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Characters / Marvel Comics: Logan

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James Howlett / Logan / Wolverine

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wolvie_2.png
The best there is at what he does.

Notable Aliases: Weapon X, Patch, Hellverine

Editorial Names: Savage Wolverine, Wolverine: The Best There Is, Wolverine Weapon X

Nationality: Canadian, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

Affiliations: X-Men, X-Force, New Fantastic Four, Savage Avengers, Uncanny Avengers, The Avengers, New Avengers, X.S.E., Secret Defenders, Alpha Flight, S.H.I.E.L.D.

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk #180 (October, 1974)

"If you really want to tangle with someone, why not try your luck against The Wolverine!"
— Logan in his first appearance, The Incredible Hulk #180

The Breakout Character when talking about the X-Men, Wolverine, alias Logan, Weapon X, and James Howlett is a Canadian superhero with an impaired memory, a gruff personality, and claws coming out of his wrists. Long-lived, bad-tempered, and boasting of being "the best there is at what he does", Logan has starred in numerous comic, film, and television spin-offs.

Wolverine has appeared in the following works:

    open/close all folders 

    Comics 
Main Comics

Secondary Comics

Other Comics

Notable Storylines

Alternate Universes

    Anime 

    Live-Action Films 

    Video Games 

    Western Animation 

    Other 

Wolverine provides examples of the following tropes:

