James Howlett AKA Wolverine has been alive for a LONG time (one-hundred and eighty-seven years to be precise). In fact, the only one of his numbers higher than how many times he’s been around the sun is the number of bodies he’s stacked. It’d be impossible to reminisce on the entirety of Wolverine’s kill library, so why not just go over the kills he regrets the most?
Y’know, the ones that still make the three-hundred-pound Canadain killing machine pretend he has allergies? Poor little bub made some boo-boos he couldn’t undo...do. So, from his Father to the love(s) of his life, let’s take a look at the snikts that Wolverine still wishes he could un-snikt.
10 His Dad (Thomas Logan)
James Howlett, born the John and Elizabeth Howlett (or so he thought), was a sickly young child. For the first years of his life, James spent much of his time knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door. Which is why when his mother’s lover, and groundskeeper extraordinaire, Thomas Logan killed his adoptive father after being kicked off the Howlett property is somewhat bittersweet.
Yeah, James may have just lost his adoptive father, killed his actual father, and discovered he’s a mutant in a time when being a mutant wasn’t so chill, that’s all true. But he doesn’t have to deal with being sick, he picked up a new name (Logan), and he got to run away with his first love, Rose O’ Hara. Hers, however, is a story for a little bit later.
9 Unnamed Teen Mutant
Being a mutant is hard. First of all, there’s the uncertainty of it all. Mutants don’t typically get their abilities until puberty, which means they have more than a decade before they even find out. And then there's fact that any unsuspecting teenager could suddenly start blasting optic rays or say, burning up 265 people on accident. Enter the Unnamed Teen Mutant feature in Ultimate X-Men #41.
He is never given a name, but he’s someone that Wolverine certain remembers with a cringe. Wolverine meets the boy in a cave with a six-pack of beer and a mission. The boy was simply too big of a threat to let walk around, and they both knew that.
8 Moira MacTaggert
Up until recently, Moira MacTaggert’s involvement with the X-Men has been fairly behind-the-scenes. Yes, she has helped out here and there, but she was never on the frontlines and in the spotlight. At least until Jonathan Hickman relaunched the X-Men with his series House Of X and Powers Of X. Since then it’s been revealed that Moira MacTaggert has been reincarnating into her own body whenever she dies.
In one of her many lives, Moira has decided to team up with Apocalypse in the hope of giving mutantkind a fighting chance against the ever-fearful humans. While her team managed to get the information they needed from Nimrod’s computers, it still wasn’t enough. So after giving Moira the information, Wolverine kills her, sending her back to her birth once again.
7 Mariko Yoshida
While Wolverine may not have been the one that caused Mariko Yashida, he was the person that was forced to end her suffering. Mariko and Logan have had a long and storied history. At different points in time, they’ve been in love, engaged, they’ve fought, Logan even introduced Mariko to her adopted daughter (after her real mother was crushed by a building). But after Wolverine kills her father and she becomes the leader of his yakuza crime family, Mariko becomes the target of many assassins.
Eventually, one of them proves successful. Having been poisoned by the assassin Reiko on behalf of her rival Matsu’o Surayaba, Mariko asks Wolverine to end her suffering. And of course, ever the gentleman, Wolverine obliges. He also swears vengeance and severs different body parts from Matsu’o every year on the anniversary of her death. Yikes.
6 Jean Grey
Jean Grey has been killed and resurrected so many times that it makes Moira Mactaggert blush. While it may have been reassuring to Logan that it’s possible she may still come back after he runs her through, it certainly didn’t make it any easier for him.
However, when the Phoenix Force is involved it’s never as simple as “run the woman you love through with your metal-covered bone claws”. Logan is forced to repeatedly stab the woman he had originally set out to protect, and somehow the Phoenix Force just keeps bringing her back.
5 Rose O’ Hara
At this point, Wolverine has killed two loves of his life, a (mostly) innocent young man, and his own father. But as mentioned earlier, after killing his father, the newly christened “Logan” and the (first) love of his life run away together. Unfortunately for Logan, this was not meant to be his happily ever after.
For starters, they started over under the guise of cousins. And when Logan finally accepts Rose’s engagement (for the sake of her happiness) Thomas Logan’s son appears leading to a fight which will see Logan kill Rose while Dog, Thomas Logan’s son, gets away.
4 His Illegitimate Children
The Mongrels were a group of highly trained warriors that were trained specifically to take on Wolverine. See, Wolverine has pissed off a lot of people and organizations in his long, long life, that’s no surprise. But after making his life a living hell for some time, Logan finally gets his revenge and slaughters most of the Mongrels (while the other killed themselves).
What he doesn’t find out until he after they’ve all died, however, is that they were actually his children all along.
3 Daken
It is said that a parent should never have to bury a child, well, at least in Logan’s case, that sentiment does go far enough. A parent should never have to kill their own child. Or children, in Logan’s case.
So now the question becomes, is it worse for a parent to unknowingly kill their children and find out later? Or does it hurt more to knowingly kill their out of control, angry, violent child? Most people in the Marvel universe would not be able to answer that question, but unfortunately, Logan can.
2 All Of The X-Men
Welp. He’s already made it through a BUNCH of his actual children, so it seems like it’s time to start lasering in on the children he only views as his kids. And their teachers. And their friends. And just everyone else who happened to find themselves a resident of X-Mansion.
Wolverine wakes up one night to find the mansion completely overrun by villains. He slices and dices his way through every single one of them, hoping to protect his family. However, as the battle reaches an end, the illusion wears off and Wolverine is left among the many dismembered corpses of his family and teammates.
1 Everyone
Fans have recently seen what happens when HYDRA gets ahold of people like Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, but in What If? Enemy Of The State, fans get to see the unbridled carnage that occurs when HYDRA sets Wolverine free of his inhibition and points his towards the heroes of Marvel.
Logan goes on an absolute rampage, killing everyone from The Punisher to Spider-Man and even Fantastic Four. While SHIELD is eventually able to subdue and imprison the 5’3 walking deli slicer of rage, the damage is already done.