Marvel's X-Men Writer Explains Apparent Wolverine Plot Hole

The X-Men have gone through some changes in the past few months. Writer Jonathan Hickman took stewardship of Marvel's mutants with the dual miniseries House of X and Powers of X. In House of X, Hickman established that the X-Men have developed a means of resurrecting any mutant using the combined powers of a group of mutants known as "the five" — Hope, Proteus, Goldballs, Elixir, and Tempus — and a memory backup stored by Professor X in Cerebro. Wolverine was one of the characters resurrected when this process was first revealed to readers. That left some fans with questions about Wolverine's adamantium-coated skeleton.

Since Wolverine's adamantium isn't a part of his mutant power, it should track that he'd be reborn without the substance coating his bones. In an interview with Adventures in Poor Taste, Hickman explains that there's more than one way to explain how Wolverine still has his adamantium and that he's not all that interested in going into the details.

"If Wolverine is reborn without his Adamantium skeleton, we've seen him get it back before and we can replicate that (sure, it sucks, but he's a tough dude), if he's born with it, then it's because the Five were able to tweak his body In Vitro (Vivo? Eggo?)," he says. "Either way it's just a process. "

Hickman goes on to say that the resurrection process does raise some interesting questions, but that those questions aren't about Wolverine. "What the more interesting question is is why does Cyclops need a visor?" Hickman says, alluding to the fact that Cyclops' inability to control his optic blasts isn't genetic, but developed as the result of an injury sustained as a child. "Why doesn't Chamber have a jaw? Does the imprinting of the backup of their mind mean they have to be broken in that familiar way to actually be them?

"And we've already shown a couple of interesting tweaks like Monet being able to assume a Penance form and Warren being able to be both regular angel and Archangel," he says. "So there seems to be some ability to tweak the finished version of a resurrected mutant. Is that also true about their age? Or about other aspects of their physical condition? What about their gender? What about if they want to be backed up from an earlier version? One that hasn't suffered a particular trauma or had their heart broken? Regardless, these all sound like stories to me. And we don't tell them for free."

What do you think of Hickman's explanation for Wolverine maintain his adamantium skeleton? Let us know in the comments.

All issues of House of X and Powers of X are now on sale. Hickman's story continues in the new X-Men series launching on October 16th.