Marvel Legacy: How Did Wolverine Die in the First Place?

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains a MAJOR SPOILER for Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic’s Marvel Legacy one-shot, in stores Wednesday, Sept. 27.

It's been three years since the original Wolverine was killed in the final act of act of Charles Soule and Steve McNiven's "Death of Wolverine" storyline. In the interim, though, fans have had no shortage of replacement Wolverines, thanks to the the mantle being passed down to his female clone, X-23, and the arrival of Old Man Logan post-Secret Wars. But, as is human nature, nothing's more enjoyable for many fans than the original.

Which is why Logan's return in this week's Marvel Legacy one-shot already has fans buzzing, a return that's made all the more interesting given that he'll be revealed to be in possession of an Infinity Stone. Which one is he wielding? Well, that's still a mystery, as is the exact role he's playing once Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic set the stage for the next phase of the Marvel Universe.

That said, the past is prologue, so with his resurrection around the corner, we decided to take a look back at the road which removed Wolverine from the board, and which ultimately paved the way for his return.

Soule and McNiven's picked up the threads set by Paul Cornell's Wolverine run, with Logan dealing with the loss of his healing factor. The X-Man sought medical advice far and wide, from Beast to Reed Richards, until the X-Man/Avenger basically accepted the inevitable. As the title implied, he was dying, no longer able to unsheathe his adamantium-coated claws as the resulting wounds would allow for bacteria infection. His adamantium skeleton also proved to be a source of poisoning for his body, enhanced by him being present at history's ill-fated Nagasaki explosion.

Richards believed he could likely to find a cure, but Logan knew that his time was running out, not in terms of just in terms of having a terminal illness, but because he knew word of his situation was already out and his enemies would come hunting for him, in droves. "Ultimately, I think he's one of the most human of the superheroes -- Wolverine is deeply flawed, and that's what makes him great," Soule told CBR at the time, as he painted the character as "a mix of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name and a Kurosawa samurai."

With this in mind, the writer ensured that Logan's last days would be a rollicking adventure so he could go out with a bang. Nuke, Hand ninjas and more all hunted Logan, even killing each other along the way. At this point, because he was lacking a healing factor and not able to use his claws, he was more Logan than Wolverine -- in essence, he was at his most human, a take on can clearly see as an influence on director James Mangold's critically-acclaimed Logan. Yes, Mark Millar and McNiven's's Old Man Logan was clearly channeled into the film, but a lot of how Mangold presented the hero, battered, bloodied and bruised beyond belief, comes from his end of days.

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When Logan found out a contract had been taken out on him, the trailer of the contractor led him to Madripoor, to a woman he was once married to: Viper. (Coincidentally, Viper appeared as one of the antagonists in The Wolverine, Mangold's first cinematic stab at the character.) here, he learned that the contractor actually wanted Logan alive. While Viper wasn't the one who placed the price on her former husband's head, she was using Sabretooth, a man intrinsically tied to Logan, as her enforcer, chained and poisoned to do her bidding.

Soule dealt another twist, when Lady Deathstrike arrived not to kill Logan, but to helming him out. She brought with her the revelation that other people who were reinforced with adamantium were being hunted as well. Of course, she wasn't to be trusted, and when she contemplated taking up the bounty on Logan's head, Kitty Pryde arrived on the scene as Logan's back-up. This was a fitting moment in his final days, given that Logan had been such a mentor to the young X-Man. More, her appearance really resonated due to the fact that Soule and McNiven had deliberately avoided involving many people from Logan's past to tell the story of his death.

"The Death of Wolverine" was Logan's moment, and his alone. For the most part, the heroes with whom he shared a lot of exploits with weren't part of it. Kitty's arrival worked precisely because the rest of Logan's supporting cast throughout the years was kept at arm's length, allowing the young X-Man to act as his conscience of sorts, and his confessional box.

Of course, Kitty's arrival was most importantly a set-up to introduce the body-controlling Ogun to the story, as the villain was revealed to have taken control of Kitty's body in order to manipulate Logan. Perhaps Ogun isn't the person you'd expect Logan to wrap his career up fighting, but his machinations perfectly led to Logan discovering that it was the man who helped create him in the Weapon X program, Abraham Cornelius, who had placed the price on Wolverine's head. Cornelius needed Logan's in order finish crafting his own army, filed with soldiers given similar enhancements as Wolverine. The only thing he needed from Logan was his healing factor.

In the melee that ensued following his realization that Wolverine was now useless to him, Cornelius unleashed a new villain: Sharp. Logan ultimately defeated Sharp, himself a graduate of the Weapon X program, but his victory was short-lived. Cornelius decided to create and unleash his army of pseudo-Wolverines, leading Logan to unsheathe his claws one last time, slashing the adamantium tanks in order to to prevent the injection of the molten metal into Cornelius' subjects. In doing so, Wolverine was covered with the hardest metal in the Marvel Universe.

As the story wrapped, Cornelius was fatally wounded, with Logan approaching, covered in adamantium and dying himself. Wolverine's creator kept taunting Logan, saying he was nothing more than a killer so when Logan came towards him, readers expected to see the character's final kill.

However, Soule and McNiven ensured that Logan kept his soul and humanity intact in his final moments. The X-Man and Avenger ignored Cornelius' taunts, opting to kneel and observe on last sunset rather than kill his creator. An appropriate ending for a character who had fought for decades to be more man than animal, more hero than berserker. Here's hoping that upon his return to the land of the living, Wolverine remembers the lessons he learned in his final days and maintains his position as one of the most complex characters the Marvel Universe has to offer.