Warning: The following contains spoilers for X Lives of Wolverine #1 & #2 by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara, Frank Martin, VC’s Cory Petit, and Tom Muller, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
In X Lives Of Wolverine, Logan revealed that he hated the version of himself that was an active member of Team X, the covert special ops force of Weapon X. For Wolverine, this version of himself is truly despicable and without remorse. Yet, Wolverine rose beyond this horrific past and changed into the character we know today.
Borrowing a time-travel trick from Days of Future Past (by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Terry Austin), Wolverine’s consciousness jumped across time with the help of Marvel Girl, Professor Xavier, and Cerebro. Wolverine’s unique healing ability as well as his age made him the perfect candidate for these new timeline protection protocols that Xavier and the mutant spy Sage have developed. Somehow, Omega Red was using a similar technique but leaping into disconnected people in the past and empowering them with his tendril abilities. In these leaps, he’s working to erase the past, first by killing Xavier.
The first issue of X-Lives of Wolverine showed Wolverine getting plugged into the Cerebro unit to begin his time jump. We see flashes of his time as the Weapon X project, his violent realization of his claws as a child, his time in Hell, his crucifixion by the Reavers, his fight with the Hulk, and many more—all of the different lives Wolverine has lived. Some of those were quite horrific: cast into hell and nailed to an X in the desert, amongst them. Some of those were emotionally painful including his great love Mariko who he is forced to kill to end her suffering. Yet, none of these were as terrible for him as his time as a member of Team X.
In X Lives of Wolverine #2, Logan struggled to remember where he is. He’s surrounded by Team X with members Maverick and Sabretooth. Jean Grey insisted, “You have to save Xavier. The clock is ticking.” Wolverine paused. He’s filled with dread. In the past, Wolverine and Team X were assigned to bust up a drug cartel’s cocaine lab. He remembered the moment clearly—after they destroyed the lab, they destroyed the surrounding villages in a complete slaughter of all life. Wolverine reflected, “Hundreds of villages—mowed down. Mass graves. Burn piles.” The mission was to send a message to the populace to fear the United States more than the drug cartels.
Logan commented, “You don’t understand, Jeannie. This version of myself—it’s the one I hate most. I did bad things. Unforgivable things.” This was the lowest point of Wolverine’s life where he crossed a line and committed atrocities alongside Team X. In response, Wolverine purposefully changed the timeline and disabled Team X, preventing them from slaughtering the villagers.
Team X was created by the organization known as Weapon X, part of the United States super-soldier program Weapon Plus. Weapon X focused on mutants. Their efforts created Wolverine, Sabretooth, Maverick, Deadpool, X-23, and others. Team X joined several of these including Wolverine and Sabretooth and sent them on missions across the world. The team members were brainwashed after missions or had their memories swapped with false ones. The moment Wolverine experienced in X Lives of Wolverine demonstrated the degree of cruelty the Team was instructed to execute their missions with.
Ultimately escaping Weapon X, and after a brief hiatus with Alpha Flight, Wolverine found his way to the X-Men. Logan's time with that team changed him, although for quite some time, many of his memories, including those of his time on Team X, were unavailable to him.
Finally able to piece together his separate memories into a whole, his time on Team X would haunt him as the worst thing he’s ever done. Now, he’s been given a chance to correct that mistake—but the consequences might be more than he anticipated.