Wolverine holds an interesting place in the hierarchy of Marvel. The ol’ Canucklehead is easily one of the most popular characters at the company, whether it be in comics or on the big screen, as proven by 2024’s blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine. An argument can made that there are only two characters for sure more popular than him, those being Spider-Man and Batman, showing just how the character has risen. In fact, I would honestly say that if there’s anyone who is Marvel’s Batman, it’s Wolverine. Batman appears in numerous books per year and is often used as an anchor to bring fans into the DC Multiverse. Wolverine is a character who can play the same kind of role in the Marvel Universe as Batman does in his.
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Marvel proved this is in 2024. That was Wolverine’s 50th anniversary year and the publisher went all out to make it special for readers. We got “Sabretooth War” to end the Krakoa Era Wolverine (Vol. 7), the excellent Deadpool/Wolverine: WWIII, two Chris Claremont-written Wolverine projects (Wolverine: Madripoor Knights and Wolverine: Deep Cut) an origin miniseries (Life of Wolverine), and the Jonathan Hickman/Greg Capullo miniseries Wolverine: Revenge. The publisher rounded out the year with Wolverine (Vol. 8), and ended with the introduction of Ultimate Wolverine in Ultimate Universe: One Year In. Those last two are where the problems start, as they would be the place where Marvel fumbled a character that could be doing Batman numbers.
2025 Couldn’t Sustain Wolverine’s 2024 Success
Wolverine (Vol. 8)’s problems began from the start, and they didn’t get better in 2025. Writer Saladin Ahmed is obviously a fan of the character, but has failed completely at telling good stories with the character. It feels like a throwback for the character, but not in a good way. The sad part is all of the elements are there; Ahmed writes a pretty good Wolverine, as far as his individual voice goes, he gives readers action-packed stories, and so far the art by Martin Coccolo has been mostly good (you can tell when he’s close to deadline on issues, though), but the book just isn’t selling as well as before, nor is it actually connecting with Wolverine fans. Even the Wolverine subreddit is unhappy with it, which really says it all.
Meanwhile, Ultimate Wolverine has floundered after a promising start. Ultimate Wolverine is better than Wolverine, but it’s not by much honestly. This version of the character is following the same path that Wolverine has walked in numerous comics, being used as an assassin by the bad guys, fighting his mental programming, and then basically becoming the same kind of hero he is in the 616 universe. Writer Chris Condon has been playing it extremely safe with the character, and that has become a problem with most readers. While the art is fantastic (Alessandro Cappuccio is the book’s main artist, with Derek Lins and Domenico Carbone), the book is disappointing a lot of fans.
The year hasn’t been all bad, though. Deadpool/Wolverine, by Benjamin Percy, Josh Cassara, and Robert Gill, was awesome, with Percy giving readers an awesome, ’90s-inflected story. Wolverine (Vol. 8) #10 gave readers a battle between the diminutive mutant and Sabretooth that counts among Wolverine’s most brutal fights. Spider-Man/Wolverine isn’t perfect, but it’s been pretty great, with few major complaints about it and some cool moments, all rendered by Kaare Andrews’ unique pencils. Marvel tried to keep pushing Wolverine series in 2025, but the two main books are the problem.
The character had such an amazing year in 2024, and that’s made 2025’s output look even worse. Wolverine has one of the richest histories in Marvel, and they were able to play that off perfectly for his 50th anniversary. It was the proof of concept that Wolverine could easily be Marvel’s Batman. All of those miniseries sold fairly well, and readers were extremely excited the whole year. There was a plethora of Logan and it did its job. However, it feels like 2025 cooled the character off almost completely, and Marvel needs to do something about that if they want to compete with the Dark Knight’s sales supremacy.
Wolverine’s Problems Have Solutions
2024 was an amazing year to be a Wolverine fan, and most of us figured that 2025 would be more of the same. While Marvel definitely put out enough Wolverine books, most of them were of inferior quality in some way from the bangers we got in 2025. As a Wolverine fan, I’m very trepidatious about 2026. The House of Ideas has a character that can easily be their Batman, yet they’re ignoring DC’s patented Batman formula: A-list writers and artists putting out numerous series and one-shots that rope readers in.
Marvel needs to copy this formula. Wolverine should be the character that every A-lister gets a chance to work on, whether it be his main series or a limited series. Honestly, Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon, a prelude to the next event Armageddon written by Chip Zdarsky, is a step in the right direction: A-list talent on a Wolverine book that is essential to Marvel in 2026. There have been rumors that Phillip Kennedy Johnson wants to write Wolverine and Marvel should one hundred perfect let him.The publisher needs to rebuild the character and the best way to do that is to allow their hottest talents to take the hero in new directions. Wolverine (Vol. 8) and Ultimate Wolverine‘s biggest mistakes was giving readers cliche stories. It’s time to get back to ignoring the boundaries for Logan, pushing him back to the top.
What do you think of Wolverine in 2025? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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