More Than 10 Years Later, The Death of Wolverine Is Still One of Marvel’s Weakest Choices

Wolverine has become one of Marvel’s most popular characters in his over fifty year existence. That’s why it was so surprising when Marvel announced The Death of Wolverine series. Marvel had a strategy in the 2010s, replacing their most important characters, through either death or other comic book shenanigans. Wolverine was put on the chopping block of the ’10s, along with Steve Rogers, Peter Parker, Tony Stark, and many others. While this practice has been maligned, it was actually a pretty good idea. Taking classic mantles and putting other people in them was a great way to give readers new kinds of stories. The Death of Wolverine came and went, and Laura Kinney became the new Wolverine. This was a very cool change, and Laura fans got excited thinking that Laura was going to become the A-list Wolverine. However, that’s not what happened at all.

See, instead of getting Laura as Wolverine in the major X-Men books, we got a refugee from a classic Wolverine story — Old Man Logan. We got a morality inverted Sabretooth in Uncanny Avengers. We even got Ultimate Wolverine’s son Jimmy. This was a moment when Marvel could have tried something different, but instead they made a series of frankly cowardly decisions.

Marvel Never Trusted Laura as Wolverine

Wolverine has starred in amazing stories and bestselling comics, and became something of an icon. It’s strange to think that Wolverine became such a mainstay of the Marvel Universe that he would need to be replaced in death, but Marvel decided that was the case. One can argue with whether Marvel was ever actually successful with any of their ’10s replacements — Ms. Marvel and Miles could be pointed at, but with Miles, he was never made the only Spider-Man. However, they were especially unsuccessful with Laura, mostly because it never really seemed like they were trying. If Wolverine was an important enough mantle to keep around after Logan died, then why wasn’t Laura the Wolverine of the post-Secret Wars A-list X-Men book Extraordinary X-Men or its replacement X-Men Gold? Why wasn’t Laura on an Avengers team? It never actually felt that Marvel was trying to make Laura the actual Wolverine of the Marvel Universe, because everywhere Wolverine was supposed to be, Laura wasn’t. Laura was a member of the cast of All-New X-Men, but All-New X-Men can’t really be called an A-list X-Men title, and even then Laura wasn’t part of its direct sequel X-Men Blue, instead replaced by Jimmy Hudson from the old Ultimate Universe.

RELATED: Ultimate Wolverine #4 Tells an Old Story in a New Way (Review)

Now, I just want to be clear — Old Man Logan, which ran from 2016 to 2018, is a brilliant series and I’m glad we got it. Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino’s run on the book was excellent, and Ed Brisson’s follow up was pretty good for the most part. However, putting Old Man Logan in all of the main X-Men team was a huge mistake. One could argue that having him on the team was a part of a healing process for the character, allowing him to grow. The choice, though, robbed readers of the chance to see who Laura was as Wolverine. It’s nice to give readers a choice and all that, but if you want a character to be successful, you don’t just give them a solo book, you put them in the best selling books you can. While Laura did get some exposure, there was never a feeling that Marvel had faith in the character. Now, obviously, Laura survived Marvel’s lack of faith in her; fan outrage at her being demoted back to X-23 got her the mantle back, held alongside Logan, she’s gotten several solo series, and even had a chance to be the Wolverine of the Krakoa Era X-Men… for twelve issues in a run that isn’t exactly the most beloved and the writer couldn’t be bothered to research whether she had an adamantium skeleton or not (this actually happened). Unlike her ’10s push compatriots Miles and Kamala, she’s never gotten the same kind of recognition in the Marvel Universe

Marvel Has Always Made Laura a Second Rate Wolverine

The Death of Wolverine was followed by two books meant to build up Laura as the new Wolverine — The Logan Legacy and Wolverines. However, she didn’t get her own Wolverine series until Old Man Logan got his. Laura never had a chance to win Logan fans as Wolverine, because Marvel put a Logan out there for those fans. Fans who read Avengers books never got a chance to see Laura as the Wolverine of the Uncanny Avengers. Laura barely even appeared in any major Marvel events. There was no reason for fans from across Marvel’s readership to give Laura a try, because she never really showed up anywhere they could see her.

There’s a theory out there that Wolverine’s death was part of Marvel’s mutant marginalization. In the mid ’10s, Marvel was doing their best to push the X-Men off into their own little corner because they couldn’t use the team in the MCU. Taking away the most popular X-Man can definitely be looked at as a move that would hurt the X-Men. However, regardless of the reasoning behind Wolverine’s death, it’s plain to see that they didn’t ever actually want Laura to be the main Wolverine.