Logan became the new Dark Phoenix. Spider-Man managed to calm him down, and the Phoenix Force seemed to leave him.
They were finally sent back to the American Midwest in the time of the cowboys. Peter fell in love with a woman named Sara Bailey, whom had also been transported through time by the diamonds, while Logan became chief of a Native American tribe. Any diamonds they found appeared to be inert. The Time Variance Authority found them and set the duo back into their proper point in the timeline.
=== Wolverine Goes to Hell ===
Logan visited Wraith, who survived Creed’s attack and was now a pastor. After a few weeks, a child was found dead with three claw marks. Wraith found Logan’s body, which had been possessed by the devil. In hell, Logan apparently met Satan and was forced to battle Hand soldiers. Meanwhile, Wolverine’s body was going around killing the people he cared about. Melita, and surprisingly Mystique, teamed up with the Ghost Rider and Daimon Hellstrom to get Logan’s soul back. In Hell, Logan was tortured and then forced to battle Sabretooth. On Utopia, “Hellverine” has managed to get past the defenses, only to be knocked down by Colossus.
In Hell, Logan fought Satan and on Utopia, the X-Men battled Hellverine. Before Colossus could be killed, Melita, Mystique, the Ghost Rider and Hellstrom captured Logan and began the ritual to bring his soul back. In Hell, Logan met Thomas Logan, who claimed to be his real father. The X-Men led a rescue attempt and went into his mind and the Phoenix burned the demons from his mind. Logan then plan to get revenge.
=== Wolverine's Revenge ===
Wolverine began to track down the Red Right Hand, the group that sent him to Hell. The first target is Mystique, who he manages to kill, despite interference from Lord Deathstrike. Maverick gives Logan the location of the Red Right Hand.
He invades the Red Right Hand's base, killing the Mongrels. The members of the RRH kill themselves, leaving Logan with a message; the Mongrels were his children. Logan was devastated with the fact he killed his own children. Logan took the bodies of his children and buried them next to their mothers, the last one was William Downing whose mother was Dolores Downing. After burying William, Logan went to a bar and got himself drunk. When Logan left the bar he was attacked by Daken who told him he helped the Red Right Hand in what they did which made Logan enraged but was surprised by the appearance of Dog and Thomas Logan who started to laugh at him. It was seemingly an illusion or a vision as he was awakened by someone who wanted to steal from him. Later he called Melita Garner and told her to tell everyone not look for him and let him go, after that he started to climb a mountain and throwing himself off it many times over. When he stopped throwing himself from the top of the mountain, he started to move with a pack of wolves and whenever the pack was hunting, Logan couldn't kill the prey as he remembered how he killed his children. The pack was attacked and the young were taken, the old were killed, and Logan was shot in the head, however, his healing factor saved him. Logan tracked the attacker, killed them and freed his pack. Logan found who took his pack and that they were using the wolves to fight children for sport. Logan freed the children and returned them to their parents. Logan was confused afterwards knowing that if he hadn't killed his own children, he wouldn't have saved those children. In the middle of this, Melita found him and with the help of his friends convinced him to return.
Wolverine worked with the Avengers during the Serpent's attacks on Midgard, first fighting the secret organization S.T.R.I.K.E. that planned to destroy New York with an Atomic Bomb, and later, using one of the armors Tony Stark made with the mystical metal Uru, and fought the Worthy.
=== Uncanny X-Force ===
After the Second Coming event, Cyclops ordered Wolverine to dissolve his X-Force team. But Logan believed that his team was still necessary, so he formed a new X-Force with Archangel, Psylocke, Fantomex, and Deadpool. During their first mission, they found Clan Akkaba who was indoctrinating a young Apocalypse, to resume his duties. Clan Akkaba was protecting Apocalypse with a new group of Horsemen, but X-Force defeated them. While the rest of the group was still discussing the moral implications of killing a child, Fantomex immediately shot the kid Apocalypse in the head.
After this event, Angel lost control of his Archangel personality, and went on a killing spree. Trying to kill Apocalypse's influence on him, X-Force traveled to the Age of Apocalypse universe, thanks to Dark Beast, to find the Life Seed, the only thing that could save their friend's life. There, Logan found the Jean Grey of that universe, his alternate daughter, and an evil version of himself.
