Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013

We’re halfway through the Paul Cornell run – which is to say, we’re in the gap between Wolverine vol 5 and 6, and Wolverine no longer has his healing powers. Will things improve for him in 2014?

The Cornell stories don’t really fit very well with the rest of the line – they have Wolverine in a very shaken and traumatised state following the loss of his healing factor. Unfortunately, plenty of other stories acknowledge the loss of his healing powers while completely ignoring his mental state. So…

WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN vol 1 #41
by Jason Aaron, Pepe Larraz, Todd Nauck & Matt Milla
February 2014

The X-Men finally get around to firing Toad as the school janitor, because of his role in spying for the Hellfire Club. Wolverine is in grumpy hypocrite mode here, complaining that they were silly ever to think that the Toad could change.

X-MEN LEGACY vol 2 #22-23
#22 by Simon Spurrier, Khoi Pham & Rachelle Rosenberg
#23 by Simon Spurrier, Tan Eng Huat, Craig Yeung & José Villarrubia
January & February 2014

The X-Men show up to help Legion stop one of his own personalities from starting a nuclear war. Since it’s not their book, they get sidelined pretty early, but Legion gets a moment of vindication when Wolverine and Cyclops both look to him to take the lead. (The series concludes in issue #24 with Legion erasing himself, but the X-Men aren’t in that.)

AMAZING X-MEN vol 2 #1-2, #4-5
“The Quest for Nightcrawler”
by Jason Aaron, Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines & Marte Gracia
November 2013 to March 2014

Another year, another ongoing X-Men title launched with great fanfare before quickly fading into obscurity.

The Bamfs build a portal in the school basement, which yanks Wolverine and Northstar through it (after a weird fight with homicidal Red Bamfs). The portal leads to Heaven, currently under assault from the forces of the quasi-demon Azazel. After fighting Azazel’s pirate leader Captain Jack (implied to be Jack the Ripper), Wolverine spends some time in a frozen desert, then gets reunited with the X-Men and the late Nightcrawler for the final showdown with Azazel. Nightcrawler magically resurrects himself – the Bamfs merge to form a new body for him – and he and Azazel are transported to Earth, where Azazel is defeated.

In the epilogue, Logan tells a pensive Nightcrawler that everyone is delighted to have him back, but that he knows that walking away from paradise could not have been easy. Logan guesses that Nightcrawler has made a deal with the Bamfs for his resurrection, but Nightcrawler dodges the question; apparently, however, he has sold his soul.

AMAZING X-MEN vol 2 #6
“All in the Family”
by Jason Aaron, Cameron Stewart & Rachelle Rosenberg
April 2014

The X-Men gather at Harry’s Hideaway to celebrate Nightcrawler’s return; at Kurt’s insistence, Wolverine tolerates a delegation from Cyclops’ team.

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN vol 1 #24-26
by Dan Slott, Christos Gage and various artists
December 2013 to February 2014

Spider-Man (still a body-swapped Dr Octopus) has become the new Venom. The Avengers stop him from killing Blaze, and also fight Spider-Man’s henchmen the Spiderlings. Eventually Spider-Man rejects the symbiote. Later, the Avengers discover that Spider-Man has been deleting his medical records from their system. He refuses to undergo a psychic scan, and he quits the team.

ALL-NEW X-FACTOR #1
by Peter David, Carmine di Giandomenico & Lee Loughridge
January 2014

Wolverine reprimands Gambit for continuing to steal when he’s supposed to be a teacher now, setting him up to join the new X-Factor later in the issue. Oddly, Wolverine is the law-abiding one here, disapproving of Gambit stealing magical statues.

WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN vol 1 #42
by Jason Aaron and various artists
February 2014

This is the final issue of the Jason Aaron run.

The Jean Grey School holds its end of term festivities, and several of the kids graduate, including Quentin Quire. Logan tells him that he earned it, and that people will be even more scared of an adult Quentin. He also says that he put off growing up for most of his life, but now that he’s done it, he doesn’t want to go back – basically, Aaron restating the character arc on his way out.

The next morning, Logan is quietly pleased to realise that he went a whole day without using his claws at all.

