Ever since his first full appearance in The Incredible Hulk #181, Wolverine has garnered the fascination from throngs of adoring fans. From his mysterious background to his brutal combat tactics, it didn’t take long for Logan to be the poster boy for the X-Men franchise and, to some degree, Marvel Comics itself. But as much as so many fans love to see “The Ol' Canucklehead” get the upper hand on the scores of enemies he’s accrued over the years, seeing just how tough this diminutive berserker is just as fascinating.

Wolverine’s healing factor comes second to none…well, maybe with the exception of Deadpool’s. But make no mistake, Logan can take a licking and bounce back with relative ease. Having his healing factor put to the test has become a hallmark of the character’s exploits in comic books to the point where sometimes it feels like Wolverine is a glorified “bullet sponge". This insane level of durability has made the character brave, as well as a little bit over-confident in his abilities. Despite the fact that the Logan we all know and love is currently dead in the Marvel Comics universe (don’t worry, he’s kind of already back), there have been several times where it should have been curtains for him.

15 HIGH DIVE OFF A HELICARRIER

The events of the watershed tragedy “Avengers Disassembled,” left several Marvel superheroes in dire straits. One hero in particular was so left unnerved by the whole ordeal, they actually created a false reality where mutants are dominate, thus giving readers the follow up event “House of M.” While this might sound like a pretty good deal if you’re a member of the species Homosuperior, not all X-Men felt that way.

Shortly after waking up in this new world, Wolverine did not take it too well.

With all his memories rushing back to him like a torrent of trauma, a newly self-discovered James Howlett just up and decides to take a swan dive of the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier he was chilling on. While this would kill pretty much the majority of X-Men if they tried this stunt, Wolverine luckily broke his fall…on a skyscraper.

14 AN EVERLASTING GAZE

Wolverine is supposedly the best at what he does, but Tomi Shishido (also known as Gorgon) might be better. During the climax of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s brilliant story arc “Enemy of the State,” these two heavy-hitters go head to head when Gorgon sets his eyes on taking out S.H.I.E.L.D. director, Nick Fury.

Logan steps in to stop Shishido from completing his mission and the two spend several pages taking chunks out of each other. Throughout the story arc, Gorgon proves himself to be able to best Wolverine when it came to raw fighting capability. As their final battle comes

to an end, Gorgon again asserted his dominance and was about to his mutant ability to turn Logan into stone (hence the cheeky moniker). Wolverine was quick to pop his claws at the last minute to reflect the petrifying gaze back at Shishido in a last ditch effort.

13 BROOD BOY

To call the alien race The Brood an invasive species is a bit of an understatement. These giant insectoids are bad news for anyone or anything with a pulse that enjoys not having their bodies turn into an alien incubator. While it’s easy to brush off The Brood as a cheap knockoff the Xenomorphs from the film Alien (which they kind of are), they have been a constant danger in the Marvel Universe since the early ‘80s.

The X-Men first ran into these nasty hive-minded critters Uncanny X-Men #155. They, along with Carol Danvers, would later fall victim to Brood experiences where they would be turned into hosts. While this is something that most humans and mutants would not come back from, Wolverine’s healing factor rejected the embryo and host transformation, but the whole ordeal was not pretty.

12 WHEN REMY MET LOGAN

Marvel’s Ultimate Universe (or Earth-1610), gave readers a fresh take on long-standing comic characters. There were basically no rules with regards to adherence to the books that came before since the titles under the Ultimate banner were not connected to the primary Marvel Comics Universe (at least not at their inception).

This led to many creators reimaging some classic stories and character introductions with a contemporary edge.

While some of these updates weren’t always met with praise, one of the more consistently good books early on was Ultimate X-Men (despite its creepy depiction of Wolverine and Jean Grey’s relationship; Yikes). One of the more memorable encounters during the comics’ run was when Logan tangled with Gambit. The scrap between them ended quickly when Remy charged his staff with energy…while it was in Wolverine’s gullet. Even though a purple blast covered the panel, Logan lived, much to Gambit’s chagrin.

