Wolverine may be dead, but over at Marvel Comics, there’s also never been more iterations of the character running around at the same time. The beloved X-Man was killed off back in early 2015 in the Death of Wolverine mini-series from Charles Soule and Steve McNiven. After losing his mutant healing factor, he gets encased in adamantium, and that was the end of Wolvie. R.I.P. James “Logan” Howlett.
But since then, we’ve had two more Wolverines running around the Marvel Universe instead of one. And now we’ve added even one more…plus, the return of the original Wolverine might be imminent as well! Let’s run down all the feral clawed mutants bearing the name/DNA of Logan, starting with the latest addition, which we’ve just learned about thanks to the folks over at Comic Book.
Ultimate Universe Wolverine
The big X-Men ResurrXion continues this week with the release of X-Men Blue #1, written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by Jorge Molina, which features the original five time-displaced X-Men coming under the guidance of the former enemy Magneto. However, this issue also includes a back-up story drawn by Matteo Bufagni that may have introduced another new (maybe not so new?) Wolverine to the Marvel universe. You can see his big entrance down below:
So it looks just like the Wolverine we know, only blonde? Actually, as the folks at Comic Book have pointed out, this character is likely Jimmy Hudson, the son of the Wolverine in the Ultimate Marvel Universe. In the Ultimate Marvel Earth, Logan found out he had a son, and trusted the boy to the care of an old war buddy. Jimmy found out about his true parentage when that universe’s Kitty Pryde brought him a message from Logan after his father’s death. It was also Kitty who clued Jimmy in on the fact that he very likely inherited his father’s mutant gifts.
The Ultimate Universe went bye-bye during Marvel’s big Secret Wars event, but there were survivors from that universe, most notably Spider-Man Miles Morales. Now it looks like Jimmy Hudson is another survivor, and he’s been hanging out in the woods since the end of Secret Wars. Previews for future issues of X-Men: Blue show a clawed Wolverine character joining the team, so we’re can assume that it’ll be none other than Jimmy Hudson.
Old Man Logan
If Jimmy Hudson does join the X-Men Blue team, then he won’t be the only universe-displaced member of the family on an X-Men team. That’s because Old Man Logan, the grumpy and grizzled version of Wolverine from an alternate future, is also now in the mainstream Marvel Universe. His universe was also destroyed in the Secret Wars event, so he’s been stuck in the mainstream Marvel Earth ever since.
He currently stars in his own book, appropriately enough titled Old Man Logan, and is a a member of the X-Men: Gold team. He refuses to go by the name Wolverine, having given up the name when he was tricked into killing his X-Men teammates in his own timeline. But regardless of the lack of codename and costume, he’s very much the Logan we all know and love, just with more white hair and an even worse attitude.
Wolverine/X-23
If old geezer version of Logan doesn’t want to go by Wolverine, well that’s just fine, because his daughter/clone Laura Kinney has taken up the mantle proudly in the pages of All-New Wolverine. For years, the character went by the name X-23, after the experiment that created her. A lot of her origin story was chronicled recently — and pretty accurately to the comics — in the movie Logan.
After her father died, she took on the name and costume of Wolverine, and was a member in good standing of the All-New X-Men cast. She now headlines her own title, and although she’s not currently part of any of X-Men teams, don’t expect that to last too long, especially given her new found movie stardom.
Classic Wolverine
But wait! There might be yet another Wolverine running around soon in the Marvel universe — the original! Yeah, we know he’s dead, but c’mon…this is comics. You knew he’d be back sooner or later. Recently, Marvel announced a new series called Generations, which would team up legacy heroes with their counterparts. Among the characters in the Alex Ross teaser image are Laura Kinney Wolverine, and the old school, yellow-costumed Logan version of Wolverine.
Marvel has promised this is not a time travel scenario or anything like that, which means the original Wolverine will soon be back. But will he stick around this time? Who know, with three other Wolvies in various comics right now, he might not need to. But it would be crazy if Marvel went from one dead Wolverine to four living ones in a single universe.
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What do you think of all these Wolverines popping their claws across the Marvel universe? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.
Images: Marvel Comics
