Marvel Turns Wolverine Into the Demonic Hellverine

The X-Men have fallen. Mutants are near-extinct. Enter: The Hellverine. After the anti-mutant Orchis organization banished most of mutantkind from Earth in X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1, triggering the Fall of X, the metal-clawed mutant known as Wolverine cut ties with Krakoa just as an old threat returned. Ghost Rider/Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance Alpha #1 revealed the first meeting between Logan and Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider, in a flashback to the “All-New, All-Different” era of Uncanny X-Men. When social worker Ada Flores showed up to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters with a “dangerously special” orphan named Bram Straub, she suspected the boy was a mutant.

Xavier determined the source of the boy’s powers weren’t a gift — but a curse. Bram was host to the demonic “stitcher” parasite that attacked the X-Men and then Ghost Rider, who tracked the demon to the X-Mansion in Salem Center, New York. A berserker Wolverine mistook the flaming skull-headed Ghost Rider for the stitcher, only to join forces with the Spirit of Vengeance and track down the evil that nearly killed the X-Men. The trail went cold until years later, when Bram’s hellish parasite returned to hunt down Earth’s remaining mutants in Ghost Rider #17, leaving their horrifically mutilated bodies in his wake.

The “Weapons of Vengeance” crossover continues in Wolverine #36, after Logan and Blaze discovered that the demon is backed by the Weapon Plus Hellfire Program in Hell’s Backbone, Utah. “If there’s something dangerous in the world, the government’ll find a way to add it to their arsenal,” Logan tells Blaze of the super-soldier program that spawned Weapon X, which bonded Adamantium to his skeleton and turned him into the ferocious Wolverine. “Only a matter of time before they enlisted Hell.”

The shadowy Father Pike captures the heroes and marks Logan for possession, telling an older Bram that his “gift” — the gift of Bagra-ghul — will no longer be his to carry. “We gave you the opportunity to be part of an army. You have done what was asked of you, but only with the greatest reluctance,” Father Pike explains. “So we have enlisted a more worthy soldier to take your place.”

Father Pike performs a blood ritual to transfer Bagra-ghul from Bram to his new host: the Wolverine. “This is a demon that not only likes to feed, but it enjoys playing with its food,” says Pike, revealing that the stitcher has been feeding on mutants to “sacrifice homo superior.”

Says Pike: “The best of Wolverine will meet the worst of Hell. A mutant will become the hunter of mutants.” Logan tries to resist, but Bagra-ghul stitches itself to him and bonds with him as the demon’s new host — making both Bagra-ghul and Logan more powerful than ever. As the Wolverine is engulfed in hellfire, Father Pike orders the Hellverine to “go feed upon the mutants of the world.”

Wolverine #36 is on sale now from Marvel Comics. “Weapons of Vengeance” concludes in Ghost Rider/Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance Omega #1.