Wolverine

**James Howlett** (codename **Wolverine**) is a member of the X-Men.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

Nick Fury's intel classified him as **Power Level 9**, while the O\*N\*E classified him as a **Severe Threat**.

**Enhanced Mutant Physiology:** Wolverine is a mutant who had been given an unbreakable skeleton by the Weapon X Program and augmented by Apocalypse.

* ***Regenerative Healing Factor:*** Wolverine's primary mutant power is his accelerated healing process that enabled him to regenerate damaged or destroyed tissue with far greater efficiency than an ordinary human. He can regenerate greatly damaged or destroyed tissue within a few seconds. Wolverine's accelerated healing powers have been commonly referred to as his mutant healing factor. The full extent and speed of Wolverine's healing factor isn't known. He has been shown to fully heal from numerous gunshot wounds, severe burns covering most of his body, and regenerate missing eyes within a matter of seconds. Among the more extreme depictions of his accelerated healing factor involves him having his skin, muscles, and internal organs incinerated from his skeleton only to fully regenerate the tissue within minutes. He can simply regenerate missing limbs or organs in a matter of hours. Adamantium played a crucial role in the speed of Wolverine's healing as well because of the fact that it produced a poison that his immune system fought off regularly. It is said that without the adamantium, his healing rate would increase. This power even amends psychological wounds inflicted as a result of traumatic experiences; however, Wolverine's healing powers forces his mind to suppress the memories, sometimes resulting in amnesia. Wolverine sometimes calls this his mental scar tissue. Wolverine's healing factor has cured him from the mystical curse of the Werewolf after he had been bitten and turned into a werewolf, and from vampirism; though it should be noted that the time it took to cure the Werewolf curse was longer than the time it took to cure him from vampirism, when he was infected with vampirism he had also been infected with nanites to temporarily deactivate his healing factor and use him as a 'booby-trap' on the vampires. Wolverine's healing also provides him with an extended lifespan by slowing the effects of the aging process. He retains the health, appearance, and physical vitality of a man in the physical prime of his life, despite being well over 100 years of age.. After his apparent resurrection, it seems he has regained his healing factor.
* ***Superhuman Strength:*** His natural strength is augmented by the demand placed on his musculature due to the presence of over 50kg/100 pounds of adamantium bonded to his skeleton, which also removes the natural limitations of the human skeletal structure by allowing him to lift weights that would damage a human skeleton. Wolverine has been depicted with sufficient strength to break steel chains, support the weight of a dozen men with one arm, and lift the 955-pound Ursa Major over his head before tossing him across a room.
* ***Superhuman Speed:*** Wolverine is able to move at low level superhuman speeds. He has attacked faster than the eye could follow and even Spider-Man briefly thought Wolverine was faster than he was in their first fight. His combat speed seems to have been more enhanced than anything else, as he has frequently kept up with Spider-Man in combat, and blitzed people before they pull their trigger fingers.
* ***Superhuman Durability:*** Wolverine's bones and muscles are harder and denser than that of an ordinary human. Due to his healing factor and adamantium skeleton, he can virtually heal from any injuries that result in massive tissue damage or loss such as multiple gunshots wounds, slashes, puncture wounds, blunt force trauma, etc.
* ***Superhuman Stamina:*** Wolverine's healing factor grants him high resistance against lactic acid and other fatigue toxins generated by his muscles during physical activity. He is able to physically exert himself at peak capacity for at least 24 hours before the build up of fatigue toxins began to impair him. His lung capacity is at the superhuman level enabling him to hold his breath for excess 7 minutes underwater and on multiple occasions he was able to fight against the Hulk underwater for long periods of time.
