Wolverine is known for several things, and most of them are pretty bloody. Wolverine’s mutant powers manifested the night his biological father came to kill young James Howlett and the man he thought was his father so he could take James’s mother. He killed his own father and wounded his half brother, and since then Wolverine has become one of the most blood-soaked characters in comics. Violence is the name of the game in basically every Wolverine story out there, and he’s one of the most feared mutants on the planet. When Wolverine shows up anywhere, people know there’s about to be a whole lot of slashing going on, a lot of blood is going to be spilled, and the only person who is guaranteed to walk away is Wolverine.
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Wolverine is the ultimate tough guy, but there’s more to Wolverine than just his razor sharp claws, unbreakable bones, and a capacity for violence that would give just about anyone pause. Wolverine is a complex character who has experienced every side of life you can imagine, and there are multiple facets to him as a person. While most people get to see the gruff warrior, Wolverine has the soul of a ronin poet, wandering the world doing good while lamenting the world that has made him into a weapon. There’s also a much softer side to Wolverine, one which doesn’t get seen very much. However, it’s definitely there and these six instances from Wolverine’s life show that he’s as big a softy as someone like Captain America.
6) Wolverine’s Relationship with Black Widow
Anyone who knows Wolverine knows about how far he’ll go to protect the young and the innocent, and this was on display in the classic Uncanny X-Men #268.This issue showed flashbacks to Madripoor during WWII, when Ivan Petrovitch was transporting the young Natasha Romanoff through Madripoor. They were being pursued by Nazis, and had Captain America’s help, but even that wasn’t enough to keep them safe. However, Madripoor had been Wolverine’s stomping grounds for decades, and he decided to help them out. This was back before Wolverine used his claws as weapons (technically, at this point in Wolverine’s history, his claws were thought of as implants from Weapon X, so he didn’t actually have them until it was retconned that he had bone claws) or his adamantium skeleton.
Armed with little more than some pipes, Wolverine attacked gun-toting Nazis and when they opened fire on Natasha’s vehicle, he threw himself between her and their bullets. Wolverine was thought dead by Ivan and Cap, but they later found out otherwise, as he showed to help them once again. This began the long friendship between Wolverine and Black Widow, with the two teaming up again years later in Madripoor, along with Captain America, to fight the Hand. Wolverine saw a young girl in danger, and threw himself in front of her when he could have just left it to the men guarding her. It wouldn’t be the last time Wolverine saw a young person suffering and he reached out to them.
5) Wolverine Gives Oya a Doll
X-Men: Schism has always been one of my favorite X-Men stories of the 2010s, and one of the best parts of the story is the relationship between Oya and Wolverine. Oya was one of the Five Lights, the first mutants whose powers manifested after M-Day. The X-Men took them in and began their training on the mutant island of Utopia, with Wolverine in charge of training them in combat. Wolverine connected with Oya immediately, an African girl whose religious upbringing made her think her mutant powers made her a devil of some kind. She was hunted down and had to freeze her pursuers, killing them before the X-Men got to her, and Wolverine felt bad for the fact that she had to do such a terrible thing at such a young age. On Utopia, he tried his best to give her something of a normal childhood, and ended up buying her a doll.
Now, obviously, this was a teenage girl; she was a bit too old for dolls. However, it’s the thought that counts. Oya grew up poor and Wolverine wanted her to have something that she had never had before. She was pretty unimpressed with the doll, but the two of them end up sharing ice cream together in a rather touching moment. Later, Oya’s killing of the Hellfire goons who had taken the X-Men hostage is the impetus for Wolverine and Cyclops’s feud, and Oya ended up leaving Utopia and becoming a student at the Jean Grey School, where Wolverine did his best to make sure she never became another mutant child soldier (he’d fail, as she’s since changed her hero name to Tempest and works with Cyclops’ more paramilitary X-Men but, again, it’s the thought that counts).