    # - H 
  • 10-Minute Retirement: After the events of Fatal Attractions, Wolverine feels helpless and confused with his Adamantium gone, sets of bone claws in their place and his healing factor messed up. He decides to leave the X-Men for awhile because of it.
  • '90s Anti-Hero: Logan was created in the '70s, but throughout his time in the X-Men comics he's had the anti-authoritarian attitude, willingness to kill, and gritty, dark backstory that defined many such characters in the 90s.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: His claws with adamantium, especially since, prior to the reveal of them being bone, they were often drawn as actual blades and occasionally described as such. In the first issue of his 1988 solo series, long before the bone claw reveal, Logan's inner dialogue notes "The blades are pure adamantium...honed so keen they'll cut through anything" and in X-Men #1, Cyclops jumps all over him for popping his claws in Prof. X's face to "tag" him at the end of the Danger Room exercise which starts the issue, saying "[a] wave of [his] hand could pass them through solid steel".
  • Absurdly Sharp Claws: His claws without adamantium. They're formed of extremely dense bone rather than keratin, and have cutting power on par with a metal blade.
  • Abusive Parents:
    • His true father, Thomas Logan, was a complete bastard who mercilessly beat his son Dog and murdered Logan's legal father John while attempting to kidnap his mother after getting fired because Dog assaulted his friend Rose and killed Logan's dog.
    • His mother, Elizabeth was emotionally absent and not at all affectionate towards young Logan, spending most of her time alone or in sanitariums. As it turns out, this is because Logan's older brother John, Jr also manifested bone claws and attacked her, permanently scarring her before being put down by John, Sr, which led her to shut down emotionally. After Logan's claws first emerge, she immediately disowns him and ends her own life, unable to deal with both her sons being mutants.
  • The Ace: He would like to remind you that he's the best at what he does, and what he does isn't very nice.
  • Achilles' Heel: He has a strong fear of deep water, as the weight of his adamantium-laced skeleton makes it difficult or impossible for him to swim. Drowning is one of the few things that might overcome Logan's healing factor. There's a great deal of Depending on the Writer at play here.
  • Affirmative-Action Legacy:
    • Well, sort of. During the Dark Reign, Logan's bisexual, half-Japanese son Daken took on the Wolverine mantle as a member of the Dark Avengers. However, they both used the Wolverine name at the same time, and the situation with Daken was always intended to be temporary.
    • Played much straighter with the Wolverines series, with Daken, X-23, Lady Deathstrike, Mystique, and Sabretooth all set to take up Logan's mantle to varying degrees.
    • The All-New Wolverine series officially saw X-23 become the new Wolverine.
  • The Alcoholic: Subverted; he definitely fits the "drinks a lot" part, but due to his healing factor, he can't actually get wasted or develop an addiction or dependence, although Depending on the Writer. Wolverine has gotten drunk; he just needs a lot of alcohol to do so.
  • Already Met Everyone: Wolverine was later retconned to have met loads of different characters in the past, including Captain America, Peter Parker's parents, Black Widow, Mystique, Nick Fury, The Incredible Hercules, Daredevil enemy Nuke, not to mention basically everybody ever tied to Weapon X. In fact, a revelation about Weapon Plus does this to Weapon X, revealing its ties to Nuke and Project: Rebirth that created Captain America.
  • Alternate Company Equivalent:
    • Wolverine has enough similarities to Batman that one could make this argument. When Marvel and DC collaborated to produce the Amalgam Universe, combining their characters for fun, Wolverine and Batman fused to become "Dark Claw".
    • He's suspiciously similar to Timber Wolf from the Legion of Super-Heroes, who debuted years before Logan did. They've shared not only similar powers, including claws, but have also worn similar costumes and even had 'the same hairstyle. In fact, Logan in his short-lived "Fang" costume looked borderline identical to Timber Wolf, and intentionally so, as the then-current X-Men artist Dave Cockrum previously worked on the Legion comics.
  • Amazon Chaser: Funnily enough, it was only after Jean told Logan she thought he was an appalling and unlikable person he started crushing on her...
  • Ambiguously Human: For a while, there was an idea floating around that Logan, as well as similar mutants such as Sabretooth weren't normal mutants at all, but were instead "Lupines", mutated humans that evolved from canines instead of primates. This was later proven to not be the case, however.
  • Ambiguous Robots: Until the 90s, his claws were treated as something artificially implanted during Weapon X, with mechanical structures and a set of three metal tunnels on each hand housing and controlling his claws. It was only after getting his adamantium ripped out that it was established that he had natural bone claws which worked without any internal implants.
  • Amnesiac Dissonance: As unpleasant as he can be, a lot of the time it's shown that pre-Weapon X Logan was immeasurably so much worse. His time with the Hudsons and then the X-Men helped make him a much better man.
  • Amusing Injuries: Wolverine's ability to heal from virtually anything has led to him often being the target of some quite slapstick-style humor that would be fatal for most anyone else, such as a giant Iceman squishing him like a bug or Cyclops blasting him out a window for annoying him. Even compared with other characters with the same healing factor: In World War Hulk, Hulk putting X-23 through a wall for taking his eye is portrayed as shocking, while Hulk making Wolverine a human paddle ball for doing the same is played for humor.
  • Animal-Themed Superbeing: He might seem like he is based off actual wolverines at first glance since he has enhanced senses and claws, but those are very generic animal traits. His claws pop out of the back of his knuckles, which does not happen in the animal kingdom. Then, you get into his metal skeleton, Healing Factor, and the fact that his blue and yellow striped costume does not resemble a wolverine at all. Some later made attempts to change this a bit to various degrees of success. Wolverine is more "animal symbolism" than anything; his power-set invokes the wolverine's reputation as an extremely tough and aggressive creature that can basically shred whatever it's going after.
  • Anime Hair: Logan's standard look since his introduction has been a swept-back mane-like hairstyle that comes to prominent points on the sides of his head, combined with muttonchop sideburns. During Adam Kubert's run as artist of the self-titled comic in The '90s, the combination was so long that he almost did have an actual mane; in newer works his hair tends to be a more realistic length while keeping the same style. Living Between Wednesdays actually did an analysis of the various aspects of Wolverine's hair.
  • Anti-Hero: A Trope Codifier for superhero comics, although very inconsistently. He's run the gamut from Pragmatic Hero to Unscrupulous Hero to Nominal Hero in the comics, while the cartoons and movies consistently portray him as a Pragmatic Hero, except for The Superhero Squad Show, where he is a pure hero. Claremont remarked that he disliked the attempts to make Wolverine darker. The following bit of internal dialogue from the first issue of Logan's self-titled series, in the middle of a huge battle with cutthroat slavers who have butchered the crew and passengers of a captured boat, sums things up nicely.
    I'm an X-Man. Mutants like me. Good people, idealists, dreamers. With them, killing is a last resort. With me, it's second nature. I take the world as it is, and give better than I get. Come at me with a sword. I'll meet you with a sword. You want mercy. Show a little first. [...] Some of those folks died fighting... some praying... some accepted their fate... some cursed it... some begged for their lives... most were terrified. Details don't matter. What's important is that they died. And those scales have to be balanced. In kind.
  • Arch-Enemy: Sabretooth, who is essentially a larger version of Wolverine but without a shred of moral decency and who personifies the darker aspects of Wolverine's nature and personality. He also gets a huge kick out of tormenting Logan, and makes a point to strike at his loved ones and others with whom he has strong emotional ties every chance he gets.
  • Archnemesis Dad: Sabretooth was originally planned to be his father, but that idea was scrapped. Then there was some ambiguity of him being his half-brother, but it didn't turn out that way either, so ultimately there is no blood relation between them. They're simply two guys from the same province who have similar powers and cannot stand each other. His actual dad Thomas Logan was one to him as well, as he tried to kill his son and was a horrible dad to his other son Dog Logan.
  • Arrogant God vs. Raging Monster: His rivalry with telepathic Serial Killer "Mr. X". X is a master martial artist that has been practically undefeated due to his skills and low level telepathic powers, that allows for him to predict anyone's moves. Wolverine is also a great martial artist, but is more famous for his attacks of rage, while also possessing a superior healing factor, and a high tolerance to pain and damage. In their first fight, X beats Wolverine easily. But in their second Wolverine is berserking and X can't adequately read his mind to predict his actions. In their third, Wolverine figures it out halfway through and intentionally goes berserk.
  • Art Evolution:
