Death of Wolverine chronicles the final days of a mortal James “Logan” Howlett, who, after losing his legendary healing factor, sacrifices himself by being encased in molten adamantium to prevent the recreation of the horrific Weapon X process.The Death of Wolverine storyline was a flagship event for Marvel Comics in the fall of 2014. It was presented as a four-issue weekly limited series, running from September to October 2014. This high-profile project was helmed by a superstar creative team: writer Charles Soule and artist Steve McNiven, with inks by Jay Leisten and colors by Justin Ponsor. The decision to kill such an iconic and commercially successful character was a significant one for Marvel. It was part of the “Marvel NOW!” publishing initiative, which aimed to shake up the status quo with bold new directions for its core characters. The event was preceded by a marketing campaign titled “3 Months to Die,” which encompassed several story arcs in Wolverine's ongoing solo titles that directly set the stage for his demise. The creative team's stated goal was not to create a temporary gimmick, but to provide a meaningful and definitive end for Logan, celebrating his long and complex history as a soldier, a spy, an X-Man, and a hero, while forcing him to confront his own mortality for the very first time. McNiven's highly detailed and cinematic art style was considered essential for capturing the gravity and brutal finality of Logan's last battle.
The actual Death of Wolverine miniseries is the climax of a longer, preceding storyline that is essential to understanding the context of the event. Logan didn't simply become vulnerable overnight; his greatest asset was systematically stripped from him.
The direct prelude to Wolverine's death occurred in the eight-part “Killable” storyline within the Wolverine (Vol. 5) ongoing series, primarily written by Paul Cornell. The narrative begins with a sentient micro-virus from the Microverse, which had been previously defeated by the avengers, taking control of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. During a conflict, Wolverine is infected by this intelligent virus. While he initially overcomes the virus's control, the infection has a catastrophic side effect: it completely and utterly neutralizes his mutant healing factor. For the first time in over a century, James Howlett was truly mortal. Every punch, every cut, and every bullet wound was now a potentially lethal threat. This development fundamentally altered his entire existence. His signature fighting style—a berserker rage that relied on absorbing immense damage while closing the distance with his claws—was now a suicidal tactic. The loss of his healing factor also meant the constant, low-level pain from his adamantium-laced skeleton became a chronic, agonizing reality. More importantly, it made him a target. Upon learning of his newfound vulnerability, Sabretooth, his arch-nemesis, orchestrated a brutal campaign to psychologically and physically dismantle him, gathering many of Logan's old foes to prove that without his healing, Wolverine was nothing. This period forced Logan to retrain himself, relying on skill, stealth, and body armor rather than raw resilience. He was a changed man, more cautious and acutely aware of his own fragility, which set the perfect emotional and physical stage for the events of Death of Wolverine, where a bounty on his head forces him into one last, desperate fight.
It is critically important to understand that the Death of Wolverine comic storyline has not been adapted into the main Marvel Cinematic Universe (Earth-199999). The character's death depicted in the 20th Century Fox film Logan is a separate, thematically similar event that takes place in an alternate, dystopian future timeline designated as Earth-17315. In Logan, the circumstances of his decline are vastly different. Set in the year 2029, a world where mutants have been nearly wiped out, Logan's healing factor is failing not because of an external virus, but due to the accumulated toll of nearly two centuries of life. The primary culprit is adamantium poisoning. The very metal that made him indestructible has been slowly, inexorably poisoning his body for decades. His healing factor, once powerful enough to counteract it, is now weakening with age, unable to keep up. This results in a slow, painful decay. He is scarred, limps, and suffers from chronic pain. His death is not a sudden event but a gradual, tragic decline. His final sacrifice comes while protecting his young clone-daughter, Laura (X-23), from his own more savage clone, the X-24. He is impaled on a tree stump and, with his healing factor all but gone, succumbs to his wounds. While both the comic and the film tell a story of a mortal Wolverine's final heroic act, the causes and contexts are entirely distinct. The comic focuses on a specific, external event (the virus), while the film portrays a more natural, albeit tragic, end brought on by time and the consequences of his own unique physiology.
The core Death of Wolverine story is a fast-paced, four-issue chase across the globe, as Logan attempts to understand who put a massive bounty on his head and why they specifically want him alive.
The story opens with Logan accepting his new mortality. He's no longer an X-Man or an Avenger; he's trying to lie low. This peace is shattered when he discovers a massive bounty has been placed on his head, with the specific instruction that he must be captured alive. After a brutal confrontation with Nuke in Canada, who tries to collect the bounty, Logan realizes he cannot outrun his past. He travels to New York and seeks the help of Mr. Fantastic, one of the few people he trusts to analyze the situation. Reed confirms the severity of his condition: his healing factor is gone for good, and any further damage could be fatal. The issue ends with Logan deciding to proactively hunt down the source of the bounty himself.
Logan's investigation leads him to the lawless island of madripoor, a place deeply entrenched in his “Patch” identity. There, he confronts Viper, the current ruler of the island's criminal underworld. After a tense negotiation and a battle with Sabretooth, Viper reveals she is not the one behind the bounty but was merely hired to broker it. The true contractor is a name from Logan's deepest past: Dr. Abraham Cornelius, the lead scientist of the Weapon X program. Before he can get more information, he is attacked by Ogun, his former mentor, and is only saved by the timely arrival of Kitty Pryde, who has been tracking him out of concern.
