Wolverine Should Never Lead The X-Men & These 5 Reasons Are All You Need To Know

Wolverine is easily the most popular of the X-Men. Wolverine is the best there is at what he does, and that helped make him one of the most respected X-Men, a hero of the highest order. Wolverine has gone through a lot in his long life, and this has made him something of a legend, well, a curmudgeonly one at least. Wolverine was often very mouthy with his teammates, especially team leader Cyclops. While Wolverine eventually became a team player, no one who read the greatest X-Men stories would have ever imagined Wolverine becoming the leader of any team, let alone the X-Men. However, things began to change and he ended up becoming the leader of X-Force, which he was pretty good at because of is black ops background. After the story “Schism”, which saw Cyclops and Wolverine finally come to blows, Wolverine started his own mutant school and became the leader of his own X-Men.

Wolverine didn’t last very long as a leader of the X-Men — from about 2011 to 2014. This was a very weird time in X-Men history; Wolverine and Cyclops’s teams were often at odds, which led to Avengers Vs. X-Men. The five original X-Men were brought from the past to the present, and things were getting strange for mutants. A new Hellfire Club had risen up Some people like this era of Wolverine and the X-Men, but an argument can be made that he wasn’t the best leader. Wolverine has some great attributes, but not all of them made him a very good leader. These five factors made Wolverine a terrible X-Men leader, making a contentious time among the X-Men even worse.

1) His Grudge with Cyclops Made Everything Worse

“Schism” broke the X-Men in two, but it was a long time coming. While Wolverine and Cyclops had grown past the problems of their earlier days, there was years of bad blood between the two of them. “Schism” brought all of this back to the surface, and it led to Wolverine badmouthing Cyclops and his X-Men to the Avengers, especially once everyone learned about the return of the Phoenix. Wolverine made the problems between the X-Men and the Avengers even worse than before because of his animosity with Cyclops. The worst part is that Wolverine was proven to be wrong; Cyclops’s plan to give the Phoenix Force to Hope Summers would have worked perfectly. A leader doesn’t let his personal issues with others do the kind of damage that Avengers Vs. X-Men did.

2) Wolverine Is Too Impulsive

Wolverine can survive anything, which has made him very impulsive. On the one hand, Wolverine’s impulsiveness has made him a successful hero. Sure, he’s taken a lot of beatings, but he’s also done a lot of good because he doesn’t have a problem doing anything. However, that’s not the best thing for a leader. A leader following their gut is good; a leader who only follows his gut is a problem. While Wolverine was less impulsive as a leader than he was on his own, but those instincts never went away, and it led to Wolverine making some rather dumb mistakes as the leader of the X-Men.

3) Wolverine Is a Man With a Lot of Enemies

Wolverine has had a colorful life, and that’s putting it mildly. Anyone who has been around as long as Wolverine has is going to earn a lot of enemies and Wolverine has some of the most dangerous. This made his team as the leader of the X-Men fraught with difficulty. The biggest example of this is Dog Logan. Dog Logan was Wolverine’s half-brother, and he came to the present when he found some time diamonds (in the excellent Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine, which you should go read as soon as possible). Dog joined the new Hellfire Club and was able to use his experience and his grudge against Logan to cause him to make some dumb mistakes. It’s okay for leaders to have a past, but Wolverine’s past is a major problem.

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4) Wolverine Has Done Too Many Terrible Things

Wolverine has always been a killer, and that can make leading a superhero team rather difficult. Superheroes aren’t supposed to kill, and Wolverine’s past has seen him do a lot of killing. However, Wolverine hasn’t just killed soldiers; Wolverine was a high-level assassin for years. He worked with Sabretooth and Maverick during the Cold War, and was responsible for some very bloody acts. He helped the ancient mutant Romulus, who was all about grabbing power by any means. On top of all that, Wolverine’s often anti-social attitude made him a well-known pain in the butt for everyone he’s worked with. A team leader has to be an example for their subordinates, and Wolverine’s past made him a terrible example for the X-Men.

5) Wolverine Was a Hypocrite

To really understand why Wolverine was such a bad leader for the X-Men, one need only look at X-Men: Schism. The story saw the X-Men under an attack by the new Hellfire Club Inner Circle. The Hellfire Club was able to trounce a team of X-Men heavy hitters — Emma Frost, Magneto, Namor, Colossus, and Iceman — leaving students to deal with the hostage situation. Wolverine races there, but Cyclops orders the mutant Oya to try to save the day. Oya kills a bunch of Hellfire goons, and Wolverine gets very mad about this. While this is definitely noble, Wolverine being mad at Cyclops for ordering someone to kill is the height of irony. Wolverine has no right to tell Cyclops anything about killing; Cyclops made the right choice and Wolverine getting mad at him showed him as a hypocrite.

Do you think Wolverine was a bad leader? Sound off in the comments below.