    • From Logan's first appearance through the 90s, the following were pretty consistent:
      • He was short, homely, and very hirsute.
      • His claws came out of the backs of his hands behind his knuckles, usually through metal chutes that were either part of his gloves or implanted in his hands (the latter being prevalent in the late 80s/early 90s).
      • The claws were either thin blades or like gently-curved spikes with really sharp tips. The former was more prevalent in the '90s but really depended on the artist, while the latter was especially prevalent in the '70s and '80s, as well as in Weapon X. Sans adamantium, the claws were consistently drawn as bone spikes.
    • Ever since the X-Men Film Series, the following have been pretty consistent:
      • He's more handsome, less hairy and generally more of an average height.
      • The claws come out directly between his knuckles and tend to look like the heavier, more knife-like movie claws.
      • The claws have no openings of their own and have to tear through his flesh to be extended.
  • Artistic License – Biology
    • Aside from the issues with lacing Logan's bones with the adamantium, some depictions of his skeleton (especially in the Weapon X miniseries) have long adamantium sprues sticking off his bones from the injection ports, which would play havoc with his muscles as he moves.
    • Most artists make Wolverine's claws so long that he either couldn't completely retract them, or the tips would be inside his hands if he could, meaning he either wouldn't be able to flex his wrists or would shred his hands from the inside if he could. Initially the length of the claws was stated to be twelve inches, which would be abnormally long for a human forearm, especially on such a short person. More recently this has been pared down to a more reasonable nine inches. Also, during the "feral subhuman" arc, artists liked to put small spikes and barbs on the claws, which would really tear up his arms and hands when he used them.
    • If Wolverine was really 5'3" and 195 pounds (and that's without the adamantium), he would be more than fifty pounds overweight; his being very muscular may be the reason behind this.
  • The Atoner: One of the reasons given for Wolverine appearing in so many titles is that after regaining his memories, he felt so guilty over all the nasty stuff he did in his past, and the fact that his son is basically just as bad a person in the present as he used to be, that Logan feels compelled to try and do as much good as physically possible, though he feels he can't ultimately make amends. Of course, this doesn't really account for all his appearances before he got his memories back and learned he had a son....
  • Audible Sharpness: SNIKT! (with the adamantium) and SCHLIKT! (without)
  • Autocannibalism: He once admitted to surviving trapped inside a glacier for months by carving off and eating his own regenerating flesh.
  • Back from the Dead: After his legacy was succeeded thanks to X-23 inheriting the Wolverine codename and his alternate counterpart Old Man Logan migrating to the 616 universe, the original Wolverine is back in action after Return of Wolverine. It seemed liked this was much earlier in the original Marvel Legacy one-shot, stopping a Frost Giant from stealing the Mind Gem, but that Wolverine was really Old Man Phoenix from Jason Aaron's Thor run.
  • Badass and Child Duo: So much it's a Running Gag. "Child" is sometimes overstating it, but all of his well-known sidekicks are adolescent girls who he can both trade snark with and act violently protective of. If it ain't broke... How much of a running gag is it? Well when his time-displaced future version ends up in the present, he immediately forms this relationship with the time-displaced teen Jean Grey.
  • Badass Biker: Logan is this in general. It becomes a plot point in one issue of the first self-titled series when a paranoid, drugged-up murderer stops by Logan at a traffic signal. He starts eyeballing Logan, and freaks out because he can see that Logan isn't one to be messed with.
  • Badass Teacher: Became this lately, especially as of the Wolverine and the X-Men title, wherein he himself rebuilt the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters into the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, with himself as the headmaster.
  • Bash Brothers: With Colossus originally, but putting him on a team together with any bruiser in the Marvel Universe results in this.
  • Battle Couple: His alternate self is this with Hercules in X-Treme X-Men volume 2.
  • The Bear: A heterosexual example in the mainstream Marvel Universe. Played straight (or not) in X-Treme X-Men volume 2.
  • Beard of Sorrow: Grows one after he is tricked into killing his children.
  • Beast Man: His mutation has left him with similarities to several predatory mammals, not just wolverines, such as sharp canines, excessive body hair, a heightened sense of smell which enables him to track prey, the ability to communicate on a limited level with wild animals, hair and facial hair which grow in a manner similar to a mane and of course, his famous claws.
    • At one point, his body rejected an adamantium infusion (long story), and his mutation went haywire, further transforming him from man to beast. During this time, his nose flattened, his teeth grew longer and sharper, while his hair and body hair grew to excess, forming patches of thick fur all over his body.
    • Origin reveals that he increasingly preferred to hunt alongside a pack of wolves over spending time with other people as his powers developed and his memory worsened. After accidentally killing his First Love, Rose, the story ends with a naked Logan retreating into the wilderness with some wolves.
  • Because I'm Good At It: Often makes comments to this effect about his "profession".
    Wolverine: I'm the best there is at what I do. And what I do isn't very nice.
  • Berserk Button: And not a hard one to press, either. Just getting him wound up seems to suffice, although he has some specific triggers:
    • Logan doesn't take kindly to people calling him "runt", "shorty", or otherwise mocking his height.
    • Offending Wolverine's dignity is a good way to get some claws buried in your chest. Early in his X-Men tenure, Nightcrawler played a prank on him and stood there, laughing his ass off. Wolverine lunged at him, claws out, and only Kurt's teleportation ability saved his life.
    • Hurting people that he cares about.
    • Hitting a woman in front of Logan, even if he does not know her or care about her. He made this very clear to Steven Lang in one of the early issues when he belted Jean Grey:
      Oh that TEARS it Bub!! You may beat into me all you want, but if you hit the lady you're gonna have to answer to THE WOLVERINE!! (rips free of his restraints and goes to clawing)
    • Harming a little girl when he's around.
  • The Berserker: His default fighting style is wading into battle, hacking and slashing with his claws. The more straight application is when he gets angered enough to slip into a "berserker rage", where he lapses into an animalistic mental state and will lash out at anyone nearby with aggression far beyond what he's normally capable of. He hates the latter, but has acknowledged that it's saved his life more than once.
    Black Panther: Your fighting style is based on your ability to take damage. You can't win this.
  • Betty and Veronica: Logan was the Veronica to Scott's Betty in relation to Jean. Originally this was just to give fans a reason to care about the then-new character, who'd yet to achieve his now-legendary popularity. It's since taken a life of its own, and some fans act like it's the defining aspect of both Scott and Logan's characters, and in the films, it is. Oddly enough, the whole Jean/Scott/Wolverine triangle pretty much started as a retcon. It was at most hinted at back in the day, but in the late '80s it was retconned up in a big way.
  • Big Brother Mentor: Despite his gruff exterior, Logan is actually pretty good with kids, and has a particular soft spot for troubled girls. He serves as a mentor to Kitty Pryde, Jubilee, X-23, Armor, and even helps set Kamala Khan in the right direction.
  • The Big Guy: Defied. Despite having all the characteristics, being muscle-bound, hairy, badass and everything, he is actually shorter than most of his friends and foes, the latter (especially Sabretooth) often calling him "runt" to insult him.
  • Big Guy, Little Guy: Wolverine being very short at 5'3" and Sabretooth being very tall at 6'6" serves to make even more contrast between them.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: Possessing the genes of Wolverine is a one-way ticket to Hell. His older brother scarred their mother with his bone claws, before dying suspiciously at the age of twelve. His true father murdered his cuckolded "father" in front of him, which led to him killing his father with his bone claws. As a result, his mother banished him from the Howlett estate, and then killed herself. Afterwards, Logan's half-brother (by his abusive biological father) attempted to kill him and instead caused him to inadvertently kill his childhood friend. Over the course of his long life, Wolverine has unknowingly fathered who knows how many illegitimate children, many of whom grew into crazed, soulless killers, and were sent to kill him, with him being forced to kill first, only later discovering who they really were. His legitamte son Daken is a manipulative sociopath who enjoys toying with others for his own amusement, and even murdered his own adopted baby brother out of jealousy. His only true legacy are a line of physically and psychologically tormented girls, fashioned from his X chromosomes and shaped to become perfect assassins. Of those that survived to adulthood, two appear to have overcome their trauma, while one has followed her destined role. The only member of his family that seems to be doing good with no trauma at all is the son he unknowingly fathered in the Savage Lands and hasn't seen since he was a baby.