SAVAGE WOLVERINE #17
“Wrath, conclusion”
by Richard Isanove
April 2014

This is a flashback arc, but the present-day epilogue has Logan visiting Sofia – a girl he knew in the 1930s – in her retirement home.

Flashbacks in Wolverine vol 6 #2-3 go here – they’re meant to take place “weeks” before the main story. Wolverine has been benched from the Avengers due to his power loss, and seeks advice from Spider-Man (still actually Dr Octopus). Wolverine is well aware that Spider-Man has undergone a drastic personality change but now sees it as a personal reinvention that seems to be going okay.

Wolverine catches up with Spider-Man during a fight with Goblin Nation. In this version, Wolverine is perpetually on edge without his healing factor, and visibly shaken by the sight of ordinary guns. At first, Spider-Man’s advice is just to say that they both work better alone anyway. But when Wolverine asks about Sabretooth, Spider-Man tries to be helpful. He says he understands how it feels to be obsessed with an arch-enemy, and that even though Wolverine claims he wants the X-Men to deal with Sabretooth, he won’t be able to resist the temptation to do it himself.

Wolverine gets called away to join the X-Men and Jubilee in a fight against some random anti-mutant robots. Jubilee, still a vampire at this point, is infuriated that Wolverine sees a normal life as some sort of punishment. Maria Hill shows up and takes Wolverine aside, offering him the chance to go undercover to try and take down Sabretooth. He refuses, and races off to join the robot fight – at which point he realises that he is out of his depth without his healing powers, and has to beat a humiliating retreat.

On returning to the Jean Grey School, he finds a new armoured costume left for him by Spider-Man. This becomes his costume for the rest of the year. It has artificial claws so that he can do Wolverine stuff without bleeding everywhere.

NIGHTCRAWLER vol 4 #1 and #3-4
by Chris Claremont, Todd Nauck & Rachelle Rosenberg
April to July 2014

Claremont does a better job of co-operating with Cornell’s status quo than most writers. In issue #1, Wolverine and Nightcrawler spar, and Cecilia has to patch up Wolverine’s hands after he uses his claws; she warns him that he needs to accept his new limits. In issue #3, Wolverine drinks beer with Nightcrawler and gives him a pep talk about embracing his return to life. The X-Men and their students then fight the Trimega robots (who are hunting for Amanda Sefton). The students here include Crosta and Scorpion Boy (Rico), characters from this book who Wolverine presumably met earlier when they joined the school.

MS MARVEL vol 3 #6-7
“Healing Factor”
by G Willow Wilson, Jacob Wyatt & Ian Herring
July & August 2014

A girl called Julie runs away from the Jean Grey School; Wolverine tails her to New Jersey, where he teams up with the new Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan) to rescue Julie from the Inventor (“Thomas Edison”). Rookie Kamala is ecstatic to work with an A-list superhero, much to Wolverine’s irritation. But without his healing powers, he needs her help, and she impresses him in the end.

After they rescue Julie, Wolverine tries to tell Ms Marvel to leave the Inventor to the professionals, but quickly relents and lets her deal with him. Kamala is happy with how the whole encounter went.

FANTASTIC FOUR vol 5 #2
“The Fall of the Fantastic Four, part 2”
by James Robinson, Leonard Kirk, Karl Kesel, Jesus Aburtov & Rachelle Rosenberg
March 2014

A cameo among the many heroes on the streets of New York fighting invading insectoid monsters. (These creatures are transformed citizens of Dimension F, created by a guy called the Quiet Man, but Wolverine doesn’t get involved in any of that.)

WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN vol 2 #1-6
“Tomorrow Never Learns”
by Jason Latour, Mahmud Asrar & Israel Silva
March to July 2014

The second volume of Wolverine and the X-Men is rather choppy, rather shorter, and rather less well remembered. With hindsight, it’s notable mainly for introducing Nature Girl (Lin Li), who Wolverine must meet some time before issue #1.

In issue #1, Wolverine tries to persuade Fantomex to become a teacher, but Fantomex is busy punishing himself in the World as penance for his activities with X-Force. So much for that plotline.

