In today’s ever fluctuating comic book industry, where readership is key, shock has become the name of the game with the merciless death of beloved characters being a medium norm. Everyone’s head is fair fodder for the chopping block and though it can be argued that character assassination is never truly permanent in comic books, it is also true that Marvel tends to be a tad more steadfast about who dies and stays dead.
From the unmitigated holocaust that was the Ultimate series, to Spidey’s recent mind-meld with Otto Octavius, many of Marvel’s beloved main-stays are waking up to find themselves an endangered breed, after all nothing says ‘peak readership’ quite like brutal murder.
And now with the news that Marvel may be killing off one of its hottest properties coming 2014, fans can’t help but wonder just how you would go about offing arguably one of the most popular and powerful mutants in the world. And since it’s a time-honoured tradition for fans to harbour what-if scenarios about their favourite heroes, let’s see if we can’t come up with a way to kill a man who can regenerate from the most fatal wounds and whose skeleton is comprised of a legendary indestructible alloy.
Ok, let’s start by respecting a few guidelines before we tear Wolvie a new one (and keep it torn). First, no ridiculous scientifically enhanced or mystically imbued artefacts: in short, the kinds of things writers come up with on a late night right before a deadline. If he’s going to die he’s gonna go with a little respect. So for this one, no magical swords, no magnetized bullets and no power-sapping business of any kind: keep it above the belt.
That being said, he’s still going out with a bang, so let’s not pull any punches either.
-Number 1. This should be the first thing to come to anyone’s mind when slaying an immortal: put him in the sun. Marvel’s Illuminati once sent the Hulk far into space right before the events of Civil War so jetting Wolverine to the center of our galaxy shouldn’t be too hard, right? Just get him wasted one night (using a powerful poison), strap him inside any number of Marvel universe’s inter-stellar crafts and blast off. You can rationalize this move any number of ways and there’s always a villain or two ready to oblige.
-Number 2. Ok, let’s say complete incineration isn’t your style, maybe your more of brawler than a thinker and you want Wolvie’s death to be an all out city smash-fest. Who do you hire to put an end to the ol' Canucklehead’s maple syrup guzzling days? Well there are a lot of choices that come to mind and surely they’re all viable for a messy throw down, but you want him to stay dead so you aren’t taking any chances. Let’s hire em’ all and give them a cool team name like ‘The Weapon X Sublimation Squad’ or ‘Team Kills-a-Lot” or whatever you want, you can even make them nice matching suits and embroidered badges if you have time, maybe a cool Facebook fan-page. Anyway, the list below is comprised of the first names that came to mind, these aren’t individuals who are chosen because they work well together or because they highlight each other’s powers, but because individually they have a good chance. if you have a better roster then go with that:
1. Hulk: an obvious choice but he’s got ultimate strength and rage issues to match, so just slap, mix evenly and point him in the right direction and voila, half the work is done. He’s already torn Wolverine in two once before and he won’t hesitate to finish the job.
2. Magneto: we don’t just need muscle, we need technique and that’s where the homo-sapiens-hating holocaust survivor comes in. A guy who once stripped the very adamantium from Logan’s living bones seems like a necessary addition. Just repeat that and you have a considerably depowered mutant at your mercy. Plus he can throw a building or two at Wolverine and really make him dizzy while Hulk wails on him.
3. We need more power! Quick Silver can pack a heck of a punch at his speeds and he can run faster than thinking. This will be useful for weaving in and out of the flying buildings and Hulk punches to deliver some crippling blows to Wolverine. Plus he’ll come along just to impress his dad so he won’t need convincing. We already have a really nice roster here but its conceivable that Wolverine could survive: he’s actually seen worse, so an ace in the sleeve is going to be useful.
4. Namor is kind of underrated but he’s basically an aquatic superman. He has strength, speed, and technique, whatever you need so having him on your team just means doubling your chances right away. He’s hard to work with, sure, but we’re talking about a team already comprised of homicidal maniacs and mindless monsters with demi-god-like strength so if you were hoping to minimize collateral damage you came to the wrong fight.
5. Spot number five is just a backup to our backup and it’ll go to Juggernaut for that extra punch in our sauce. He’s mystically indestructible but we won’t hold out much hope for anyone in this melee and chances are he gets vaporized himself half-way into the fight.
So what ungodly force could possibly bring these unlikely rogues together? We’re gonna be lazy and say Professor X is controlling them for some reason best known to himself (presumably he got Magneto and Juggernaut’s anti-mind trick helmets off beforehand and lets just for the sake of argument say that our version of Hulk has a mind to control)
If that don’t do the trick then we have option…
… Number 3. Speaking of Herr Docterr: for whatever reason, Logan’s adamantium skull doesn’t protect him from psionic incursion as you’d think it might and he’s susceptible to all kinds of hoodwinkery, he’s just been lucky enough to be friends with most of the psychic power-houses of the Marvel universe. But say he wasn’t.
Let’s say Charles Xavier, arguably one of the most powerful psychics in the world, just snaps one day: he’s had enough and he wants to take it out on someone. It wouldn’t take two seconds for him to turn Wolverine’s brain into a useless pile of grey matter and you’ve solved your problem quickly and quietly. Just sell that skeleton for the billions its worth and you got yourself a pay check to boot.
Well we’ve got a mixed bag of scenarios here, all pretty ridiculous and all equally pretty final. But let’s say Marvel doesn’t want to actually kill Wolverine forever and ever, chances are they’re going to bring him back using an excuse that’s just as unlikely. Well in that case we just want to get rid of him, not kill him, which brings us to option number 4.
-The ol’ Cap-sicle: Freezing people for long periods of time is a Marvel classic and it did wonders for Captain America back in his day, so while were recycling storylines let’s give Wolverine the same treatment. We wont need too much variation on this trusty plot and the great part about Logan is that he weighs so much because of his adamantium skeleton so he’ll sink like a stone. Just fly him over the Arctic Ocean and push him out. He freezes, glides gently down 30 thousand feet of ice-cold water to the bottom and reawakens whenever Marvel deems him popular enough to roam the earth again.
That concludes a few scenarios which may put an end to Weapon-X, but all in all fans may prefer if Marvel didn’t go medieval on this particular character. Here’s hoping 2014 is kinder to Wolverine than what’s predicted.