When X-Force returned to their universe, they were attacked by Archangel and the Dark Beast, who took the Life Seed, because they needed to restart evolution.
After a heavy battle between the forces of Archangel and X-Force, Psylocke was able to stab Archangel with a different Life Seed, killing his alter ego, and saving Earth from the Age of Archangel.
: 
=== Schism ===
When the return of Kid Omega set off a new wave of anti-Mutant sentiment, Wolverine and Cyclops steadily grew divided. Wolverine wished to hand Quire over to Commander Steven Rogers, while Cyclops wished to deal with him within the mutant community. When a new Hellfire Club attacked and incapacitated the X-Men at the opening of a Mutant History Museum Oya, whom Wolverine had taken a liking to, was the last one standing. As Logan tried to convince Idie to stay hidden, Cyclops pressured her to act: leading to Idie killing a dozen men. Logan was enraged and blamed Cyclops. Eventually it got worse when Wolverine saw that the idea of Cyclops raising and training the teenage mutants as soldiers were only going to get them killed and after demolishing a Sentinel that was sent to destroy Utopia, Wolverine and a number of X-Men quit the team and left with a number of the teenage mutants to return to their former home in New York with it clear that Cyclops has clearly crossed the line with his actions.
=== Regenesis ===
Wolverine founded the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, spending all the fortune that he had amassed over the years upon it. On its first day it was assaulted by the new Hellfire Club, whom had been a major force in causing the Schism of the X-Men.[59] Wolverine made it clear that he didn't want to lose any of the kids and fought as hard as he could against the Frankenstein Monster, whom Iceman defeated by making Ice clones of himself. Then, they were attacked by the Hellfire Club, that was in possession of a spawn of the original Krakoa.[60] Kid Omega who wanted to prove himself to Broo, Idie and Kid Gladiator who told him they never heard of him, reasoned with Krakoa who then joined Wolverine's X-Men.
olverine, along the School's staff and students, confronted the Hellfire Club and he made clear to them to stay away from his school. As the Hellfire Club members were leaving, Krakoa almost attacked them but Logan stopped him as he had a better idea on how to deal with them. The next day Matt Murdock told Kade Kilgore that he was being sued by Wolverine for the sum of 879 million dollars for the damage he had done to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning and if he didn't pay they would take control of his company. As the school was being rebuilt, Logan was informed that Krakoa was glad they allowed him to stay and Logan found it good to have a school ground that could fight back.[61]
=== Avengers vs. X-Men ===
When Nova arrived on Earth with a warning, the Avengers discovered that the Phoenix Force was heading on a destructive path towards Earth. Captain America turned to Wolverine for advice. Wolverine informed him of Hope Summers' connection with the Phoenix, and the stand that Cyclops and his X-Men team would take on this matter, using the cosmic energy that comes with the destructive power of the Phoenix to save mutantkind from extinction. Captain America asked if the Jean Grey School would side with him, but Logan insisted that he had founded the school to keep the kids out of fights.[62]
When Cap called on the Avengers to invade Utopia, Wolverine was there alongside them. While the X-Men and the Avengers fought for the control of the mutant nation Utopia, Wolverine found Hope, and was going to fulfill his promise of killing her. But Hope, using the powers of the Phoenix, was able to escape, burning Logan's skin and muscle.
He recovered and went with Captain America to the Savage Land looking for Hope, but Captain, thinking that Logan was a liability, asked him to stay in the Quinjet while they searched, punching him in the face, prompting a vicious fight between them that was resolved thanks to Giant-Man who pushed Wolverine out of the plane, making him fall in the middle of the North Pole.[63] Wolverine is tracked down by Hope who offers him a truce if he'll help her. She plans on going to the Moon in order to confront the Phoenix but in case she loses control she wants Wolverine to be there to kill her. Wolverine agrees but betrays her by calling the Avengers who show up on the Moon to capture her. The X-Men arrive shortly after but the fighting is cut short by the arrival of the Phoenix.
