How You Can Actually Kill Wolverine

3. His Greatest Asset... Is Also His Greatest Weakness

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Marvel Comics

Although Wolverine has been aided by his indestructible skeleton more often than not, it has actually hurt him a great deal over the years. James Mangold's decidedly looser adaptation of the Old Man Logan comic featured Wolverine at the end of his days, suffering from the effects of a declining healing factor and a metal that, slowly but surely, was poisoning him.

While Logan was a lot of things (all of them good), it didn't introduce that concept. One of the earliest and most iconic instances of Wolvie's skeleton being used against him came in 1993's Fatal Attractions storyline, where a dishevelled Magneto - having just recently been attacked by the cigar-chomping X-Man - ripped the adamantium straight from Logan's body. It was a gruesome panel, drawn in full by artist Adam Kubert, and while the event didn't kill Logan, it probably should have.

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Marvel Comics

And yes, while it's equally true that ol' Wolvie has been equally adept in using the metal to vanquish his foes, whether that be through a simple slice and dice in a hallway full of soldiers, or in drowning an assassin in a vat of the alloy's liquid form, it's also been used against him. In 2014's aptly titled 'Death of Wolverine' comic, writer Charles Soule presided over the character's, well, death, by suffocating him in a super-cooled form of the metal.

A healing factor might be fine and dandy, but when you can't breathe, it's pretty much useless. In the comic's closing, decidedly more poignant moments, Wolverine comes to that realisation himself. With no way of breaking through the metal's outer shell, Logan is left to die, enconsed in the very resource that had made him such a proficient killer for well over four decades. It was a fine ending for the character, but with the medium being the medium it is, Wolvie has again returned with an Infinity Stone in his mitts - metallurgy be damned.

As far as plots to kill Wolverine go, Soule's has to be the most concrete. And while previous issues have shown the character regenerating from literally a spec of blood (biology be damned), encasing Logan in an indestructible metal is an unwinnable scenario for the mutant, save for the pesky machinations of Marvel Editorial.

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Content Producer/Presenter
Content Producer/Presenter

Resident movie guy at WhatCulture who used to be Comics Editor. Thinks John Carpenter is the best. Likes Hellboy a lot. Can usually be found talking about Dad Movies on his Twitter at @EwanRuinsThings.