  • Birthday Hater: Logan isn't exactly fond of birthdays for many reasons, but the biggest one has to be Sabretooth's little "tradition" of tracking Logan down every year on his birthday to brutalize him to the point of near-death just to torture the man.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: Logan's retractable claws that extend from his hands. This particular mutation carries through his genes, as his Opposite-Sex Clone X-23 has two claws in each arm and one in each foot, and his biological son Daken also has three claws in each arm, two that extend from his hands and one that comes out from under his forearm.
  • Blessed with Suck: His powers come with a number of drawbacks:
    • The combination of the healing factor and his claws not having natural sheaths to move through means that they cut through his arms and hands every time he uses them. Depending on the depiction, this can be anywhere from just poking through the skin to slicing through muscle, tendons, and joints. This is quite painful in any case, but fortunately, the healing factor means the pain is brief, and he has a very high pain tolerance.
      • One issue of X-Force graphically highlighted this fact, with Wolverine repeatedly popping and retracting one claw while stewing over something...and a small spurt of blood with each SNIKT!
      • In the Weapon X standalone story, the metal chutes his claws extend through are surgically implanted in his hands because of the damage the claws did the first time he extended them. Sadly, the chutes were discontinued from the artwork for no explained reason, despite how they alleviated this problem.
      • In Wolverine #75, his first time popping his claws after Magneto pulled out the adamantium◊ was a gory mess, and was excruciatingly painful. Afterwards, he had to keep his hands constantly bandaged to deal with bleeding from the holes made by the claws, and the pain, while not as bad as that first time, was still a lot worse than normal because his Healing Factor was so overstressed that it had stopped working. He still kept it up, though...
      [Logan pops his right claws while he and Jubilee are talking]
      Logan: I pop 'em out a few times a day. Keeps the channels open...like pierced ears.
      Jubilee: Did it stop hurting?
      Logan: Nope.
    • The adamantium may reinforce his bones and make his claws that much more dangerous, but it actually slows down his healing factor because it's poisonous to have it on his bones. X-23, in contrast, heals much faster than him because she only has adamantium on her claws, and even grouses at Logan at one point about how slowly he heals. The reason for this was Ret Conned, but it still applies. Then again, the healing factor is depicted so inconsistently that this might as well not apply anyway. In one story which featured the X-Men fighting the Brotherhood on Muir Island, Mystique threatens him with a weapon that will deactivate his healing powers and explains that his adamantium bones will poison and kill him quickly if she uses it. This is a focal point of Logan—whether through age or some other factor, his healing factor is dramatically reduced and adamantium poisoning is breaking his body down.
    • Another downside of the adamantium is that the extra weight (around 100 lbs) makes it very difficult for Logan to swim, giving him a healthy fear of deep water since his healing factor can't deal with asphyxiation.
    • His enhanced senses may seem like a cool thing to have, but most people would probably go insane from trying to process that level of constant sensory input 24/7.
    • His metabolism is usually extremely effective in breaking down anesthetics, sedatives, etc. before they can have a significant effect, which very much sucks for him when those would actually be beneficial. He also practically never gets drunk, which with everything Logan has gone through would be nice to do once in a while.
  • Body Horror: Everything he went through as Weapon X. Though it made him practically indestructible, the procedures done on him were absolutely horrendous.
    • His claws, given that they are basically really sharp blades that slice through both skin and muscle every time they come out. The first time he used them was even more horrifying, being both bloody and painful, made even worse by the fact that young Logan had no idea how to retract them at first.
    • Magneto ripping the adamantium out of his body◊ in X-Men #25 left him looking like a grotesque meld of a pincushion and a melted candle.
    • Logan's spiky, freakishly distorted body◊ in the fever dream-like memories of his handling by the Weapon X program, as depicted in Weapon X and his 1988 solo series.
    • Wolverine's "feral" form◊ that he devolved into in Wolverine #100 after his body rejected a second adamantium infusion, which had elongated, barbed claws, a warped face with the nose shrunken to little more than slits, diminished height, bulging muscles, exaggeratedly hairy arms, hunched back, and Sabretooth-like clawed fingernails and fang-like canines. Picture Wolverine as somewhere between a troll and a caveman, and you have the basic idea.
  • Breakout Character: Logan was originally supposed to be a one-off Hulk villain. It didn't quite turn out that way.
  • Break the Badass: The X-Men's first run in with Proteus reduces Logan to a quivering mess. Cyclops had to intentionally piss Logan off to get him back on his feet, with all the danger that implied. Cyke nearly ended up skewered.
  • Brought Down to Badass: There have been times his healing was over-taxed, rendering it useless for a period of time. This rarely slowed Wolvie down too much, though.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: He's killed tons of people (mostly baddies but still), to the point slaughtering characters or mooks borders on forgettable or a source of his angst depending on the writer. Best exemplified in the Morrison run when speaking to Angel, a mutant he just rescued by slaughtering some U-Men mooks before being covered in their blood, at a restaurant:
    I do stuff like that everyday. I've been doing it most of my life. No big deal. Eat something.
  • Cain and Abel: While not siblings, he and Sabretooth share a closely connected past, were previously friends (to an extent) and were both "reborn" in the Weapon X program. He also has this with his actual half-brother Dog. Ironically, in Origin, Dog was strongly implied to be a young Sabretooth, but they are later shown to not be the same person. Dog is still alive and well after almost 133 years and really knows how to hold a grudge. Another version is this with his other half-brother John Howlett III.
  • Canadian Equals Hockey Fan: A couple of quick gags on Wolverine: First Class showcase that even Logan is this (and it's a big Berserk Button to interrupt him when he's watching a game...at least if you are a runaway Danger Room robot looking for a fight, that is).
    Logan: It is my right as a Canadian!
  • Carpet of Virility: As part of his mutation, he's unusually hairy. Not just on the chest, but he's got a considerable amount of arm-hair that's usually visible because of his sleeveless outfits.
    • Less flattering depictions of Logan appear to have thick hair just about everywhere on his entire body, both in places where hair doesn't usually grow, and in amounts that no real person has without some form of hirsutism.
    • Exaggerated during his time as a noseless, feral beast, during which a lot of his body hair turned into thick animal fur.
  • Captain Ethnic: Mostly averted. Despite being created specifically to be Canadian superhero and then going on to become one of the most famous Canadian characters in all of fiction, he's usually not portrayed as overly stereotypical. More often than not, he's the direct opposite of typical Canadian stereotypes. However, it's worth noting that writers originally toyed with the idea of calling him either "Captain Canada" or "Captain Canuck", not to mention he was only really included in the X-Men because the new team was meant to feature heroes from non-American countries.
  • Canadian Equals Hockey Fan: Some comic series, like Wolverine: First Class, show him having a love for hockey as a source of a couple of quick jokes (and people trying to kill him while he's trying to see a game? They end up even worse than usual).
  • Cartwright Curse: One of the most egregious illustrations of the saying "Being paired up with a badass never ends well for a woman". Wives, fiances, girlfriends, girlfriends he hadn't been dating for years but happened to hook up with again. Dating Logan 9 times out of 10 will result in your horrible death...except for Yukio and she's now a paraplegic.
  • Cast from Calories: Wolverine is occasionally depicted as needing to do this with high protein meals, to fuel his healing factor. He gives advice to X-23 to follow suit.
  • Catching the Speedster: Wolverine has often bested Quicksilver by simply holding out his fist for Quicksilver to run into.
    Wolverine: That never gets old.
  • Character Catchphrase:
    • "Yer choice, bub. Yer funeral."
    • And of course who can forget: "I'm the best there is at what I do. And what I do isn't very nice."
  • Characterization Marches On: Early Wolverine was, to put it mildly, an utter asshole, frequently trying to murder the other X-Men for minor slights or nothing at all, in-between just generally being racist, sexist, creepy, and unpleasant. Starting around John Byrne's time as artist on X-Men, he begins mellowing out more and more.