11 SNACK TIME...BOMB

Wolverine does not often fair well against enemies who shield themselves in Adamantium, the metal that covers his skeleton and retractable claws. It’s like trying to break through a mahogany door with a baseball bat. It goes about as well (and as messy) as you’d think.

In Wolverine Vol. 3 # 57, Logan took on a soldier covered head to toe in Adamantium armor. The fight is a little back and forth, but the soldier gets the upper hand when he hits Logan with a surprise snack: a bomb that when it detonates destroys Wolverine’s body and even his soul. While his body does regenerate, he is essentially in a vegetative state. Logan eventually comes back due to a set of very bizarre circumstances that involve altered states of being and a literal deal with death because, you know…comics.

10 LEAP OF FAITH

When it comes to massive X-Men crossover event “Age of Apocalypse” things are tough all over. Very few mutants in the alternate future where Xavier is dead and En Sabah Nur rules supreme had cushy positions in life. Most X-Men were fighting against all odds just to stay alive. Wolverine was no different. After already being maimed by Cyclops in a nasty little tiff, things went downhill quickly.

In the second issue of Weapon X, Logan finds himself on a blimp. While in the middle of a discussion, the aircraft is attacked and catches fire. Relying solely on gut instincts and a lot of faith in his healing factor, Wolverine takes a leap out of the blimp and plummets to the ground…on fire. Aside from some nasty singing of his iconic flowing hair, he was pretty much unharmed.

9 DEATH, BE NOT PROUD

In the first story arc of Uncanny X-Force, Wolverine and his elite team of mutant assassins travel to the Moon to take out a cloned version of Apocalypse. Guarding the would-be harbinger of destruction are The Final Horsemen, each taking up familiar monikers. As the team tries to defeat these four dark guardians, Wolverine comes face to face with Death…literally.

Just as his name would lead you to believe, Death is a nasty foe.

Logan relies heavily on his quick reflexes and durability in his battle with the horseman, but Death is quick to infect the X-Man with every form of known disease to mankind. The whole ordeal is difficult to look at. Watching Wolverine be rendered to a pile of sores and cancerous lesions is as disgusting as it is horrifying. Logan, of course, makes it through, but his healing factor is put to the test like never before.

8 HIS HEART ON HORDE'S SLEEVE

The character of Horde is a 14-foot alien warlord with insane strength and durability. He’s also oddly absent from most X-Men lore, having only made a full appearance in Uncanny X-Men Annual #11. Which is probably a good thing for Wolverine.

Logan’s attack on Horde has little effect. But Horde’s retort certainly did. As Wolverine tries fruitlessly to stop Horde, the giant alien applauds the X-Man for his courage, but removes his heart in the process, thus killing him. Luckily for Wolverine and a real serendipitous moment, a single drop of Logan’s blood landed on an alien crystal, which allowed him to regenerate. We’re not sure how that works with his Adamantium-laced skeleton, but we’ll chalk it up to classic Chris Claremont craziness. We’re just happy Logan lived to fight another day, no matter how ridiculous the circumstances were.

7 BOMBED OUT

Wolverine has survived not one, but two devastating blasts from a nuclear warheads. Once on-screen and again in the comics. In a flashback scene for Wolverine’s time during World War II in the film aptly titled The Wolverine, Logan is seen shielding a Japanese soldier from the impending blast. While his flesh certainly takes a nasty flame lashing, both Logan and the soldier survived, for better or worse

While in comic form, Wolverine survived an attempt to isolate the Venom symbiote by nuking a small Canadian town.

This bombing was perpetrated by a pair of cybernetically-enhanced women that did not seem to care if anyone, especially Logan, who is seen as an ideal host for the symbiote, made it out alive. Luckily, when it comes to Logan and nuclear bombs, tis but a scratch.

6 DIVINE LIGHTNING

Thor is arguably the mightiest Avenger (just don’t tell Hulk). And Wolverine, despite his current living status, is arguably the most durable X-Man to ever be part of the team. With these two going head to head in the 2009 miniseries Wolverine vs Thor, it’s another example of an unstoppable force dropping the hammer on an unmovable object.

