Wolverine has changed a lot over the years. When the ol’Canucklehead first joined the X-Men, he was the ultimate loner. He didn’t play well with others, and didn’t follow orders well. He was a constant source of drama in those days, but would slowly but surely became a team player. Back then, no one would have guessed that he would have ever ended up leading any team, but the years with the X-Men softened him. He became an important part of the group’s hierarchy, and acted as the second in command for Storm. Eventually, he would be given a chance to lead his own superhero team.
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Wolverine is a much better leader than most fans realize, working well with his subordinates and succeeding at the most challenging missions. He’s the best there is at what he does, and that has extended well to team leadership. Here’s every team that Wolverine led in the comics, each of them showing that he’s a better leader than it seemed he would be.
7) SHIELD Red Guard
House of M had a checkered reputation, but it did introduce us to Wolverine as a team leader. On this Earth, Logan was a high-ranking member of SHIELD, working under Director Sebastian Shaw. He led the Red Guard, the most elite branch of SHIELD. We didn’t get to see too much of him leading the group, which consisted of Mystique, Rogue, Jessica Drew, Toad, and Nightcrawler, but he did fight them after he regained his memories, and the way the team talked about him seemed like they respected him and thought he was a good leader.
6) Alpha Flight
Alpha Flight is an underrated Marvel team, and it has something of a history with Wolverine. Canada’s Department H planned for him to lead the group, but then Professor Xavier came along and recruited him. Wolverine got to lead the team in training, but never actually worked with them on an official mission until years later. Since then, we’ve seen the ol’ Canucklehead lead the group in alternate universes, helping to defend the Great White North.
5) Krakoa X-Force
The Krakoa Era changed the X-Men, with the team starting their own country. Every country needs an intelligence service, and the Krakoans formed a new X-Force to do the dirty work. Wolverine was chosen to be the team’s field leader, while Beast was the team’s “director”. Logan led the team in the field on missions that needed to be done quietly, battling against the less overt threats to Krakoa. The whole thing ended badly — Beast went mad, had Wolverine killed, turned him into a mind-controlled assassin, and the two came to blows — but the team was able to overcome even that in the end.
4) Team X
Wolverine spent the Cold War battling the Soviets and their allies, and then entered the Weapon X program. He’d end up as a member of Team X, a group that consisted of him, Sabretooth, Maverick, and various other Weapon X alumni. Logan seemed to be the field leader of this group and they went on numerous missions, battling enemies like Omega Red. For years, the hero had no memory of his time with Team X, and it’s one of those eras of the character that never gets the attention it should.
3) Utopia Era X-Force
X-Force is the most dangerous mutant team of them all, which makes it a great fit for Wolverine. The team started its existence as Cable’s strike team before becoming the New Mutants versions 2.0 for a bit, with the next version being a celebrity mutant team. The third version of the team was started by Cyclops, who wanted a black ops team to protect the much reduced mutant race after House of M. Logan was the perfect choice as leader, and led the team in battle against the Friends of Humanity and Apocalypse. This was first major team that Logan led, showing that he was a better leader than most people ever imagined.
2) X-Men
Logan became a leader in the Utopia Era, but things would end up going very badly. He and Cyclops came to blows over Scott’s proclivity to use child soldiers, and Wolverine took a large portion of the remaining mutants back to Westchester to start a new mutant school. He was the headmaster, and led the school in battle against enemies like the Hellfire Club. He proved that he was just as good leading a traditional superhero team as he was a black ops team, proving just how much he’s grown over the years with the X-Men.
1) Uncanny X-Force
Cyclops and Wolverine kept the Utopia Era X-Force secret until the final attack of the Friends of Humanity in the story “Second Coming”. The X-Men didn’t take kindly to learning about the secret kill squad and it was disbanded. However, Wolverine decided that the mutant race still needed someone willing to spill blood and Uncanny X-Force was born. Logan recruited Archangel (whose fortune paid for the team), Psylocke, Deadpool, and Fantomex (with Deathlok and Age of Apocalypse Nightcrawler joining later). The team clashed with Apocalypse and his Final Horsemen, dealt with Archangel when he went full Apocalypse, battled the Weapon Plus program, and had a final battle against Daken and the Brotherhood. The team was outstanding, and Logan did an amazing job of leading them.
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Image Courtesy of Netflix -
Courtesy of Netflix