    • His romantic love-triangle with Jean starts out as anything but; Logan outright steals her belongings, breaks into her apartment and acts Entitled to Have You, while Jean is openly and unambiguously disgusted by him.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: He's been with a lot of women in his life, and he's generally a rough character. That said, he always treats his partners with respect and can actually be quite caring in some cases.
    • And of course who can forget: "I'm the best there is at what I do. And what I do isn't very nice."
  • Cigar Chomper: Until smoking became unbelievably uncool around the '90s, Wolverine was rarely without a cigar.
  • Clark Kenting: His stint as "Patch" while in Madripoor.
  • Clothing Damage: A natural corollary of his Good Thing You Can Heal problems. He's subjected to catastrophically gruesome injuries so often that it's a wonder he even bothers to wear clothing, let alone having his own iconic costume.
  • Cock Fight: Logan has a special place in his heart for Jean Grey. Cyclops knows it, and does NOT approve. Just like Logan doesn't approve of Jean with Scott but bears with it for the sake of Jean. Not that it ever stopped them from squabbling and sometimes physically fighting about it because, in Logan's words, "Cyke doesn't deserve a woman like Jean!"
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Logan's uniform color made it easy to tell what team he was working with. Blue/yellow or brown/tan: he's acting heroic and working with the X-Men and/or the Avengers. Dull gray/black: he's doing X-Force work (and you should probably get out of the way).
  • The Comically Serious: His brooding and grumpy nature sometimes allows for hilarious moments. Being paired with young girls (which is fairly common) or babies◊ helps.
  • Conflicting Loyalty: Averted most of the time. While Logan's both an X-Man and Avenger, he makes it clear that he considers the Avengers 'work' and the X-Men as 'family'.
  • Conspicuous Gloves: In his early appearances, Wolverine had his claws attached to his gloves. Once they were said to come out of his hands, his gloves had slits to accommodate their extension.
  • Cool Old Guy: Arguably one of the coolest (and oldest) guys around, but "cool" doesn't necessarily mean "nice"...
  • The Cowl: Subverted. Wolverine has been called "Batman, sans the subtlety".
  • Costume Evolution: For a guy that's got zero interest in fashion, he sure has went through a lot of outfits.
    • He started out with the classic blue/bright yellow getup with the tiger stripes and the shoulder pads.
    • He briefly swapped it out for the "Fang outfit", a brown and yellow getup without a mask and lined with sharp teeth.
    • After this, he switched things up again with a simpler brown and dark tan version of his original costume, minus the tiger stripes.
    • After a little over a decade with the brown costume, he, along with the rest of the X-Men started wearing identical blue and yellow uniforms.
    • After once again going back to his original blue and yellow getup, this costume received an update in the mid-2000s, becoming the "Astonishing" suit, which darkened the blues, ditched the briefs, shortened the mask's ear-pieces and gave him normal, non-pointy boots.
  • Crass Canuck: The prime example, bub. Born from Cold Lake, Alberta, he is short, gruff, unpredictable, violent, and untrusting of authority, yet he's the best there is at what he does, and what he does best isn't very nice.
  • Create Your Own Villain: Some time travel shenanigans revealed that Wolverine was responsible for the vicious abilities of The Brood.
  • Cunning Linguist: To the surprise of many, Logan, thanks to his long lifespan and his adventures all over the world, can speak many languages fluently, including Korean, Lakota, Cheyenne, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Chinese. In fact, most of his dialogue in the Claremont/Miller miniseries Wolverine is actually in Japanese in-universe, though it's written in English for the reader's sake.
    • He also has limited knowledge of Vietnamese, Farsi, Thai, German, French and Portuguese, not to mention he can communicate with wild animals.
  • Cute Little Fangs: He's definitely not most people's idea of "cute", but he's often been portrayed as having unusually sharp canines.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Wolverine is killed off in Death of Wolverine by being covered from head to toe in molten adamantium. So not only is it cooking him alive until it hardens, which his Healing Factor keeps him alive through, but it ultimately kills him by hardening solid and suffocating him in an air-tight cocoon. That's a very, very nasty way to die.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: While it took many, many years to be unveiled, and certain details are forever changing, Wolverine's past is long and tragic, involving the murder of his legal father and his mother by his biological father, whom he then killed, decades of aimlessly roaming the world, fighting in multiple wars, and being abducted for a black-book Super-Soldier project where he was tortured to the brink of insanity before he killed his captors and escaped, by which time his Healing Factor had blocked off his memories in order to protect him.
  • Dating Catwoman: Wolverine tends to have the bad habit of getting romantically involved with women who end up being his enemy or try to kill him and his friends later down the road. Notable example include Mystique and Viper.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Wolverine invariably retorts with dry, cutting mockery whenever somebody threatens him or just says something he thinks is stupid.
  • Death Is Cheap: He's been killed a few times but keeps coming back. In fact, the one-shot kicking off Marvel Legacy undoes... well, Death of Wolverine... sort-of. Wolverine really returned in Hunt for Wolverine whereas the Logan in the Legacy one-shot was revealed to be Old Man Phoenix.
  • Decoy Backstory: In Origin, the reader is introduced to two boys: weak, sickly James, and gruff Dog Logan. We're obviously supposed to believe that Dog grows up to be Wolverine until James develops claws and a healing factor. Dog Logan turns out to be Wolverine's half-brother, and Depending on the Writer hinted to be his Arch-Enemy Sabertooth.
  • Depending on the Writer: How big a jerk he is and how powerful his healing factor is seems to rest on who happens to be writing him at the moment.
  • Determinator: Logan is one stubborn son of a bitch. Even when badly hurt, he'll shrug it off and just keep coming at you until one of you drops. Unfortunately for whoever he's fighting, this will inevitably give Logan the time he needs to heal.
  • Disappeared Dad: All over the place. His biological father killed the man who raised him, and in turn he killed his biological father. Then on his end, he didn't even know Daken existed until Daken was over 60. On top of that the "Wolverine Goes to Hell" arc confirmed he has sired many, many more children during his lifetime whose lives he has been completely absent from; "I see the faces of the children I was never there for. Daken and others I don't even recognize". Among them were The Mongrels, whom were pitted against him by The Red Right Hand, were killed by him, and then he found out they were his offspring. Wow.
  • Distaff Counterpart: His successor Laura Kinney (aka X-23), who's literally his female clone made from an incomplete DNA sample (the Y chromosome was damaged, so they doubled up on the X).
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": Even after regaining his memories, Wolverine prefers to go by Logan over James. Dog Logan seems to be one of the few exceptions he doesn't bother to correct.
  • Dub Name Change
    • He's known as "Lobezno" ("Wolf Cub") in Spain and in Latin America he's know by many names: "Pantera" ("Panther"), "Guepardo" ("Cheeta"), "Aguja Dinámica" ("Dynamic Needle"), "Aullador" ("howler") and many more. justified in that the Spanish name for the wolverine is "Glotón", which means "Big Eater" and might cause people to think his mutant power is eating stuff.
    • French translators were faced with the same problem: French for "Wolverine" is "Glouton", which has the same meaning as its Spanish transparent counterpart, so for a very long time (until Panini got Marvel's right from Lug), he was known as "Serval" (a big African cat with a great sense of smell), then they simply stopped translating his name. Another publisher (Arédit) did call him "Le Glouton", though.
    • The same problem in Italian has been solved by... not translating his name.
    • The Hungarian translators also faced a problem with his name as the Hungarian word for "Wolverine" is "Rozsomák" or "Torkosborz", neither of which is very flattering, and said animal is not even indigenous in Hungary. "Rozsomák" sounds like it's in plural form (also "rozs" means rye and "mák" means "poppy" in Hungarian). The other word "Torkosborz" ("gluttonous badger") faced a same problem as the Spanish and French translations.
      • For the comics, Rozsomák became his official name.
      • Beginning with the 90s X-Men: The Animated Series, his name was changed to "Farkas", meaning "Wolf" (ironic, considering these two are natural enemies), although the series' final seasons simply left his name in English. Farkas would be carried over into the live-action films as well, thus generations grew up calling him by that name.
      • Post-2010 animated content would randomly alternate between Rozsomák and Farkas. This confusion lasted well into the 2020s, with the film Deadpool & Wolverine going against the established live-action naming trend and changing him back to Rozsomák.
      • The Hungarian dub of Spider-Man: The Animated Series was an outlier. There, he was named "Pézsmapatkány" ("Musk Rat").
