Marvel has recently announced that an upcoming miniseries will result in the death of Wolverine in the main Marvel continuity. Of course the characters death has been seen previously, probably most prominently in the Ultimate Universe where he was killed by Magneto (shortly after Wolverine mortally wounded him). But youll soon see the death of him once again, and this time itll be the proper version in the normal 616 Universe. This move is almost certainly linked to the film franchise. The Origin of Wolverine was finally told between 2001 and 2002 because Marvel feared that an origin story would be told in the film franchise first. In the end the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine was based on the Origin comic book series but much like Marvel feared, the films writers took considerable liberties with the plot including the whole bit about Sabretooth being his brother. So with Hugh Jackman gradually aging out of the role and with the expectation that Wolverine is going to be killed off on screen sooner rather than later (including some rumours that itll happen in the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past this year), it seems likely that Marvel want to get there first once again. Or is it the alternative? Is Marvel simply trying to recreate the success of their Death of Captain America arc from 2007? After all, Captain America #25 was the highest selling comic of March 2007 with more than 290,000 copies sold double the number of the second placed comic. Plus you have to remember that that was without a film in the same year possibly bringing some casual readers on-board, and lets be honest for a moment here does anyone think that this death is going to stick for more than six months before a new series is launched? So here are six reasons why the death of Wolverine is simply a big fat marketing ploy and will be over barely before its even begun.