As the Phoenix descended on the Moon, Iron Man used a special suit to try to destroy the Phoenix. He only managed to splinter it, and it took the five other X-Men present as hosts; Namor, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magik and Colossus.[64] The Phoenix-possessed X-Men started changing the world into a better place for living, but knowing that Phoenix's ultimately destructive nature would bring chaos, Steve and the Avengers tried to get Hope from Utopia in order to use her knowledge about the Phoenix against it, after the Scarlet Witch helped them against the X-Men (previously having visions of the Phoenix destroying Earth), Cyclops decided to hunt down every Avenger. The Thunderer offered the Avengers to hide in K'un-Lun, as well as to train Hope to face the Phoenix, because of his past experience with the Phoenix Host and Iron Fist Fongji, and the prophecy of the Phoenix bringing chaos to Earth. Before the entire Avengers could teleport to K'un-Lun, Namor attacked where they were hiding, Wakanda, along a full army of Atlanteans. After defeating Namor with the price of the partial destruction of Wakanda, the Avengers teleported to K'un-Lun, in order to help Hope to train to face the Phoenix.
The Avengers were attacked by Cyclops who now possessed half of the Phoenix. He made quick work of anyone that opposed him but was defeated by Hope who in an act of desperation combined the powers of the Iron Fist, Scarlet Witch's chaos magic and Shao-Lao's flames to teleport Cyclops to the Moon. The Avengers then teamed up with several X-Men who had realized that Cyclops and Emma had completely lost control. Together they attacked Cyclops and Emma and gained the upper hand until Cyclops was forced to take the final piece of the Phoenix from Emma, making him the sole host. The complete Phoenix proved too much and finally turned him into Dark Phoenix.[65]
The Avengers fought Summers around the world with the help of the X-Men and Nova, as well as trying to contain the chaos the gigantic force produced around Earth, but who finally managed to defeat him were Scarlet Witch and Hope, the Phoenix left Scott and possessed Hope, but she managed to control it, repairing all the damage Scott caused on the planet, and finally, using the powers of the Scarlet Witch to manipulate reality, she destroyed the Phoenix Force with a final blast of energy which caused millions of people around Earth to manifest mutant powers. Cyclops was finally incarcerated, and Steve accepted the Avengers should have done more to help mutants, and allowed the world to hate them. As a result, he started planning a new team of Avengers in hopes of unifying mutant and humankind.[66]
After the war with the X-Men and the New Avengers were disassembled, Wolverine rejoined the main Avengers team and the Avengers Unity Division after Captain America asked him to join the Avengers, which he accepted.[67][68]
=== Killable ===
During a rescue mission to help S.H.I.E.L.D., Wolverine was infected with a Microverse virus that shut down his healing factor.[69] In an attempt to prove he was still the best at what he did, he tried to fight a brainwashed Black Panther, but failed miserably.[70] Even having to be defended by Kitty was a little embarrassing for him.[71]
Eventually, he was captured and beaten to a pulp by Sabretooth, when he was on the brink of getting his head cut off with the Muramasa Blade,[72] Creed gave Logan a verbal smack down about how neither the X-Men nor the Avengers kill but that Wolverine is willing to do otherwise. He walked away and left the blade next to a bloodied and broken Wolverine. The virus was revealed to have sentience, and told Logan it would be willing to give Wolverine his healing factor back in exchange for evasion from S.H.I.E.L.D., as the organization intended to destroy the virus completely after Wolverine was cured. Wolverine rejected the virus' offer and broke the Muramasa Blade. When he was finally rescued, Logan begun alienating his friends and stated that "The Wolverine [was] dead".[73]
Following the loss of his healing factor, Logan started to prepare himself to face Sabretooth again and get his healing factor back. He donned a suit of armor to protect himself,[74] he left the Jean Grey School (though he remained the leader of the X-Men) and the main Avengers team (though he remained with the Unity Division), and started working for a businessman's squad of mercenaries.[75]
In reality, however, Wolverine was sent to work for the Offer by S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to trace Sabretooth's whereabouts by killing one of their agents, Agent Monkton.[75][76] With MI-13, he eventually tracked Sabretooth down in Madripoor and tried to retrieve an object that Sabretooth was going to use to alter reality as his Patch persona, but the mission failed and as a result, Pinch's daughter was kidnapped.[77][78]