The main storyline gets under way with issue #2, as Edan Younge and his Phoenix Corporation mysteriously appear from nowhere as a fully-fledged corporation, calling for the world to reclaim the spark of the Phoenix and “rise”. Wolverine interprets this as an attempt to commercialise Jean Grey’s memory, and delivers an odd speech where he acknowledges that fighting on behalf of mutants might just be a way of validating his own aggression. But, he says, if mutants let people walk all over them, it’ll never stop. Of course, in the context of the schism, that’s meant to be Scott‘s approach, so it’s a weird angle to take.

Quentin Quire goes after the Phoenix Corporation on his own. Wolverine and Storm go after him, and fight the Corporation’s agent Faithful John (John Break-Sky), a time traveller from the Askani timeline. The rest of the story is, frankly, a confusing mess. As best as I can figure, Younge plans to somehow create a Phoenix-based cult, which will somehow liberate sparks of the Phoenix from within all things, which he will somehow use to give himself eternal life, using a magic knife that he has somehow obtained. For no readily apparent reason, the Phoenix Corporation also employs a lot of sexy nuns as henchmen.

Younge also believes that everything will be destroyed if Evan Sabah Nur grows to adulthood and challenges the Phoenix. Much of the pay-off involves Quentin investigating his own future, establishing that he doesn’t kill Evan, and then bringing down the Phoenix Corporation which… somehow… causes him to inherit all its assets and become a billionaire. There are some good ideas in here, but it’s desperately half-baked.

WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN vol 2 #7-9
“No Future?”
by Jason Latour and various artists
August & September 2014

Although it’s billed as a three-part story, these issues are more tenuously linked by a theme of Logan dwelling on his mortality. In issue #7, Logan tries to stop Melita Garner from publishing her biography of him. He claims that this is for her own good, because the book will draw the attention of his enemies. She argues that the book will remind the world of how much he still has to offer – and Logan’s lawyer Matt Murdock agrees – but Logan sticks to his guns. (Melita is back to working on the book in the closing issues of the series, after Logan has died.)

In issue #8, Logan and Ororo go on a dinner date in the World and, thanks to its time dilation effect, encounter the latest civilisation to have arisen there. Led by Azuth the Elder, this group is busy fighting the War King. Logan and Ororo help to vanquish the bad guys, then stick around for a whole year of subjective time, before finally returning to the real world to build the future. The War King is one of Azuth’s former trainees, making him a blatant analogue for Quentin Quire gone wrong.

In issue #9, Quentin holds his 17th birthday party at the Hellfire Club, with an X-Men cosplay theme. Quire is now the White King, and boy, that doesn’t come up often, does it? Logan goes to speak to Quentin, who is still sulking about the bleak future he saw in issue #6, and blames Wolverine for it. Quentin has Logan beaten up and thrown out of the building.

There are three more issues of this series, but Wolverine only appears in flashbacks, because he’s dead.

WOLVERINE vol 6 #1-4
“Rogue Logan”
by Paul Cornell, Ryan Stegman, Mark Morales & David Curiel
February to April 2014

The second year of Cornell’s run consists of a single overreaching storyline, with no interruptions.

As the arc opens, Wolverine is working alongside Lost Boy, Pinch and Fuel on behalf of their boss the Offer, a criminal with the power to always know what offer someone will find persuasive. (The Offer also has a guy called Heavy hanging around with him.) Offer’s plan is to use Wolverine to draw Sabretooth’s attention, and then get into a negotiation – thanks to his powers, Offer is convinced that he come out of this discussion with control of Sabretooth’s organisation. The Offer captures Monckton, a Daily Bugle journalist who was trying to expose his operation; Wolverine kills the guy, claiming that he couldn’t allow his new allies to be exposed, and that he now draws the line at killing bystanders.

The obvious implication is that Wolverine has had a breakdown, but we find out later on that he’s gone undercover at the request of Maria Hill, and that Monckton is an LMD. Wolverine is supposed to turn on the Offer and infiltrate Sabretooth‘s organisation, making Sabretooth think that Wolverine has embraced his values after all. Some flashbacks also show Wolverine burning his bridges with the X-Men before leaving, which again is all part of the cover. But Wolverine is genuinely attached to his new teammates, and starts a romance with Pinch (who is drawn fairly young, but is apparently meant to be older, given the age of her child). Wolverine agrees to get involved more directly in dealing with Sabretooth – he claims that his time with the group has given him his confidence back.