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: He was first introduced as an antagonist with no connection to the X-Men or implication that he was a mutant, just a really strong, agile guy whose claws were part of his gloves, not his body. Even after joining up with the X-Men, it took a while before he was given a name other than Wolverine, or even showed his face unmasked.
    • In his first appearance, his dialogue was similar to that of Spider-Man; snarky and hammy, taunting the Hulk with really bad jokes during the battle. His second appearance (when he was recruited by Xavier) established the attitude most modern fans know.
    • When pitching ideas about who he was underneath the mask, he was originally envisioned by Len Wein as being a teenager or a young adult, close in age to Spider-Man, before Wein changed his mind after seeing concept art depicting Logan as a rough, hairy older guy.
    • Earlier material went with the idea that Logan's claws were something surgically implanted alongside the adamantium and not a natural part of his mutation, before it was ultimately revealed that he always had the claws, which were made of bone prior to Weapon X.
  • Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Wolverine's original costume was quite similar to his classic look, however it had smaller shoulder pads, much smaller ear-pieces, visible eyes instead of blank white ones and whiskers. His classic costume was a happy accident, and every panel of Giant Size X-Men 1 featuring Wolverine was re-drawn to look like he did on the cover art.
    • In his earliest appearances unmasked, Logan looked a lot uglier and had a pronounced widow's peak. He was also quite well-groomed, being clean-shaven outside of his mutton chops and always had his hair, aside from the pointy parts impeccably slicked back.
  • Enemy Within: He constantly struggles to keep his natural animalistic rage from taking over his humanity. The best he can generally manage is to reconcile the parts of his humanity with his beastlike nature.
  • Everyone Has Standards:
    • He's not exactly a nice guy, and he admits it, and certainly doesn't shy from killing his foes, but he is generally assumed to have a deep hatred for the Punisher, because the latter is even more of a kill-happy maniac than Wolverine himself. The fact that Garth Ennis wrote a crossover that involved Punisher blasting Wolvie's face off with a shotgun, then shooting him in the balls with the same shotgun, and then running him over with a steamroller, a series of actions that caused Wolverine to swear vengeance on Frank Castle, certainly adds credibility to this theory. This is generally averted in the modern continuity so far. Several stories after the infamous Ennis story about how Frank shot Wolverine's balls off (Ennis absolutely loathes Wolverine so it was less Frank and Logan not liking each other and more like a brutal Take That! by the writer) show Logan being on, at the least, neutral terms with Frank while even agreeing with him on his stance that some people need to die. Logan even warned Frank when the Avengers were coming to apprehend Castle in the recent Punisher: War Zone. Lately, Logan's standards are against people who go way too far in their causes to the point where they don't care if people unrelated are hurt or injured by a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
    • Even in his earliest, pre-character development days, he refuses to let Cyclops get shot in the back. Much as he really doesn't like him, Logan knows letting him die like that is a weasel thing to do.
  • Evil Counterpart:
    • Sabretooth has mostly the same power palette as Wolverine (enhanced senses, healing factor) but is one of the most viciously evil characters in the Marvel universe.
    • Yuriko Oyama, AKA Lady Deathstrike, has essentially the same healing factor and adamantium-laced bones and weapons as Wolverine (finger blades instead of claws), although her healing is the result of extensive cybernetic enhancement. Unlike Logan, she's a mentally-disturbed mercenary, terrorist, and assassin who has a long-standing grudge against Logan.
  • Expansion Pack Past: Benefits of a long life and Comic-Book Time is that Logan's always got another adventure in his past somewhere.
  • Exposition of Immortality: Wolverine's Healing Factor means his age is hard to pin down. Origin put his early years in the 19th century, in 1880. The story spends its time exploring his earlier life, firmly placing the character in a time period at least 120 years earlier than the one he currently lives in.
  • Expy: Larry Hama has stated that while it was not doing it consciously at the time, in hindsight he wrote Wolverine essentially as Snake Eyes who can speak. To be fair, several similarities such as having a military past and a deep connection to Japan had already been previously established for Wolverine. How firmly his run has served as foundation for later writers again goes to show how Tropes Are Not Bad.
  • Face of a Thug: His unshaven, lined face, sharp teeth, ridiculously pointy hair and the fact that he's constantly scowling makes him look a lot more villainous than he actually is. Exaggerated by some artists who have drawn him with prominent Villainous Cheekbones and a pronounced widow's peak, or went all-out and depicted him as looking borderline-monstrous.
  • Fastball Special: The Trope Namer. Colossus picking him up and throwing him at enemies debuted in Uncanny X-Men #100 and became a signature move between the two of them.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Through a combination of his abilities and just sheer horrible luck, Logan's been subjected to many of these.
    • It can be argued that Logan's existence in itself counts as this since him being practically immortal comes with the caveat that he'll see every single loved one die while he stays the same. Likewise, while his body can heal itself from basically any injury, Logan feels this pain just like any other person would.
    • Weapon X! Imagine being abducted, shaved from head to toe and kept in a vat in a lab with a mass of wires and medical equipment attached to you, all with the goal of being turned into a mindless killing machine. Then imagine being kept like that for months while being heavily drugged as the team essentially torture you by means such as cutting your arms to the bone. The adamantium bonding itself is almost beyond comprehension, as it involves Logan being restrained and having his entire skeleton coated with searing hot, indestructible molten metal pumped inside his body.
    • Likewise, not having the adamantium that constantly strains his healing abilities eventually makes his mutation progress to the point that he actually devolves, becoming a fur-covered, noseless feral animal.
  • Flanderization: His Healing Factor sometimes gets pushed up to ridiculous levels, like regenerating instantly From a Single Cell. Normally, it is indeed powerful enough to restore his health from such things as gunshots or stab wounds, but it can take a very long time, and it's nowhere near as good as those from Hulk, Deadpool or Lobo. It has also been implied that if he has a part of him with bones in it removed, he may not be able to regrow it properly due to the adamantium lacing rest of his skeleton.
  • The Fog of Ages: Part of the reason why so much of his past is a mystery. It's indeterminate how much memory has been erased and how much he simply forgot.
  • Freudian Excuse: More often than not, he can be a very difficult person to be around, even to those he actually likes, but can you really blame a guy who's had his memories erased several times suffered through the worst kinds of physical trauma imaginable for hundreds of years and has either had to see his loved ones get killed or grow old and die while he stays the same? Not to mention he has claws that hurt every time he uses them and an unwieldy metal skeleton that is constantly poisoning him.
  • Friend to All Children: Wolverine gets a new teenage sidekick about once every decade or so, like Kitty Pryde, Jubilee, and Hisako "Armor" Ichaki. They usually go on to be badasses. He also gets along famously with Katie Power for some reason, and once in a great while a writer remembers he has a foster daughter, Amiko. In fact, his big blowup with Cyclops in Schism came because he absolutely did not want the kid X-Men to lose their innocence by being soldiers for the mutant cause, even if said kids were willing to help with the fight. He went on to reopen Xavier's old school after the event in order to give them a safe haven. Occasionally subverted: he sometimes considers and actively tries to kill children if he's scared enough of them, like Hope Summers, Wiccan, a Teenager Cyclops or a clone infant version of Apocalypse.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Because of his feral nature, Logan gets along with wild animals such as wolves, dogs and (of course) wolverines much better than he usually does with people. Hurting innocent animals, especially those he's developed a kinship with is an easy way to get him really pissed. Granted, this doesn't stop him from using violence if he needs to, like when bears have attacked him, but he's generally much less keen on using violence toward animals.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: He started life as James Howlett, the weak, sickly child of a wealthy family until his powers manifesting, combined with intense trauma and having to on the run transforms him into the man that is Logan. Then he fought in several wars, mastered many forms of combat and had his skeleton coated with the most unbreakable metal in the world, transforming him into the indestructible force of nature that is Wolverine
  • Full-Frontal Assault: He's more frequently prone to this than the average hero, mainly because of the extreme amount of Clothing Damage he takes - if you can't even expect your skin to hold together for a single fight-scene, how long do you think your wardrobe's going to last?