Logan decided to rediscover his martial arts by training with Iron Fist and Shang-Chi and the three of them went to Itsukushima Island, where they battled ninjas and had an encounter with the entity Death. Logan would later encounter Rose's soul and is forgiven by the latter for killing her years ago.[79][80] With the help of Thor, the X-Men, Damage Control, and S.H.I.E.L.D., Logan was able to defeat Sabretooth and recovered Pinch's daughter.[81][82][83]
=== Death ===
Logan had a reunion with Mister Fantastic, who explained to him that his entire physical structure is based on the fact that he could heal himself and that now only using his claws can be fatal. He assured him he can reactivate his healing factor but will need time and asked him not to fight until he can figure it out. Traveling to an island in British Columbia, Canada, he was attacked again and again by A.I.M. agents, ninjas and other mercs and assassins who came for a bounty in his head. They took most of each other out competing for the bounty and he killed the rest. He returned to the mainland and left a note with a bartender for whomever else came looking for him before heading back to the island. Next came Nuke and several of his mercenaries. One of them was sent to the port, which was set to explode. Wolverine sunk the boat from below and killed the other mercenaries as they tried to escape to the coast, leaving only Nuke alive. Nuke threw Logan against some rocks but he head-butted Nuke with his adamantium skull until he was defeated, he told Nuke to tell everyone that he is the last one he lets live and demanding to know who put out the contract. Nuke revealed that the contract was to bring him alive and that it was put by the new queen of Madripoor, Viper.[84]
He traveled there and disguised himself as an arms dealer and offered to sell one of Viper’s men an Iron Man helmet, demanding to see Viper herself for the deal, which he agreed. She saw through his disguise and sent her guards against him, but he defeated them with little effort. He demanded answers and she revealed that a client came to her for various works and that she subcontracted the word out for him. She told him that she would tell him who the client is if Logan could beat her “pet”: Sabretooth, who was chained and captured. He explained that she got him out of prison and injected him with his venom, getting the antidote if he obeys. She claimed that she wanted one to die and that whoever wins gets what he wants. Sabretooth attacked him and slashed his eye, he set the helmet to explode and throw it to him but it didn't stop him. However, Lady Deathstrike attacked and impaled Sabretooth, allowing the Viper to escape, but Logan stopped Deathstrike from killing Sabretooth, claiming that when it happens, it won’t happen that way, she reluctantly let him go. She explained that she didn't come to capture him but that the bounty extended to her and others like them and she barely escaped from Japan from another who took the contract: Lord Ogun, and tracked him there to work together and get to the bottom of it. However, she noticed that his eye didn't regrow and realized the loss of his healing factor and claimed that he can’t help her but decided to exchange his life for her own. However, Kitty arrived and phased her arm through Deathstrike’s chest.[85]
Kitty treated Yuriko with unphasing but Deathstrike tried to attack her and Kitty unphased her hand in Deathstrike’s and tried to kill her as she escaped. Wolverine passed out due to his wounds, but Kitty injected him with a Regen Serum, which healed him. They travelled to Japan to find Ogun. In Tokyo, he considered that it may never stop until he dies and contemplated ending it now but ultimately decided to live out the remainder of his life, however short it turned out to be. Kitty kissed him until he stopped her, she then taunted him on what happened to Jean, Mariko and Rose. He then realized she was possessed by Ogun. He revealed Kitty came looking for him to Japan and he found and possessed her. He offered to release her if he surrenders but he refused and they fought. Ogun threw him into a house, where Logan took samurai armor and swords and battled Ogun, who started losing control of her body as she was fighting him and he taunted him that he can’t win against two of his students at the same time, forcing him off her body. Kitty insisted he go after Ogun’s new body but told him she heard the name of who put the contract while Ogun was in his head: Abraham Cornelius. He tracked Ogun to a factory and found the corpse of Cyber, which was recuperated by Ogun, melting in acid. Ogun revealed Cornelius was paying great money for Cyber's skin, some swords and other articles. Wolverine assumed he was looking for his adamantium skeleton and Ogun told him where Cornelious was, Paradise Valley in Nevada. Claiming he didn't know more, he treated Logan with stepping to the acid and killing his vessel but promised him to find another vessel, leave his current vessel unharmed and leave him alone if he simply go. He also offered him more Regen Serum but he claimed he was done living forever and told him to tell Cornelius he was coming.
