10 Secret Wolverine Superpowers You Never Knew

In a comic career spanning almost fifty years, Wolverine, aka James Howlett aka Logan aka Weapon X, has become one of the most popular comic characters of all time. His omnipresence in Marvel comics, animation, movies, video games, and merchandise cannot be overstated and he has appeared or guest-starred in virtually every comic title Marvel has ever created.

Despite his adamantium skeleton and claws and his rapid healing factor, Wolverine is somewhat of an everyman character. He loves a pretty girl (many of them, actually), cold beer, and a good brawl. Not unlike someone you could easily find in a local watering hole around the world on a Saturday night.

It's his other powers, however, that have truly put him over the top as the best he is at what he does, even if what he does isn't very nice. Wolverine has an array of other abilities that add to his skill as a ferocious fighter, a spy, an assassin, a teacher, or whatever else Marvel writers need him to be at any given moment.

Some of these powers have simply been forgotten since they were granted to him by creators and others may just be lesser known or not as emphasized as his main abilities. Regardless, the man is a walking arsenal and it's no surprise that even the heavy hitters of the Marvel Universe aren't keen on tangling with him.

This is a seldom-mentioned, but pretty cool ability of Logan's.

Given his mutation and personality, it's no surprise that he is extremely in tune with animals. He is often depicted roaming through the woods; indeed, his very first appearance was when he was dumped into the Canadian wilderness to take out the Hulk. He's at home in nature.

This animal empathy allows Logan to sense the emotional and physical state of animals. In some cases, he can even communicate on a very basic level, both expressing ideas to creatures and getting information back from them.

This power has allowed Wolverine to not only get assistance from animals, but to assist them. He has tracked wounded creatures to put them out of their misery - the opening pages of the first issue of the original 1982 Wolverine series depicts Logan tracking and killing a bear that had gone on a rampage through several small Canadian towns. This was not something he took any pleasure in; he simply needed the pain of both the people and bear to end.

He subsequently found out that the bear was rampaging because a hunter had shot it with a poison-covered arrow but had not bothered to finish the bear off. This incident was recreated at the beginning of The Wolverine film in 2013.

It didn't end well for the hunter in either comic or film...