WOLVERINE vol 6 #5
“His Own Skin”
by Paul Cornell, Gerardo Sandoval & David Curiel
April 201

Lost Boy and Pinch take Logan to see tattooist Pablo, who has the mutant power to instinctively know what tattoo is best for someone (though not the reasons why). Pablo gives him a tattoo of a rose, obviously referencing Origin.

Logan then takes his colleagues to the Guernica bar, where he gets into a fight with Thor before beating a retreat. Logan admits that he did this deliberately to show what it has cost him to be his new team.

But Pinch starts to suspect that Logan might be a spy.

WOLVERINE vol 6 #6-7
“The Madripoor Job”
by Paul Cornell, Gerardo Sandoval & David Curiel
May 2014

A mysterious object shows up in Madripoor, and the Offer sends Wolverine and co to get it before Sabretooth does. Wolverine takes the opportunity to meet up with MI-13 – Pete Wisdom, the Black Knight, Excalibur (Faiza Hussain) and O (Oliver Orwell) – who know about Wolverine’s real mission. When Sabretooth shows up, Wolverine loses focus and winds up getting shot with a bunch of poison arrows. Pinch sees Faiza using her healing powers on Wolverine.

Soon after, a rather contrived sequence involves the mysterious object conjuring up Wolverine’s “opposite” to fight him – which, of course, is the persona he’s currently adopting with the Offer’s crew – putting matters beyond doubt. Pinch confronts him in front of the rest of the group, and he admits the truth, but insists that their relationship is real and that he was planning to find a way of rescuing his teammates. Predictably unimpressed, they accuse him (literally) of treating his supporting cast with disdain, and leave with the object. Wolverine is sad about losing his new friends but relieved that they escaped. Unfortunately, they haven’t – they get quickly captured by Sabretooth, who kills Fuel and reveals that he already has Pinch’s daughter Anne as a hostage.

WOLVERINE vol 6 #8-9
“Games of Deceit and Death”
by Paul Cornell, Kris Anka & David Curiel
June 2014

Wolverine trains with Iron First and Shang-Chi, and they discuss why he lost focus when Sabretooth showed up in the previous arc. Wolverine theorises that he wanted to take out Sabretooth himself rather than sticking to the plan, but was dithering because of his fear of death. They take him to the Temple of Death on Holiday (apparently intended as a magical adjunct to the real-life Itsukushima Shrine in Japan, where no births or deaths are allowed to happen).

Inside, Wolverine meets Death, who mockingly embraces him as a worshipper. When Wolverine insists that he isn’t, Death tells him that he is actually terrified of death, but also does stupid things – like fighting Sabretooth solo – because he’s so determined not to give in to that fear. Death also alleges that Wolverine invented his superhero persona when he lost his memories, and was always aware that he could never truly live up to it . Death then brings out the spirit of Rose, and Wolverine tells her that he hopes the tattoo will remind him both of her life and of his responsibility for her death, helping him come to terms with what he has done. It’s a brave effort to try and make Origin feel more fundamental to the character.

The ghost of Fuel also appears, to warn Wolverine that the rest of the team have fallen into the hands of Sabretooth. Finally, Death spells out the moral: Wolverine will have to reinvent himself so that every fight will call for courage in a way that it rarely did in the past.

WOLVERINE vol 6 #10-12
“The Last Wolverine Story”
by Paul Cornell, Pete Woods & David Curiel
July & August 2014

Wolverine returns to the X-Men and explains what he was up to. He also tells Storm about Pinch, though Storm promptly points out that “[w]e never had any sort of commitment”. Storm tells him that they’ll talk about it later, and welcomes him back.