  • The Gadfly: After a few years, his friendship with Nightcrawler has become one of mutual, good-natured taunting and the occasional prank, including one instance on vacation when Logan hacked Kurt's image inducer to make him look like Angelina Jolie...
    Nightcrawler: It is a long life, and I shall have my revenge, my friend.
  • Genius Bruiser: One of Logan's biggest strengths is his mind. He's been around for well over a century and has spent quite a bit of that time taking in information.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Yes, he's more-or-less a heroic guy, but unless you're his daughter or some other kid he's taken under his wing, it's better he ignores you.
  • Good Parents: His father John Howlett, who never learned that he wasn't biologically Logan's father. Over 100 years later when Logan goes to Hell, he still only refers to Thomas Logan as his biological father, and biological only, and still refers to John Howlett as the only father he ever had.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: His adamantium helps mitigate the damage, but still...
    Black Panther: Your fighting style is based on your ability to take damage. You can't win this.
  • Go-to Alias: Wolverine uses the identity of "Patch" (wearing an eyepatch), a mercenary, when he acts undercover in the Far East.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Before the character development kicked in, Logan would attack the other X-Men, with every intent to kill, for laughing at him, or in one case, trying to save him from injury.
  • Happily Adopted: During a flashback in The Killing Dream, Logan announces his intention to adopt Laura.
  • Has a Type: Sleeps with women of all kinds, but if there's a redhead around, expect him to develop feelings for her. It is one of his defining personality traits, first with Rose from Origin, then Heather Hudson from Alpha Flight, and especially Jean Grey. In House of M, Mystique (who he is in a relationship with in this reality) says he has a fetish for redheads.
  • Hates Baths: It has been said that he does not bathe often and Wolverine himself went on a diatribe about how much he dislikes being in water due to how he can easily drown. This is very much Depending on the Writer; he's also been shown enjoying Japanese-style bath houses, and has frequently been depicted as a very strong swimmer.
  • Hates Their Parent: He has nothing but contempt for his biological father, Thomas Logan. When he meets the man himself in Hell, he disowns him as his father and says that he considers John Howlett, his legal father whom Thomas murdered, to be his true father.
  • Healing Factor: Logan is arguably the Trope Codifier for the fictional type. It kept him alive in conjunction with his adamantium-laced skeleton, and was, in fact, the entire reason why he got the adamantium to start with, as it would take superhuman healing powers to deal with having that much metal in your body in that fashion. Its speed and effectiveness have varied wildly between writers, being anywhere to "injuries heal faster but scar normally" all the way to perfectly healing way-past-3rd-degree burns, massive tissue loss, and other extreme injuries, and taking hours to minutes (or even seconds) to heal from severe trauma.
    • Averted during the "no adamantium" arc; having the metal ripped out of his body over-stressed the healing factor and killed it for a few months of story time. When it finally came back, without the adamantium to slow it down, it essentially overclocked, allowing Logan to at one point completely recover from being run over in a matter of seconds but slowly causing him to revert to a more bestial state. This was taken to an extreme when Cable's evil son Genesis tried to re-implant the adamantium. Logan's body explosively rejected the adamantium, and when he was fully healed he was a monstrous subhuman.
    • Chris Claremont, in particular, was very careful to avert, invert, subvert and otherwise keep this trope from giving Wolverine the effective immortality that he often seemed to have. In one issue, Wolverine is poisoned and badly stabbed by the Silver Samurai, and it's implied that he's risking his life to let Rogue absorb his healing powers because he is so badly hurt. In another issue, Mystique demonstrates that a slit throat will kill Wolverine before his healing factor has a chance to kick in it's being played with there, though, because it is one of Arcade's replicas being killed, and Arcade may not know the full extent of Wolverine's powers.
    • Arguably an Unbuilt Trope. His Healing Factor has several drawbacks (as stated above under Blessed with Suck), one of the most harrowing of which is the fact that anesthesia of any kind will not work on him except at ridiculously high dosages. Thus there is an element of deconstruction present before the trope was fully codified.
    • The one thing the healing factor can't prevent is death by asphyxiation. It's proven when Wolverine kills his son Daken by drowning him, and then even later when Logan finally dies from suffocation after being buried in molten adamantium. That said, both of them eventually recovered from these deaths.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • His first appearance was as an antagonist to the Hulk, after which he just dropped off the face of the Earth for a few months, only to randomly pop up as a member of the new X-Men the year after.
    • He was almost as bad as Sabretooth before having his memories wiped in the Weapon X Program. The influence of Heather and James Hudson, then Professor X, the X-Men, and the superhero community in general is how he reformed into a better, heroic man.
  • The Hero Dies: While he did come back, the Death of Wolverine arc ended like the title said, with Wolverine dying (suffocated by molten Adamantium).
  • Heroic Bastard: He was actually a product of an extramarital affair between his mother Elizabeth and the Howlett estate's groundskeeper Thomas. After finding out about this from Thomas after he was sent to hell, Logan rejects his biological dad, favoring his legal dad John as his true father.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: The eponymous Death of Wolverine ends up being because Logan cuts open a pipeline of liquid adamantium that was going to be pumped into another unfortunate victim, saving them from ending up like him. The pain of the heated metal is insane, and, after killing Abraham Cornelius, he suffocates in the adamantium shell, satisfied with what he had done in his life.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Nightcrawler and Colossus, of all people. For a time, had a mix of this and Like an Old Married Couple with Cyclops before tensions flared up again. Oddly enough, he is this less frequently with Gambit, the X-Man with whom has has the most in common with. A good example of how close he and Nightcrawler are is that that Kurt can crash in the notoriously anti-social Wolverine's apartment uninvited, and Logan will come home and not bat an eye. And of course there is Logan's emotional reaction to Kurt's death.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: The first time his claws come out, young Wolverine has no idea how to control them and is stuck for several hours with bleeding, painful pieces of bone sticking out of his hands, something that also freaks out everybody around him.
  • Hot Blade: After his resurrection his claws occasionally heat up when he extends them. The mechanism for this is currently unknown.
  • Human Weapon: He's Weapon X from the Weapon Plus program which was a black project to make living weapons.
  • Hypocrite:
    • Mostly because of bad writing, his character has taken this turn in certain comics. He thinks that he should be the only one allowed to do the dirty work, selectively chooses to forgive or scorn people who caused harm while being possessed (even though he was in this very situation himself) and claims that nobody should ever put children in danger, when he has done things like dumping his students in the Savage Land and even repeatedly tried to murder teenagers (Wiccan or Hope for example) when he saw it fitting.
    • Logan treats Hellion like dirt over his actions killing Karima, and along with Gambit wants to keep him away from Laura. Even though Wolverine has done far worse things than Julian and been forgiven for them.
    • Pre-character development Logan once tried to kill Danny Rand for "breaking into" Misty Knight's apartment when he wasn't. Danny was dating Misty at the time. Logan was the one who had broken in to steal a photo of Jean.
    • A late 80s issue of Uncanny X-Men saw Wolverine track down and nearly kill Rachel Summers (Phoenix II), to prevent her from murdering Selene, psychic vampire and Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. Logan stabbed Rachel through the heart, and the only thing that kept Rachel alive was her telekinetics literally holding her guts in. Wolverine cited the X-Men's "no-kill" policy as the reason he did it, but teammate Kitty Pryde was quick to call him out on the utter bullshit of that hypocrisy.
    • Back in the day, he would mock Wonder Man for constantly pining over Scarlet Witch, a married woman who showed no sign of viewing him as anything but a friend. Yeah, that'd be real pathetic, huh Logan?
    • In the two-parter Spider-Man/X-Men crossover episode, he asks Jubilee to let Spidey go because, according to him, Spider-Man is too much of a loner. Beast however, points out that Spider-Man's attitude reminds him of Logan's own, when he first met the team, much to Jubilee's amusement, and Logan's dismay.
  • Hypocritical Heartwarming: One of the first signs of his Character Development was laying into a demon for trying to kill Nightcrawler, when he'd been trying to slice up Kurt not long before.