* ***Superhuman Reflexes:*** Wolverine's reflexes are similarly enhanced, they are also superior to those possessed by the finest human specimens. His reflexes are comparable to that of Captain America, due to his superhumanly acute senses. He is able to dodge from multiple gunmen at close-range, though he relied mostly on his healing factor. On several occasions, he was able to dodge Cyclops' optic blasts with ease.
* ***Superhuman Agility:*** Wolverine's agility, balance and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels far beyond the natural physical limits and capabilities of the finest human specimen. Wolverine's agility is sufficient to allow him to dodge multiple bullets. Other times, he is able to jump nearly 30 ft high without a running start.
* ***Insulated Weather Adaptation:*** Wolverine's body is highly resistant to certain elemental extremes, particularly cold, to the extent that he could sleep nude in subarctic conditions with no apparent injury.
* ***Animal Empathy:*** Wolverine has the ability to sense the emotional state of animals on a basic level such as fear, anger, happiness or pain. He can even communicate with them to make the animal aware of his actions and or his intent.
* ***Contaminant Immunity:*** Wolverine's natural healing also affords him the virtual immunity to poisons, viruses, diseases, and most drugs. For example, it is extremely difficult for him to become intoxicated from alcohol. S.H.I.E.L.D. once managed to keep Wolverine anesthetized by constantly pumping eighty milliliters of anesthetic a minute into his system.
* ***Decelerated Aging:*** In addition, Wolverine's healing factor provides him with an extended lifespan by slowing the effects of the aging process; Wolverine was born sometime during the late 19th Century. Although well over 100 years of age, Wolverine retains the health, appearance and physical vitality of a man in the physical prime of his life.
* ***Telepathic Resistance:*** Due to a combination of his healing factor and psi-shields implanted by Professor Charles Xavier, Wolverine's mind is highly resistant to telepathic assault and probing.
* ***Superhumanly Acute Senses:*** Wolverine possesses superhumanly acute senses that are comparable to those of certain animals. He can see at far greater distances, with perfect clarity, than an ordinary human. He retains this same level of clarity even in near total darkness and complete darkness. His hearing is enhanced in a similar manner, allowing him to detect sounds ordinary humans cannot hear at a greater distance, enough to hear a teardrop in another room that has thick walls with enough focus. He is able to recognize people and objects by scent, even if they are well hidden. He can track a target by scent, even if the scent has been greatly eroded by time and weather factors, with an extraordinary degree of success. Wolverine can also use his keen sense of smell to detect lies due to chemical changes within a person's scent. These senses stems from, at least partially, his constant cellular regeneration, as well as his enhanced physical capabilities.
* ***Retractable Bone Claws:*** Wolverine's skeleton includes six retractable 12-inch long bone claws, three in each arm, that are housed beneath the skin and muscle of his forearms. Wolverine could, at will, release these slightly curved claws through his skin between the knuckles on each hand. The skin between the knuckles tears and bleeds, but the blood loss is quickly halted by his healing factor. Wolverine can unsheathe any number of his claws at once, although he needs to keep his wrists straight at the moment his claws pass from his forearms into his hands. When unsheathed, the claws are entirely within his forearms, allowing him to bend his wrists when they are extended. The claws are made of bone, unlike the claws of normal mammals which are made of keratin, and were originally believed to be bionic adamantium implants. Like his son Daken, the bone claws are sharp and dense enough to slice through substances as durable as metals, wood, and stone.