Meanwhile, Sabretooth’s big plan is to use the mysterious object to swap New York for an alternate version based on savagery – entirely at odds with his recent suit-wearing crimelord persona. Wolverine teams up with Thor,  the Guernica regulars and S.H.I.E.L.D. to locate Sabretooth. Wolverine rescues Lost Boy and Pinch and, unlike in Madripoor, has the discipline to stick with his plan and work with his allies. In a reprise of vol 5, Wolverine confronts Sabretooth in a shopping mall – again, this time he keeps his focus on getting the innocents to safety, and it’s not his fault that he winds up separated from his allies at the finale. Wolverine delivers a speech telling Sabretooth that he’s the one who’s lost touch with who he really is. But when challenged by Sabretooth, Wolverine casts aside his armour and uses his real claws for a final battle – and instantly regrets it. However, he does win the fight, and passes up the opportunity to kill Sabretooth, much to Death’s annoyance.

In the epilogue, Pinch says goodbye to Logan, and Kitty comes to visit. The series ends with Logan asking Kitty to call him James, the idea presumably being that he has come to terms with his past.

The first year of Cornell’s run has the stronger art, but it’s still a strong two-year sequence which tries to define Wolverine around his quest to construct his own identity. The Wolverine ongoing series ends here, and it won’t return until the Krakoan era. But we have a little bit more to cover before we reach the end of the road.

THUNDERBOLTS vol 2 #27-28
“The Punisher vs the Thunderbolts, parts 1-2”
by Ben Acker, Ben Blacker, Carlo Barberi, Carlos Cuevas & Israel Silva
June & July 2014

Cameos: The Avengers fight a giant monster.

DEADPOOL vol 5 #27, second story
“Operation Ballerina Drop”
by Gerry Duggan, Scott Koblish & Val Staples
April 2014

Logan is among the guests at Deadpool’s bachelor party. Hit-Monkey is also there.

DEADPOOL vol 5 #27
“The Wedding of Deadpool”
By Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan, Mike Hawthorn & Jordie Bellaire
April 2014

Logan attends the wedding of Deadpool and Shiklah. Other guests include Necromancer (Michael Hawthorne), Emily Preston, Terry Preston Sr, Terry Preston Jr and the Ruler of the Earth.

AVENGERS WORLD #1, #3, #7, #10 and #14
by Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer, Stefano Caselli, Marco Checchetto, Frank Martin & Andres Mossa
January to October 2014

This storyline involves various chaotic events taking place globally; Wolverine spends the whole arc in Madripoor with Black Widow and Falcon, generally helping to keep order. They meet the Madragon (a giant dragon with the island of Madripoor sitting on its back), and Director Xian Zheng of S.P.E.A.R., the Chinese answer to S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s all fairly marginal to the plot.

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN vol 1 #30-31
“Goblin Nation, parts 4-5”
by Dan Slott, Christos Gage, Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell, Tery Pallot & Antonio Fabela
March & April 2014

This is the climax of the Superior Spider-Man storyline. Goblin Nation terrorises New York, and Mayor J Jonah Jameson unleashes the Goblin Slayer robots. The Avengers help to deal with them. Wolverine meets Wraith (Yuri Watanabe), and he’s also present as Spider-Man – Peter Parker again – teams with Earth-928 Spider-Man (Miguel O’Hara) against the Goblin Knight (Phil Urich).

AMAZING X-MEN vol 2 #7
“No Goats, No Glory”
by Kathryn Immonen, Paco Medina, Juan Vlasco & Rachelle Rosenberg
May 2014

This is a Spider-Man, Iceman and Firestar story. Wolverine has a brief cameo at the end when they return to the school.

AMAZING X-MEN ANNUAL #1
“Goddess”
by Monty Nero, Salvador Larroca, Juan Vlasco & Sonia Oback
June 2014

New villain Meruda lures Storm to Kenya by attacking her mother’s tribe, all as part of a scheme to magically summon Gawa, Lord of the Undead, by harnessing the spirit of Storm’s cousin Abuya. Storm defeats him, and the rest of the X-Men are there too.

AMAZING X-MEN ANNUAL #1, second story
“Art History”
by Marguerite Bennett & Juan Doe
June 2014

More of a feature than a story, this consists of a series of drawings or scrapbooks kept by various characters, all relating their dealings with Firestar. Wolverine has a couple of cameos.

