Warning: The following article contains spoilers for "Wolverine: The Vigil" in Marvel Comics Presents #6, by Charles Soule, Paulo Siqueira, Oren Junior, Frank D'Armata and Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
Despite his relatively young appearance, Wolverine is well over 100 years old. Long before he took the name Logan, James Howlett was born in Alberta, Canada sometime around the 1880s. Thanks to the his mutant healing factor, Logan hasn't aged much since he reached adulthood in the early 20th century.
While he's nowhere near as old as immortals like Thor or cosmic beings like Galactus, Logan has still spent a few lifetimes on the front lines of the Marvel Universe. The ongoing Wolverine serial in Marvel Comics Presents has retraced the X-Man's history through his encounters with The Truth, a demonic creature who's returned to Earth once a decade since the 1940s.
In Marvel Comics Presents #6, Wolverine and the X-Men face off against The Truth in 1995. As powerful heroes fall to the beast, a mystery woman appears and sends The Truth back to parts unknown. After the dust of the battle clears, Logan faces another kind of truth as he meets his newest adult daughter for the first time.
Although his daughter's name isn't mentioned, Logan first encountered her family in World War II. After Maria D'Arqueness was forced to summon The Truth by Nazi soldiers, Logan fought the creature and tried to save the sorceress. Although Maria died, her daughter, Sylvie, survived the encounter and returned to her magical family, who are distant relatives of the Marvel mage Agatha Harkness, to prepare for The Truth's return.
After successfully fending off the Truth in the 1950s, Wolverine and the now-adult Sylvie got to know each other intimately in the 1960s. Although Sylvie was killed by The Truth in the 1970s, her and Logan's daughter survived, unbeknownst to the X-Man. When Logan traveled to the D'Arqueness' ancestral French home to discuss dealing with The Truth, they sent him away as he caught a whiff of his daughter's scent in Marvel Comics Presents #5.
In Marvel Comics Presents #6, Wolverine tries to take on The Truth with the X-Men and some mystical assistance from Alpha Flight's magic-wielding Talisman. However, The Truth slaughters Cyclops, Storm and Talisman in a staggering display of power.
When Wolverine and Colossus prepare to make a futile last stand against the Truth, Logan's daughter appears and uses her Wolverine-esque claws and magical abilities to defeat the creature and send it back where it came from for another decade.
Even though he's never properly met her, Wolverine instantly recognizes his daughter. Given the exceedingly long nature of his life, this isn't the first time that's happened either.
In the late 2000s, Wolverine met Daken, the intermittently villainous son he never knew he had. A few years later, he encountered the Mongrels, a mercenary team comprised entirely of his adult children. In an especially tragic twist, he unintentionally murdered the Mongrels and killed Daken on multiple occasions.
Within the X-Men, Wolverine usually operates as something of a father figure to young mutants like Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Jubilee or his young female clone X-23. While he's mentored those characters and watched them develop into his heroic peers, Logan has essentially been absent for the lives of all of his biological children.
Although Logan's absence has an adverse effect on most of his kids, his newest daughter basically seems fine. Under the presumable guidance of the D'Arqueness clan, she grew into a hyper-competent fighter who easily defeated a being that slaughtered two of the X-Men's most powerful veterans.
While Cyclops, Storm and Talisman will almost certainly make miraculous recoveries from their lethal injuries, it's not clear if Wolverine and his daughter will get to spend any quality time together.
With The Truth bound to return again in the 2000s and 2010s, she and Logan will probably come face-to-face again on the battlefield in Marvel Comics Presents. Since they haven't tried to kill each other yet, Wolverine and his new daughter are already well on their way to having Logan's most relatively normal parent-child relationship.