**Adamantium Poisoning Immunity:** After having his healing factor stripped by a virus, Beast synthesized a drug to counteract the adamantium poisoning in Logan's system to keep him from dying. It is unknown if this effect has been retained after Wolverine was resurrected.

### Abilities

* **Master Tactician**: Though seemingly brutish, Wolverine is highly intelligent. When Forge monitored Wolverine's vitals during a Danger Room training session, he reported Logan's physical and mental state as "equivalent to an Olympic-level gymnast performing a Gold-medal-winning routine whilst simultaneously beating four chess computers in his head", which gives something of an idea of the level of sophistication and tactical processing Logan was capable of utilizing while in combat. He remembered Ogun teaching him Sun Tzu's *The Art of War*.
* **Master Martial Artist:** Due to his extensive training as a soldier, a CIA operative, a samurai and a member of the X-Men, Logan is an exceptional martial artist, with expertise in Japanese martial arts, and has mastered 15 forms of martial arts, including Israeli Special Forces Training. His extraordinary hand-to-hand combat ability made him one of the finest combatants on Earth, as he was able to keep up with both the Black Panther and the Iron Fist, both expert martial artists. During his battles with Sabretooth, he used the combination of his fighting skills and intelligence to easily defeat him. He has also defeated various hand-to-hand experts without using his claws. He even has taught the Black Widow, Rogue, Storm, Colossus, Primal, Sunspot, Armor, Jubilee, and Shadowcat in hand-to-hand combat.
* **Expert Marksman:** He is an expert marksman skilled in throwing weapons and firearms, but operated more efficiently without them.
* **Master Swordsman:** Logan is proficient in Japanese sword fighting, having studied under Ogun and the Silver Samurai. He was further taught by Silver Samurai on the use of the Muramasa Blade after his first fight with Romulus.
* **Expert Acrobat:** He is skilled in gymnastics, acrobatics and aerials, but is not on the same scale as other fighters such as Captain America and Daredevil.
* **Master Advanced Covert Ops:** Due to his experience traveling the world and working for various government agencies, Wolverine is also a trained expert in multiple types of weapons, vehicles, computer systems, explosives, and assassination techniques. In the Weapon X comic he said: *I can put six shots into a quarter... an' get change for the gum-machine.*
* **Skilled Mechanic:** Along with Nightcrawler, Wolverine is also been the mechanic of the X-Men's Blackbird jet for a long time.
* **Multilingual:** A polyglot; Wolverine is fluent in many languages including English, Arabic, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Spanish; he had some knowledge of French, German, Thai, Vietnamese, Farsi and Portuguese. Ogun taught him Japanese ideograms.
* With his increased lifespan and journeys across the globe, he has been able to amass an intimate knowledge of many foreign customs and cultures. Once he saw a kabuki play of *The 47 Ronin* (*Genroku Chūshingura*) and remarked how it was one of the finest kabuki troupes he had seen. His exploits have further endowed him with vast awareness of literature and philosophy.
* **Strength**: As a result of Wolverine's constant cellular regeneration and the additional weight and tensile strength of his skeleton, he had some degree of superhuman strength, enabling him to press somewhere in excess of 800 lbs, but not more than 2 tons, and he is able to place this strength in his strikes. The latest official handbook entry says that Wolverine is capable of lifting in excess of 800 lbs for brief periods due to his adamantium skeleton.

### Weaknesses

* **Sensory Overload:** Wolverine's only other "weakness" was the fact that his heightened senses could be taken advantage of. For instance, when he was fighting the Hulk, he was nearly killed by the Hulk's thunder claps due to his heightened sense of hearing.
* **Decapitation/Severe Spinal Damage:** Professor X once stated that Wolverine could be killed if his head became separated from his body, causing his brain to be unable to send signals to the section(s) of his body that needs healing. Because of the addition of his adamantium-laced skeleton and the facts that he can fully heal his own body from a single drop of blood, fully heal from a nuclear explosion with nothing but his adamantium skeleton remaining, and sometimes outright brush off the effects of one.
* **Adamantium Allotropes:** Adamantium has thirteen different allotropes (variants) that are very unstable compared to adamantium because of their different molecular configurations and thus physical properties. Some have caused Wolverine to become dizzy or weak just by being in close contact with these adamantium specimens.
* **Drowning:** Of the few ways to kill Wolverine, given drowning cuts the brain's oxygen supply. He has admitted that being kept underwater can kill him, with the healing factor only prolonging the agony. Wolverine added that he is not fond of being on water, as the the addition of nearly 100 pounds of adamantium to his body reduced his buoyancy.