AMAZING X-MEN vol 2 #8-12
“World War Wendigo!”
#8 by Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, Ed McGuinness, Mark Farmer & Rachelle Rosenberg
#9-12 by Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, Carlo Barberi, Rachelle Rosenberg and various
June to October 2014

A Canadian murderer disposes of a body in a meat production line, accidentally turning a whole town of people in Wendigos when they eat human flesh and trigger the curse. Tanaraq tries to take advantage of the situation to conquer the world. The X-Men and Alpha Flight sort it all out. Wolverine gets turned into a Wendigo halfway through part 2 and pretty much drops out of the plot after that.

X-FORCE vol 4 #2
by Simon Spurrier & Rock-He Kim
March 2014

A cameo: Cable updates Wolverine and Storm on his recent rescue of MeMe (who eventually turns out to be a disguised Hope Summers).

ORIGINAL SIN
8-issue miniseries
by Jason Aaron, Mike Deodato & Frank Martin
May to September 2014

One of those sprawling crossovers where Wolverine appears prominently but nothing terribly important happens to him. Nick Fury’s Infinity Formula has finally run out, and he’s ageing rapidly. He starts testing various heroes to find one who can replace him as “the Man on the Wall”, who secretly defends Earth from extraterritorial threats. Uatu the Watcher forces Fury to kill him, for reasons which needn’t concern us. Meanwhile, the Watcher’s eyes are stolen, and his alien technology is ransacked. The Avengers follow the trail to Dr Midas, Exterminatrix (Oubliette Midas) and some Mindless Ones, before the Orb emerges with one of the eyes. He uses it to make everyone aware of various secrets that had previously only been known to the Watcher. If Wolverine learns anything here, it’s apparently not worth mentioning.

A version of this scene also appears in Amazing Spider-Man vol 3 #4 and in a flashback in Original Sins #4. Yes, somebody actually thought it was a good idea to publish comics called Original Sin and Original Sins at the same time.

All this eventually leads everyone to the moon where they confront Fury; this also appears to be the first time Wolverine crosses paths with Rocket Raccoon. Fury is apparently killed in a huge explosion, and the Avengers are left none the wiser about why any of it matters. (In fact,  Fury survives as the Watcher’s replacement, the Unseen.)

X-MEN: NO MORE HUMANS
by Mike Carey, Salvador Larroca & Justin Ponsor
May 2014

This is a hardback graphic novel. All the normal humans in the world suddenly disappear, and all the X-Men teams join forces to investigate. The last remaining human, Dr Gregory Sale, turns out to bait to lure the X-Men in, but they escape the booby trap, and learn that Raze is the villain behind it all. A portal opens at the school and refugee mutants from alternate worlds pour through in search of sanctuary. Raze plans to repopulate the world with these mutants, and has formed a new Brotherhood of Mutants comprising alt versions of Mastermind, Blob, Lorelei, the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Unus, the Vanisher, Phantazia, Siena Blaze, Pyro, Avalanche, the Toad, Peepers and Phoenix, plus the mainstream Mystique. Wolverine is decidedly unimpressed that Cyclops seems to accept this state of affairs as a fait accompli, but some of the other X-Men also waver. Ultimately, Raze loses control of the alt-Phoenix, who teams with Marvel Girl to hit the cosmic reset button and banish Raze.

Magneto theorises that Raze’s motivation in all this is ultimately to force a conflict with his father Wolverine, but that never really plays into anything. This story was trying to set Raze up as a major X-Men villain, and clearly that didn’t stick.

UNCANNY X-MEN vol 3 #24
by Brian Michael Bendis & Kris Anka
July 2014

The X-Men belatedly gather for the reading of Professor X’s will; conveniently, it turns out that Wolverine signed the school back to Professor X at some point. Ostensibly this is an Original Sin tie-in, but that seems to be on the purely thematic basis that it involves some secrets being revealed. This is a very weird issue – it claims that only some of the X-Men at the school knew the location of Scott’s team, with Wolverine not among them (which contradicts other stories); and Xavier’s will opens by declaring that he is married to Mystique (which everyone has politely agreed to ignore). Anyway, it leads into a storyline where Wolverine doesn’t appear.