With Kitty's help, Logan traces Cornelius to a secret research facility in Paradise Valley, Nevada. He discovers that Cornelius, who was believed to be dead for years, is alive and has restarted the Weapon X project. His ultimate goal is to perfect the adamantium bonding process, a feat he could only achieve once with Logan. He requires Wolverine's body not for revenge, but for his unique genetic code related to the healing factor, believing it holds the key to creating an army of super-soldiers who can survive the agonizing bonding procedure. Logan finds dozens of test subjects locked in cells, destined for a painful death. It is here that he confronts Cornelius's masterpiece: a new test subject named Sharp, a former soldier with bone claws, who has been conditioned to be the perfect killer.
The final issue is a desperate, brutal battle. Logan, knowing he is outmatched physically and cannot heal, fights Sharp to protect the captive test subjects. He realizes that the only way to stop Cornelius for good is to destroy his research and prevent the adamantium from being used on anyone else. During the fight, he is stabbed but manages to slash the massive container holding the molten adamantium, which is poised to be injected into Cornelius's new subjects. In his final act of heroism, he shoves the other subjects to safety and endures the full, agonizing torrent of molten adamantium pouring over his entire body. The extreme heat and weight of the metal are excruciating, but he remains standing. He stalks a terrified Dr. Cornelius through the laboratory, his body hardening into a metallic statue. He pops his claws one last time, killing Cornelius before he can escape. Logan then stumbles out onto a ledge as the adamantium rapidly cools and solidifies. He kneels, watching one last sunset, and suffocates, forever frozen in a solid, glistening shell of adamantium—a monument to his own final, defiant sacrifice.
The impact of Wolverine's death was immediate and profound. His fellow X-Men discovered his adamantium-encased body and took it back to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning for safekeeping. The news sent shockwaves through the superhero community. This led directly to the 7-issue miniseries, Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy, which explored the immediate reactions of those most deeply connected to him, both allies and enemies:
For approximately four years in real-world publishing time (2014-2018), the prime Earth-616 Logan was genuinely dead. This had several major consequences for the Marvel Universe:
The Death of Wolverine was not just a single miniseries but the hub of a larger collection of stories that explored its fallout from multiple angles.
This seven-issue anthology miniseries was the most direct follow-up, with each issue focusing on a specific character's reaction to Logan's death. It was a deep character study that set the stage for future plotlines.
This five-issue miniseries followed a different thread: the fate of the human test subjects Logan saved in his final moments at Cornelius's facility.
Spinning directly out of both The Logan Legacy and The Weapon X Program, Marvel launched a 20-issue weekly series titled Wolverines.
The period following Death of Wolverine was defined by how the Marvel Universe adapted to his absence, and his eventual, high-profile return.
The most significant and lasting legacy of Logan's death was the ascension of his clone-daughter, Laura Kinney. After a period of grieving and introspection, Laura accepted that the world needed a Wolverine and that she was the only one who could truly carry on his mission. In the All-New, All-Different Marvel relaunch of 2015, she starred in her own ongoing series, All-New Wolverine, by writer Tom Taylor. In this series, she shed the “X-23” designation and embraced the name Wolverine. She wore a costume that paid homage to his classic look and strove to honor his memory by focusing on saving innocent lives rather than just being a weapon. The series was a massive critical and commercial success, firmly establishing Laura as a hero in her own right and a worthy successor to the title.
To satisfy the market's demand for the classic “grizzled Logan” archetype without immediately undoing his death, Marvel introduced a clever solution via the 2015 Secret Wars event. The popular character of Old Man Logan—a much older, traumatized Wolverine from a dystopian alternate future where supervillains had taken over America (Earth-807128)—found himself displaced in the mainstream Earth-616. This version of Logan was haunted by the memory of being tricked into killing the X-Men in his own timeline. He joined the new Extraordinary X-Men team, acting as a reluctant, world-weary mentor. This allowed readers to have a version of Logan in the comics while respecting the death of the prime universe's hero and giving Laura Kinney the space to grow into her new role as Wolverine.
In 2018, four years after his death, Marvel began the long-awaited process of bringing the original Logan back. This was kicked off by the Hunt for Wolverine one-shot, which revealed that his adamantium-encased body was missing from its grave. This led to a multi-pronged event with four distinct miniseries, each following a different group of heroes searching for him:
This scavenger hunt culminated in the Return of Wolverine miniseries by Charles Soule and Steve McNiven, the same creative team that killed him. It was revealed that a new, shadowy organization called Soteira, led by a villain named Persephone, had taken his body. They were able to somehow extract him from the adamantium and resurrect him, seeking to use him as their ultimate weapon. The resurrection process had a strange side effect: for a time, Logan's claws could be superheated to a glowing-hot temperature, a new power he had to learn to control. His return marked the end of an era, leading to the eventual retirement of Old Man Logan and Laura Kinney returning to her X-23 codename, once again cementing the original James “Logan” Howlett as the one and only Wolverine of Earth-616.