If you were to remove Wolverine from the X-Men, then the series itself would become rather boring. He is the heart of the group, and is central to the X-Men media being a success. The reason why Wolverine is so popular is that he’s a complete animal in personality, which you don’t find in other superheroes.
To that end, we’ve compiled those moments/attributes where Wolverine has shown just how savage he can get, both in his feats and his attitude. In this list, we’ve considered Wolverine’s interpretations in all media (TV, film, and comics), and included events that happened in alternate timelines as well.
10 Killing His Father
In case you didn’t know, Wolverine’s real name is James Howlett; but he wasn’t the real son of Mr. Howlett. He was the product of an affair, and was in fact the son of the despicable Thomas Logan. When Thomas tried (and succeeded) to take John Howllet’s life, James took instant revenge by killing Thomas Logan on the spot.
He would be in for a rude awakening when he found he’d committed patricide, as John wasn’t his biological father. Killing one’s own parent is something you can’t really come back from, but we think James should be given a pass, since Thomas Logan was a murderer, whose son – James’ half-brother – Dog Logan was also a vile human being.
9 Killing Almost Every Major Character
Yikes! We knew that Wolverine was pretty violent, but this story showed us that an unhinged Wolverine is impossible to put down. The mainstream audience doesn’t associate HYDRA with the X-Men, but everything goes in the comic book universe, and in What If? Enemy of the State, HYDRA managed to brainwash Wolverine into doing their bidding.
The result of this manipulation was the death count that numbered in scores of major characters. Seriously, Wolverine’s savage level was such that he killed Magneto of all beings; someone he never got the better of in other cases. He then continued on by killing major heroes like Luke Cage, the Fantastic Four, and even Spider-Man! Thankfully, this was an alternate scenario storyline.
8 Leaving Cyclops To Die
We’re well aware of the love triangle between Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Wolverine. It’s one of the longest-lasting angles there has been, and one of the more frustrating ones as well. Perhaps Wolverine was also feeling the frustration here, as this story saw him outright leaving Cyclops to perish.
As it happened, Wolverine witnessed Cyclops take a tumble to what should have been his death, but the latter miraculously survived, just barely. Rather than helping him to safety, Wolverine abandoned Cyclops where he was without telling anybody of his fate. Of course, Cyclops did manage to live on, and there was more than an argument when he returned. Who knew Wolverine was such a crazed loverboy?
7 Getting His Adamantium Ripped Off And Healing From It
This is more of a case of a savage thing happening to Wolverine than him committing an act, but the fact that he could survive something like this happening to him is worth mentioning in his list of feats. In the Fatal Attractions storyline, Magneto had had enough of Wolverine’s attacks, and proceeded to brutally rip out the adamantium from his skeleton.
Remarkably, Wolverine didn’t die from this act, and though it took him some time to recover, he did get back into shape. Just imagine your bones being ripped out of your body, and you’ll be very impressed by how Wolverine survived such savageness against himself. Now that is one powerful healing factor.
6 Destroying Sabretooth
The rivalry between Wolverine and Sabretooth is centuries’ worth old, and it looks as if it will never be over in various interpretations of these characters. In Wolverine #55, however, the protagonist had had enough of Sabretooth’s constant antagonistic presence in his life, and took to killing him.
You’ll remember that Sabretooth was also immortal like Wolverine, which is why the latter made use of a weapon known as the Murasma Blade. This artifact allowed Wolverine to harm an immortal being, and he proceeded to not only kill Sabretooth, but pretty much destroy him. Wolverine would firstly slice off Sabretooth’s limb, before beheading his enemy.
5 Taking Jean's Life
Wolverine has actually taken the life of Jean Grey in multiple iterations of the X-Men, so it’s hard to pick just the one instance. That’s why we’ll be considering all of these occasions, since it’s the weight of killing Jean that carries the savage level.
After all, this is a woman whom a beast like Wolverine loves, making her something truly unique in his eyes. Taking her life means Wolverine really has no barriers that stop him from achieving his ends. Sure, stories like X-Men: The Last Stand were times where killing Jean was a necessity, but that doesn’t make it any less messed up.
4 Surviving Nukes And Nitro
We’re well aware of Wolverine being hit by a nuke in the comics, which was then adapted in The Wolverine as well. In these instances, he took the hit from the nukes willingly, making them a feat he achieved. If you don’t count these as something he did directly, then look further into his encounter with Nitro.
The supervillain can combust and blast away with force close to nuke level, and he did just that in Wolverine Vol. 3 #43. However, this made no difference, as Wolverine instead joked about not feeling the burn; at least none of it after the first 500 degrees! So, not only did he survive this insane heat, he had a verbal burn to offer as well.
3 Taking His Son's Life
That’s right, Wolverine does have a son – oh yeah, and he ended up killing him, too. Back in 1946, Wolverine had married a woman named Itsu, who became pregnant with his son. The Winter Soldier arrived to end this bliss, and took Itsu’s life. Her son was cut out of Itsu and survived (yes, it’s all really weird), before becoming a supervillain called Daken.
Eventually, Daken took it upon himself to kill his father. And after multiple attempts at following through with these intentions, the father and son engaged in a heated fight to the death. In the end, though, it was Wolverine who won and, to ensure Daken didn’t harm anyone, drowned his son since it was the only way to kill him.
2 Picking A Villain's Brain
How does one measure a good man from a bad man? Wolverine made this all too blurry when he avenged the lives of children killed, by slaughtering the ones who did the killing. In this story, Wolverine couldn’t save all the children kidnapped by the antagonists he was pursuing, and took his revenge by slicing them all with extreme venom.
The most savage victim, though, had to be his final one. This man had achieved superhuman levels of pain endurance, and couldn’t be harmed physically as he’d trained his mind into rejecting pain. Wolverine worked around this, and use his claws to hack off the man’s brain – this resulted in an extremely painful death for the bad guy.
1 Verbally Burning The X-Men
This might come across as something of a gag, but it does apply because today’s youth consider a “savage” person to be someone who deals out epic burns to people. Using this logic, Wolverine is the ultimate savage as he’s been known to dole out quips and insults aplenty.
One most notable incident was when he was introduced to Professor X in 2000’s X-Men, where he proceeded to verbally tear everyone down. Wolverine would mock Storm’s haircut, along with her hair being white to go with her attribute; he would openly laugh in Cyclops’ face for his title and the fact he couldn’t see without his goggles. The kicker here was when he called the Professor “wheels” due to him being in a moving chair – since everyone around there had a name that fit their appearance. Wolverine was a true savage in this scene.