STORM vol 3 #2
by Greg Pak, Victor Ibañez & Ruth Redmond
August 2014

Logan appears with Ororo at the start and end of the issue, as her love interest. He’s mainly a sounding board.

WOLVERINE ANNUAL vol 3 #1
“Wolf and Cub”
by Elliott Kalan, Jonathan Marks & Jose Villarrubia
August 2014

To check that she can take care of herself after he’s gone, Logan takes Jubilee on a trip to the wilderness, to meet the descendants of the wolf pack that he ran with after Origin. Jubilee insists on bringing Shogo with him. Two backpackers, Kim Voight and Brad Giardi, think the Shogo is in danger and try to step in. When Logan intervenes to defend the wolves, they shoot him and leave with Shogo; Logan helps Jubilee track them until she can recover Shogo herself. It’s a passing-the-torch scene, and quite a good issue. Jubilee gets to point out that she lost her powers too after M-Day, and mocks Wolverine’s insistence that he’s really just worried about the people he’ll leave behind, honest. (“Awww, who’s a sentimental wittle mutant murder machine?”)

ELEKTRA: BLACK, WHITE & BLOOD #2
“Cut and Run”
by Peter David, Greg Land & Jay Leisten
February 2022

In Madripoor, Logan (as Patch) tells Elektra that their mutual friend Joon has gone missing after falling in with assassin Cesare; he can’t get involved himself because Cesare has a deal with Tyger Tiger, so he asks Elektra to deal with it.

UNCANNY AVENGERS vol 1 #23
“Let’s Get Well”
by Rick Remender, Sanford Greene & Dean White
August 2014

Wolverine is among the Avengers present when Havok, Sunfire and Rogue are finally released from the medical chambers where they’ve been in suspended animation since the last arc.

UNCANNY AVENGERS vol 1 #24
“Far From Refuge”
by Rick Remender, Salvador Larroca & Dean White
September 2014

Wolverine, Rogue and the Scarlet Witch talk about recent events. Wolverine still feels that he is responsible for the birth of the Apocalypse Twins, and that he contributed to the Avengers Unity Squad nearly falling apart – he implores the two women to reconcile and set an example. Then he declares that he’s going to give up killing, just as soon as he’s killed the Red Skull. He ends his appearances in this book by bidding Rogue farewell, and casually assuring her that he’ll be back in the morning.

DEATH OF WOLVERINE
4-issue miniseries
by Charles Soule, Steve McNiven, Jay Leisten & Justin Ponsor
September & October 2014

This miniseries is basically a farewell tour in which Charles Soule revisits some iconic locations and tries to bring some thematic closure to Logan’s character. It doesn’t really work.

In issue #1, Reed Richard warns Logan that without his healing factor he is at risk of infection every time he uses his claws, and implores him to stop it. Logan goes to hide out in a cabin in British Columbia, where he comes under attack from a series of mostly low-rent villains trying to claim a bounty on his head. Eventually, Nuke reveals that the contract was placed by Viper.

So, in issue #2, Logan heads for Madripoor and manages to get himself a meeting with Viper by posing as an arms dealer and fooling her representative Koro. (For some unfathomable reason, random guests at the Princess Bar in this story include Mallory Book, a supporting character from She-Hulk.) Viper turns out to be sub-contracting for some other villain, and then tries to make Wolverine fight a chained and poisoned Sabretooth (who has a surprisingly marginal role in this whole series). Lady Deathstrike steps in to save Wolverine, because the same contract has been placed on her, and she’s hoping to team up with him – but she abandons that idea as soon as she finds out that he’s lost his powers. Kitty Pryde then shows up to drive her away.

Having learned from Deathstrike that Ogun has something to do with it, Logan and Kitty head to Japan for issue #3, where Ogun possesses first Kitty, then some poor random bystander. Ogun has also captured and killed Cyber, who was also on the list (which seems to extend to anyone with Weapon X or adamantium connections). Logan learns that Abraham Cornelius is ultimately behind the contracts, and reluctantly lets Ogun go in exchange for Ogun not killing his host.