: Logan traveled to Cornelius' facility in Paradise Valley. Using improvised fake claws, he killed the guards and broke into his lab, where he witnessed Cornelius experimenting on innocent people. He demanded to know what he is doing and Cornelius claimed that he was "getting it right", claiming that he deserved to be known for something other than helping make a killer unkillable. Cornelius claimed that he was responsible for what Logan was and that his test subjects belong where he is, revealing that all they needed was the adamantium. He told him that he had enough adamantium and that what he needed was his healing factor for the subjects to survive, the Regen Serum being his attempt to recreate it. Cornelius told him that he could save his test subjects by giving him his healing factor, but Logan made a cut in his hand and let it bleed, showing Cornelius the loss of his healing factor. Cornelius then ordered a volunteer of his program, Sharp, who was made into a fighting machine, to kill him. During the fight, Cornelius activated his machines on the test subjects and taunted Logan, claiming that he was an animal and that Sharp was perfect. However, Logan tricked Sharp into breaking the glass protecting Cornelius, who was hurt by a shard of glass; he knocked out Sharp and crushed his armor. However, Cornelius activated the adamantium merging process and escaped. He unleashed his claws to slash the batch of liquid adamantium before it was injected and the metal covered his entire body in the process. He injected the subjects with the Regen Serum and left after Cornelius before the adamantium hardened. A soldier tried to help Cornelius escape but he escaped when Logan arrived. He killed Cornelius as he asked him what he ever did beside killing, and reflected on his life before he died from suffocation from the hardening adamantium, kneeling in the sunset,[87]leaving Storm in charge of the X-Men and the team heartbroken.
=== Legacy ===
After the facility exploded,[88] Logan's petrified body was left in its ruins, where it was located by Shogun, Skel, Neuro, Endo, and Junk, along with the "Wolverines." They planned to use Logan's petrified body to find a way to prevent their deaths. However, Mister Sinister took the body with him to his fortress, from where the X-Men later took it.[45]
The X-Men took Logan's body to Alberta, where a shrine was built by Forge in his honor.[89] Only a few people knew his whereabouts as they feared that someone might try to resurrect him. As he wasn't one of said persons, Quentin Quire used his wealth to create a shrine of his own for Logan in the Savage Land. The shrine was an adamantium chair that had the inscription: "Old Fart Logan."[90]
As one of his last requests, Wolverine arranged for Spider-Man to become a member of staff at the Jean Grey School, wanting the wall-crawler to investigate a suspected double agent.[91] Despite the initial hostility he faced from the rest of the team, Spider-Man soon exposed a plan by Mister Sinister to acquire genetic samples from the X-Men and create a new clone army, with Storm noting after Sinister's defeat that Spider-Man's unconventional attitude made him more like Wolverine than she had acknowledged.[92]
Black Widow tracked a knife covered in Logan's blood in the possession of A.I.M. to a research Facility in Moscow. Steve Rogers and Wade Wilson went to retrieve it in order to prevent A.I.M. from misusing Logan's DNA. Wilson was given the knife to do with it as he wanted, though Wilson had recently acquired an incubator that could create new bodies using a DNA sample, he deferred the decision to bring Logan back to life until he'd had more time to think on whether it would've been what Logan wanted.[93]
Laura carried on the mantle of the Wolverine in honor of Logan.[94]
When a Wolverine from a dystopian future became stranded on this past and tried to prevent his future to ever come to pass, Commander Steve Rogers and Kate Bishop took him to the shrine in Alberta to show him that their Wolverine had died, meaning that wasn't his past.[89]