4) Wolverine and Cyclops in the Krakoa Era
Speaking of Wolverine and Cyclops, they have one of the most complicated relationships in the X-Men’s history. Nearly everyone who has heard of the X-Men knows that there’s a rivalry between the two of them that can make their friendship fraught with peril. They’ve had some good times and some bad times, but their friendship did eventually show a softer side of Wolverine during the X-Men’s revolutionary Krakoa Era. This was on display in House of X #6, when Wolverine joined Jean Grey and Cyclops with a six-pack during the first Krakoan celebration. The three of them had their arms around each other and were smiling. X-Men (Vol. 5) #1 would introduce the Summers House, a Krakoan habitat grown on the moon where Cyclops and his family lived. And Wolverine. Their relationship during the Krakoa Era was very different than it had been before. There was a closeness and softness between Wolverine and Cyclops that no one had ever seen before. Writer Jonathan Hickman even stirred the pot a bit by teasing that Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Grey were in a polycule (although, honestly, this was more the fans construing Hickman’s idea how they wanted; there was never anything but subtext but Hickman was known for stirring the spot with this sort of thing). The two of them hung out together, drank together, and Wolverine even went on vacation with them. It was a completely different era of Wolverine and Cyclops, and with the X-Men’s current regressive status quo, we’ll probably never see its like again.
3) Wolverine’s Relationship with Jubilee
These next three entries are going to be more about the relationships themselves than they are any moments in them, but they’re all examples of Wolverine’s softer side. We’ll begin with Jubilee. Jubilation Lee was a Chinese-American mallrat mutant who ended up in the X-Men’s Outback base. She helped save Wolverine’s life during an attack by the Reavers and the two of them became inseparable. Wolverine helped train Jubilee in combat, but more than that, he was always there for her as a father figure and a best friend when she needed him. Jubilee wasn’t the first time that Wolverine had taken in one of the younger X-Men, but he ended up very close to her throughout the first few years of the ’90s. Wolverine and Jubilee shared many moments together over the years where Wolverine looked out for his little sidekick, and when Wolverine left the X-Men after he lost his adamantium, it devastated his young friend. Jubilee grew into a great X-Man in the interim, with Wolverine proud of the way she’s come into her own.
2) Wolverine Winning Mariko’s Heart
Mariko Yashida is the cousin of the Japanese mutant Sunfire, a former member of the X-Men. Mariko met the X-Men when they went to Japan to ask for Sunfire’s help, and Mariko was first introduced to Wolverine. At first, Mariko was afraid of Wolverine; he was wild, unpredictable, and violent, and Mariko was the exact opposite of all of that. Wolverine was smitten with her from the beginning, and so began the long courtship between the two of them. Wolverine had to show a side of himself that he rarely showed in those early days of the X-Men; he didn’t need the part of him that was a superhero or a beast, he needed to show her the man inside of him.
Wolverine’s courtship of Mariko was ultimately successful, and the two of them became an item. In fact, after Wolverine killed her Yakuza boss father, the two of them were set to be wed. Their marriage never happened because of the machinations of Mastermind, Viper, and Silver Samurai, but they would reunite years later, when Mariko asked Wolverine for help against the Hand. Their reunion wouldn’t last long; Mariko was poisoned by the Hand, and she begged the man she loved to end her life quickly, instead of the slow agonizing death by blowfish toxin. Wolverine did that for her, and cried his eyes out, a bittersweet ending to one of Wolverine’s most important relationships.
1) Wolverine Taking Kitty Pryde Under His Wing
Kitty Pryde is one of the most formidable X-Men, and that’s all thanks to Wolverine. Kitty joined the X-Men when she was very young, not long after her powers manifested. She quickly became everyone’s younger sister, forming familial bonds with Storm, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine. Wolverine ended up mentoring Kitty, and was the two of them had a Japanese adventure involving Ogun, Wolverine’s body-jumping ninja master. Wolverine and Kitty have shared many tender moments with each other; they are the best of friends. Kitty was the first of the X-Women that Wolverine decided to train, and the two of them have become brother and sister — albeit a nearly two hundred year old brother with a twenty-something younger sister.
What are your favorite tender Wolverine moments/relationships? Sound off in the comments below.
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