Finally, in issue #4, Logan drives to Cornelius’s facility in Paradise Valley, staffed by what’s later identified as the Arcadia Group. Cornelius basically claims to be creating new super-soldiers in order to atone for his involvement in creating Wolverine – not because of the abuse of Wolverine himself, but because his sole achievement was “helping to make a killer unkillable”. This has very little to do with any previous version of the Cornelius character, where he’s generally depicted as at least vaguely conflicted about what he’s doing. So that doesn’t exactly help the sense of call-back that the book is going for.

What Cornelius actually wants to do is to harness Logan’s healing factor so that his new test subjects can survive the adamantium bonding experience, but of course Logan doesn’t have it any more. So Cornelius sets his one semi-successful subject, Major Sharp, on Logan, and makes a break for it. Logan defeats Sharp, but Cornelius has already set the adamantium bonding process in motion for three hapless subjects. So, in a spectacularly contrived sequence, Logan claws open the vat, gets covered in molten adamantium, and somehow manages to stagger after Cornelius, catch up with him, kill him, and kneel down to die as the metal hardens around him. It’s obviously trying to be moving, but it’s just too ridiculous for that.

But wait! Before we sign off, its time for Weekend at Wolvie’s.

• In Death of Wolverine: The Weapon X Program #1, the Logan statue is still sitting there as Major Sharp escapes the facility himself, alongside Harold Stanch, Meifeng, Daniel Silva and Skel (Simpson).
• In Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #7, the statue appears in the final panel, just sitting there.
• Continuing into 2015, in Wolverines #1, Sharp and his group – now going by Shogun (Sharp), Neuro (Stanch), Endo (Meieng), Junk (Silva) and Skel – return to the facility along with Sabretooth, Mystique, Daken, X-23 and Lady Deathstrike, in an attempt to retrieve the Wolverine statue. Shogun and co hope it can be used to defuse a booby trap which has been inserted in their DNA. Daken, in this version, is surprisingly emphatic that the statue has to be treated with respect. But Mr Sinister shows up, tears off Daken’s arm, and escapes with the arm and the statue.
• In Wolverines #2 and #4-6, Sinister experiments on the statue, attempting to break into it so that he can resurrect Wolverine for some reason or other. Shogun and co (including new ally Fantomelle) try to steal it back. Neither side gets it, because the X-Men show up and retrieve it. Sinister shrugs his shoulders when the X-Men show up, resigning himself to the fact that they’ll never believe he was trying to save Wolverine.
• In Wolverines #20, a shadowy thing which is apparently Wolverine’s spirit appears right at the end of the issue, when Mystique has the opportunity to bring him back to life, but passes it up. The series then ends unresolved because Secret Wars is happening the next month.
• In Nightcrawler vol 4 #10, Wolverine appears briefly as a ghost alongside Jean Grey; it’s easily dismissed as a vision.
• In a flashback in Hunt for Wolverine #1, the X-Men place the statue in a tomb in a remote cabin in Alberta. But then they think better of the idea of leaving Logan on display, and Kitty phases his body out of the adamantium. Ludicrously, even though he had no healing factor, being covered in molten metal seems to have done little visible damage to him. Anyway, the X-Men then check the body to make sure it’s definitely dead, and bury him in a secret grave – where he will remain for the foreseeable future.

And that’s it. Wolverine is now dead until Return of Wolverine in 2018, at which point he’ll be revived in another Charles Soule story that everyone will quickly pretend never happened. It was always inevitable that this death would be reversed – it’s surprising it lasted as long as it did, even with an alt-Wolverine running around in Old Man Logan. But Soule’s storyline really doesn’t function as a proper send-off for the character, and suffers especially by comparison with Cornell’s two-year storyline, which was an infinitely better exploration of the character themes. Death of Wolverine at least gestures in the right directions, even if it doesn’t land. The Wolverines material that follows it is simply a waste of time.

We’ll be taking a break at this point, and I may go back and sort out some updates for earlier chapters before picking up with Return of Wolverine and the Rosenberg run – it seems a little early to be doing retrospective on the Krakoan era, but then again, give it a few months…