3 Times Wolverine Should Have Died (And His Healing Powers Worked Overtime)

Wolverine is the best there is at what he does, and what he does is fight. Wolverine has been in some of the greatest fights in comic history, battling heroes and villains alike in exciting bouts. Wolverine’s greatest weapons aren’t his adamantium claws or decades of fighting experience, but his healing factor and adamantium skeleton. They enable Wolverine to survive pretty much anything thrown at him. However, there have been times when that survival was very much in question.

Wolverine has found himself in life-and-death struggles that should have ended in death. Wolverine’s entire fighting style revolves around his ability to soak up damage, and there have been times when he should have died. His healing factor has saved him every time, but these are the times when it needed to kick into overdrive in order to keep him away from walking through Death’s door.

Magneto Pulling Out Wolverine’s Adamantium

Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton is his defining characteristic, which is why the ending of X-Men (Vol. 2) #25 was so shocking. Magneto had detonated a planet-crippling EMP and the X-Men sprang into action, with Xavier leading a team of X-Men to Magneto’s space station Avalon. The team does a pretty good job against the Mutant Master of Magnetism, and Wolverine is able to get the jump on him. However, instead of finishing Magneto off, he stops, and decides to sass Magneto. This mistake almost killed him.

Magneto lashed out with magnetic powers and broke the molecular bond between Wolverine’s skeleton and the fabled metal, pulling it out through his pores. This led Xavier to mindwipe Magneto, all while Jean Grey held Wolverine’s body together with her telekinetic powers. Wolverine (Vol. 2) #75 would see the X-Men trying to keep Wolverine alive as they piloted a damaged Blackbird back to Earth, his healing factor working overtime and failing, with closed wounds re-opening in moments. Wolverine fought his own battle in his mind, as well, one that saw him almost give in to death. However, a threat to Jean Grey — the Blackbird was hit by lightning, losing its hatch, and Jean was almost sucked out — caused him to snap out of his pain fugue and keep fighting, saving her.

The loss of Wolverine’s adamantium was so catastrophic to his healing factor that it would be weakened by the stress on it for multiple issues after #75. It’s one of Wolverine’s most iconic moments — one that X-Men ’97 brought to non-comic reading audiences — and represents one of his healing factor’s greatest feats.

Old Man Logan Survived Being Eaten by the Hulk

“Old Man Logan” has gone down as one of the best Wolverine stories of the last 25 years. Taking readers to a future where the villains won, the vast majority of the heroes are dead, and Wolverine is a pacifist farmer, it was an action-packed story with amazing art and brilliant world-building. Logan and his family lived at the mercy of the Hulk Gang, and didn’t have enough money to pay their rent. Hawkeye hired Logan to help him get across the country to a secret meeting, and after Hawkeye was killed by agents of Red Skull, Logan jettisoned his pacifism and killed the Nazi villain before rushing to pay off the Hulks.

However, he got there too late, which led to Logan slaughtering the Hulk’s children and grandchildren. This bloody campaign led Logan to the Hulk himself, and the two had one final battle, one that the Hulk seemed to win. The Green Goliath ate Logan whole, believing that his foe was dead. However, Logan’s healing factor kicked in while he was in the Hulk’s stomach, regenerating any eaten parts of his body, which allowed Logan to rip out of the Hulk from the inside.

Hulk and Wolverine fights were always pretty surprising, but this one took the cake. Logan surviving the gamma-powered digestive tract of the Hulk showed that even in his old age, his healing factor was still pretty powerful. In order for him to survive, his healing factor had to constantly work as stomach acid ate away at him, keeping his body going in an environment with very little oxygen that is actually breathable. It was a monumental fat of healing for a monumental Wolverine story.

Nitro Blasted the Flesh From Wolverine’s Bones

Civil War is one of the most important events in Marvel history. However, the X-Men basically sat the whole thing out. The mutant race had just been reduced to 198 mutants, and Cyclops ordered the X-Men to not get involved, including Wolverine, who was also an Avenger at the time. Wolverine sat out the main conflict but decided to go after Nitro, the exploding villain whose actions resulted in the deaths in Stamford, Connecticut. Wolverine was able to hunt the villain down, but got a huge surprise from Nitro.

Nitro detonated himself and the resulting wave of destruction atomized every bit of soft tissue in Wolverine’s body. Readers had seen something similar happen to Wolverine in the classic story “Days of Future Past,” when a Sentinel blasted the ol’Canucklehead. That attack killed Wolverine in the alternate future, so Wolverine’s survival from Nitro’s attack was a huge shock. Wolverine’s healing factor had to rebuild his organs, muscles, ligaments, nerves, veins, arteries, capillaries, and skin; a process that took an unknown amount of time.

Wolverine’s regeneration from this remains the most impressive feat of his healing factor. It’s especially impressive because everyone had always assumed that this sort of damage would kill him. This has also caused it to be an extremely controversial moment for Wolverine as well. Many fans didn’t like that he was able to survive this attack. Not only did it stretch credulity far past breaking, it also took away any stakes for future stories. If Wolverine could survive this, he could survive anything, and that didn’t sit well with every fan.