During their titular bout, Wolverine bested Odinson in hand-to-claw combat, forcing the Asgardian to his last line of offense: a massive lightning bolt. While the strike didn’t kill Wolverine, it definitely asserted Thor as the victor at the end of the day. Despite his loss, if you could call it that, the fact that Wolverine survived the hit speaks volumes to just how tough the little fuzz ball really is. Even godly lightning couldn’t take him down.

5 WARM TO THE BONE

While it seems pouring a copious amount of Adamantium on Wolverine will get the desired effect of rending him lifeless (temporarily, at least), stripping him down the same metal that’s inside him doesn’t. During a tie-in to the massive Marvel Comics event “Civil War,” the supervillain Nitro (who was also catalyst to the overall series) blasts Wolverine with such fiery force, it rendered him to nothing more than a metal skeleton.

Now, this may sound like an injury that Logan would have zero chance of bouncing back from, he literally regenerated every bit of organic material that made up his body in what seemed like the matter of minutes. Some comic fans have deemed this sudden recovery as a being a bit of a stretch, even for the powerful healing factor Wolverine possess. Despite this, it made for a pretty startling moment in a series already filled with them.

4 THIS ONE IS A GUT-BUSTER

The post-apocalyptic future the story arc “Old Man Logan” is one filled with dark versions of fallen heroes and an even darker sense of dread and remorse that permeates every page. This a world that has been claimed by evil. And those who were once good are either dead or have turned their backs. Bruce Banner, however, took a different route and became one with this insidious world, breeding a pack of Hulks to rule the wastelands.

In the final issue of this story, Wolverine faces Banner’s brood of Hulks to exact retribution for what he did to his family.

Logan does a pretty good job of doing this until he comes face to face with Banner himself and winds up being a snack. But Wolverine being the creature of iron determination, had other plans and cut his way out.

3 HALF THE MAN HE USED TO BE

The rules in Marvel’s Ultimate Universe regarding character’s powers and durability seem to be on a sliding scale. The best example of this (with the exception of Ultimatum) can be seen in miniseries Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk by Lost creator Damon Lindelof and artist Leinil Francis Yu.

These two have had quite a sordid history in the main Marvel Comics Universe, but in the aforementioned miniseries, their faceoff has was quick and devastating...for Wolverine anyway. Nick Fury assigned Logan to tracking down Hulk, which turned out to be a fool’s errand. During their initial encounter, Hulk ripped Wolverine and half and left him stranded on the side of a mountain with his legs well out of reach. Amazingly Logan lives through this and the readers are left wondering how tough Adamantium really is in the Ultimate Universe.

2 STEAMROLLED

Frank Castle does not suffer intervention by superheroes when it comes to exacting his form of vigilante justice. While Punisher won’t take things as far as killing fellow heroes, he will do everything in his power to render them incapable of thwarting his mission. Wolverine is no exception.

After giving Wolverine some horrific wounds with a shotgun (the likes of which might be too grim to go into great detail here, but trust us, it was not pretty), Frank went the extra mile by steamrolling the clawed X-Man…literally. The whole encounter was definitely played for dark humor (especially seeing as how Garth Ennis has a penchant for it), but if this had happened to pretty much any other character in the Marvel Universe, they would not have made it out alive.

1 TESTING HIS METAL

During the X-Men crossover event “Fatal Attractions” the power Magneto possess was on full display. Comic fans have been privy to the futility behind Wolverine thinking he’d have a fighting chance against the Master of Magnetism seeing as how the X-Man’s bones are laced in metal, which means he would practically be a marionette in the hands of Magneto.

But in X-Men Vol. 2 #25, things between these two polar opposites came to a head.

After a fair warning for Wolverine to stand down, Magneto gripped the X-Man and pulled the Adamantium from his bones out of his body though his skin, making for one of the most iconic and horrific panels that has ever been drawn in an X-Men comic. The damage was nothing short of devastating, but it did redefine Wolverine as a character and showed the lengths Magneto is willing to take to put his enemies down.