How he died: Claremont strikes again, this time in the pages of 1987's Uncanny X-Men annual. This one-shot story sees the Xavier School invaded by an unbeatable alien who calls himself Horde (we're pretty sure it takes more than one person to accurately describe something as a horde, but whatever), who whisks them off to another world and forces them to enter the Citadel Of Light And Shadow to acquire the Crystal Of Ultimate Vision. None of which are words you should recognise when they are placed together, because they're absolute nonsense, and signify nothing more than an excuse to put the X-Men in a sci-fi setting and have them fight. Well actually, the fighting comes later. Before that there's a load of guff about each X-Man being shown their deepest desires, and getting to live them out - Rogue apparently wants to be a Southern Belle, Dazzler a successful lawyer, Psylocke a robot - but only Storm and Wolverine are strong-willed enough to reject these illusions, deciding instead to punch Horde a lot. Except the alien ends up being made of strong stuff and lifts a weakened Logan up by his lapels, commenting that he like his courageous heart - before ripping it out with his bare hands, ala Temple Of Doom. How he came back: Woops, you chose the single worse place possible to rip out Wolverine's heart, Horde! What are the chances of that? As he disembowels Logan the alien manages to toss a single drop of the tough mutant's blood onto that aforementioned Crystal Of Ultimate Vision (whose actual use we never learn), which somehow allows our favourite diminutive Canadian superhero to completely reconstitute himself. Which means we're treated to a full-page spread of Cronenbergian body horror, as Wolverine slowly rebuilds himself from DNA to nervous system to skeleton to muscles to angry, hairy man. Even Logan himself admits that he thought he was dead for a minute there, before dropping the bombshell that his "healing factor's in every cell of his body", and so is his will to live. Which must be a secondary mutation or something. "Given sufficient power, my entire body could be regenerated from the genetic data contained in a single cell. Or a drop of blood," he explains to a disbelieving Horde, "Looks like the crystal had the power to restore mind and body both". Then he pulls the shard of crystal from the alien's head and sends everyone back home.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