    I - Z 
  • I Have Many Names: James Howlett, Logan, Weapon X, Wolverine, Patch... He has used "Jim Logan" as an alias in the past, when working as a private detective. Ironically, that is his true name, unbeknownst to him at the time, James being his given name at birth, and Logan being his biological father's last name.
  • I Have No Son!: His biological father tells him this when Logan refuses to be the ruler of Hell. Logan, who already loathes the man, simply claws him in the face and says, "Damn right."
  • Iconic Item: The claws, especially in combination with the gloves that have the chutes the claws extend through.
  • Iconic Outfit: The distinctive brow extensions of his costumes' cowls; even in silhouette they're instantly recognizable.
  • Identical Grandson: Grows up to look exactly like his biological father Thomas Logan. This was used as a Red Herring in the Origin story, with readers initially being led to believe that Thomas' other son Dog was the young Wolverine.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: One of Logan's signature moves, when he's not slicing you to ribbons. He's also on the receiving end occasionally.
  • Immortality Hurts: Logan's healing factor doesn't dampen the pain he feels from injuries, so while the time of the pain may be shortened, its intensity isn't. He's developed a very high pain tolerance, but he doesn't enjoy getting hurt and has said that he has to meditate and focus to control the pain from serious injuries. He's also stated that he has phantom pains after his wounds heal that can linger for months.
  • Immortality Promiscuity: Logan has been around since the 19th Century, and by "been around" we mean "been around". The hirsute little berserker got more tail than Tony Stark and Matt Murdock combined.
  • Immortals Fear Death: After apparently losing his Healing Factor for good in Wolverine #7, Logan is absolutely terrified of dying. Talking to Death herself gets him to come to terms with it, however.
  • Immune to Bullets: Subverted; he can be hurt by getting shot, but the adamantium and healing factor make being killed by getting shot pretty much impossible. He lampshades this in his internal monologue from the first issue of his 1988 solo series, after taking several bullets through the gut from an AK-47:
    The bullets burn like fire. Would've killed anyone else. They just make me mad...which is when things get out of hand. *cue berserker rage*
  • Implacable Man: Together with his Healing Factor, Unbreakable Bones, strong sense of smell, and sheer determination, nothing short of Galactus is going to stop him from tracking someone... and even then only for a little while.
  • Imposed Handicap Training: Wolverine once trained under a master samurai to learn how to properly wield a katana. The training regimen included this, where he would regularly spar with that master using a wooden practice blade broken to half length, while the master was Dual Wielding.
  • Informed Ability: His martial arts prowess has become this in modern continuity. 9 times out of 10 we only see him wildly flailing his claws around, something which requires no skill. Wolverine can't seem to make it out of a fight unscathed and is very dependent on his healing factor. Back when he was first introduced—and could be killed by slitting his throat or stabbing him in the heart—this was less of the case, and he appeared far more competent.
  • Informed Flaw: While Logan's short height is a well known trait that gets brought up every now and then, some artists have depicted him as looking more or less of average height, especially after Hugh Jackman landed the role on the silver screen.
  • Ink-Suit Actor: His original comic appearance was based on actor Paul D'Amato, who played a character that was basically Wolverine in look and personality, minus the powers in a Canadian hockey comedy film called Slap Shot.
    • It's pretty well agreed upon that Frank Miller based his Wolverine off Clint Eastwood. The cover art for his first miniseries, which Miller penciled features an unmasked Wolverine that looks damn near identical to a young Clint Eastwood.
  • Ironic Name: Chris Claremont conceived of the name Logan as an ironic reference to Wolverine's height. The name Logan was inspired by Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada and the second-highest peak in North America.
    The idea was the tallest mountain being the name of the shortest character.
    • It became doubly ironic when it was revealed that Logan actually comes from the last name of his biological father, an alcoholic monster who murdered the man young Logan thought was his father. Not only that, but Thomas Logan was also the first man he killed.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
    • Wolverine is a jerk with an abrasive personality, a serious anti-authoritarian attitude, and nasty personal habits. At the same time he is a devoted friend with a soft spot for teenagers (particularly girls) and women. He will go out of his way to help the people that need him.
    • Logan has at times been excessively harsh on Laura, and he openly acknowledges he's been a very poor father to her when Gambit challenges him on it in Paris. That said, it's clear in her solo just how much Logan truly cares for her, and how determined he's been to help her live a normal life.
  • Kavorka Man: He's a really short, hairy guy with cigar breath and weird hair, not to mention a terrible attitude. He's never without some hot woman or another after him. It's also been repeatedly stated or implied that he smells bad and rarely bathes. Easily explained by two words: Animal Magnetism, as well as the fact that Logan, despite his exterior, is quite cultured, and has mastered many skills, including countless languages.
  • Kick the Dog: Whenever (since he's done it a few times) he tries to kill a teenager, or anyone for that matter, under the excuse that its for the "greater good", tend to come off as this. Especially in All New X-Men when he decides to take out his anger and dislike of Cyclops and bullies the Past!Cyclops, vocally blames him for Xavier's recent death, and publicly humiliates him by threatening to kill him and encouraging someone to give him reason not to and, given how the X-Men still hate him for killing Xavier, no one steps up to stop him, at most looking on disapprovingly (making it a major KTD moment for all the X-Men too), so it continues until Kid!Cyclops tearfully calls him out until finally he's told off by Storm and Beast.
  • The Lancer: Usually takes this role in whatever team he happens to be on at the moment. Attempts to break him out of this into taking the role of The Leader full-on have been made in the last few years. Reception isn't stellar, to say the least.
  • Law of Inverse Fertility: Played straight for a long time. Up until Daken came around, it was only ever implied that Logan had any kids (specificallly, Gahck's baby sony Erista in the 1990 one-shot Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure, and Alpha Flight's Flex). The trope was finally averted in two story arcs:
    • In the Wolverine Goes to Hell arc, part of the emotional torture he undergoes is seeing all his shames and regrets paraded out in front of him, including the undisclosed multitude of children he sired and never cared for.
  • Legacy Character:
    • X-23◊ in the All-New All-Different Marvel Universe following the conclusion of Secret Wars.
    • Laura's clone Gabby Kinney also takes on the mantle in the future shown during the Old Woman Laura arc of the All-New Wolverine.
  • Lightning Bruiser: He's incredibly agile, damn near impossible to kill because of his healing factor and adamantium skeleton, and dishes out tons of damage because his claws can cut through almost anything and because he has Super-Strength.
  • Logical Weakness: Because his skeleton is coated with adamantium (which is metal), he has a hard time swimming because the adamantium greatly reduces his buoyancy, meaning that he can easily drown which is one of the few actual ways to kill him without disabling his Healing Factor, and two, its ferromagnetism makes Logan weak to magnetic fields, meaning that Logan can easily be taken out by magnetic traps and Magneto can easily toss him around...and that's if Erik is in a good mood.
  • Lonely Bachelor Pad:
    • In one comic, a woman breaks into his apartment and sees that the only thing in it is a pile of old newspapers he uses as a mattress. Possibly justified in that he isn't staying very long.
    • In All-New Wolverine #13, Laura and Gabby hole up in one of Logan's cabins, which they arrive to find a complete wreck, with the only food in the house being a stale loaf of bread a family of mice have turned into an apartment. Laura makes it clear it's not because it's been abandoned since Logan's death; it looked like that when he was still using it. Logan truly was the best there is at what he did, but that wasn't housekeeping.
  • Man of Kryptonite:
    • Logan is this to Silver Samurai, as adamantium is one of the few things the Samurai's cutting field can't penetrate.
    • On the other hand, Magneto is this to Logan, as adamantium is very susceptible to magnetism and Magneto takes full advantage of this whenever they square off. The only way Logan can effectively fight him is to catch him off guard or when he's distracted, and even then that may not be enough, as Magneto proved when he ripped the metal off Logan's bones even after being badly hurt by Logan a couple of minutes earlier.
  • Meaningful Name: The actual wolverine animal is a small but muscular beast, a skilled tracker often found in the Canadian wilderness. They are also infamous for their aggressive nature. Which part of that description doesn't describe Logan?
  • Morality Pet: His younger sidekicks fall into this by default, although in X-23's case he was the one Defusing The Tykebomb.
  • Mysterious Past: He was introduced in 1974, but readers didn't learn his real name or family background until the Origin miniseries published in 2001. We learned some of his backstory in 1991, when the Weapon X (1991) storyline revealed how he got his adamantium skeleton.
  • My Suit Is Also Super: Very much averted; his costumes (and more often than not, his street clothes) are constantly being destroyed. Interestingly, when he was Brought Down to Normal, he received an armored outfit.
  • Mythology Gag: The blue and yellow colors on his costume is a Shout-Out to the Michigan Wolverines. (It sure isn't supposed to be for camouflage.)
  • Name Amnesia: Wolverine's backstory is packed with memory loss and super-secret military conditioning. While he is occasionally called Logan, he was usually certain it wasn't his name. It isn't; his given name is James Howlett.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: He has an extremely effective Healing Factor and a virtually indestructible skeleton that is laced with adamantium. That said, the healing factor's effectiveness really varies Depending on the Writer.
  • Noble Male, Roguish Male: The Rogueish Male to Colossus, Cyclops, and Nightcrawler's Noble Males.
  • No Name Given: The only name he had for years was Logan. It was never specified whether this was a first or last name (his driver's license actually read Logan W. Logan). In an issue, he had an identity card which read "Jim Logan", which, if not a Foreshadowing (said issue, if memory serves, was about seven years before he remembered his past in House of M), was at least a hint. He also once used the name "Tom Logan" in the cartoon when infiltrating the Friends of Humanity... also ironic foreshadowing to Wolverine: Origins. His real name is James Howlett.
  • The Nose Knows: His sense of smell is especially enhanced, and gets the most use and mention. He is able to recognize people and objects by scent, even if they are well hidden. He can track a target by scent, even if the scent has been greatly eroded by time and weather factors, with an extraordinary degree of success. Wolverine can also use his keen sense of smell to detect lies due to chemical changes within a person's scent. In one issue where he's strongly implied to have slept with Mystique, he knew it was her from the moment she walked up to him just by her smell.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: To an extent. He doesn't actively try to make himself look dumb, but he's perfectly okay with playing up his image as a violent, animalistic thug and usually downplays more intellectual traits of his like his multilingualism.
  • Odd Friendship:
    • One of his best friends is Puck, a Canadian midget whose power is to throw himself at things.
    • He's also best friends with Nightcrawler, who is about as different from Wolverine as Superman is from Lobo, aside from their mutual love of beer. To wit: Early in his tenure with the X-Men, Nightcrawler was just about the only one of his teammates he admitted to actively liking and any time he was forced to pair off with someone on a mission he almost always requested him.
    • His relationship with Storm, back when it was platonic, has always been this.
    • Is slowly becoming this with both Hercules and Thor, due to all three's shared long life spans, love of battle and love of drinking. Amusingly, he really wishes it wasn't happening with Herc, who remains blithely convinced that it's inevitable. Hilariously, they're married in an alternate universe. (See Battle Couple above)
    • After working together for so long in The Avengers, Spider-Man has become one with him. Peter Parker normally has nothing but contempt for anti-heroes who kill even mooks but he's come to see Logan as often not having a choice. Meanwhile Logan, for all his short-temperedness, is surprisingly tolerant of Peter even when he's in one of his goofier moods. One of the reasons why Logan likes Peter is because Peter believes Logan to be a better man than Logan sees himself.
  • Offing the Offspring
    • The Red Right Hand, a group of former victims or friends and families of some of Wolverine's Mook Horror Show battles, collected and trained a group of Wolverine's unknown offspring to be used as enforcers, then informed him of their lineage after he had already killed them.
    • In X-Force, Sabertooth manipulated Daken and Wolverine into a fight to the death which he knew Wolverine would win. He gleefully reveals this right after Wolverine drowned Daken.
  • Off with His Head!:
    • Invoked in the X-Men comic arc that revealed that Professor X had secret files detailing the ways to take out the X-Men. Wolverine's was described as decapitating him in a way that separates his head and neck fast enough to keep the wound from healing.
    • Subverted in the 1988 solo series' first issue. During the brawl with the slavers, one actually lands a neck cut with a sword, but it shatters on Wolverine's spine and he gets skewered promptly.
  • Omniglot: Wolverine has been shown to be at least conversant in about a dozen languages, including one extraterrestrial and two native American.
  • One-Man Army: He's always been this, but it was most pronounced in the 1990's cartoon.
  • One-Winged Angel: Wolverine's "Devolved" or "Feral" form from the 90s, which was stronger, faster, had an insanely higher healing factor and much sharper senses. The downside was that his mind degraded to a bestial level and he also mutated to look like a hideous, deformed version of himself.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: When he was first introduced, it took some time before his civilian name was revealed. When Nightcrawler questioned him about it when a leprechaun called him "Logan" instead of Wolverine, he just responded "You never asked" with a smirk. Since then, he's most commonly known only as Logan, with it being the only name he himself knew for a long time. It took almost three decades until his real name was revealed to be James Howlett, with Logan being the last name of his biological father, Thomas. Even after remembering his past and his real name, most people that also know it still continue to call him Logan.
  • The Only One I Trust: Wolverine gave Cyclops a sword that would be able to kill him, trusting Cyclops to put him down if necessary.
  • Opposite-Sex Clone: X-23, a.k.a. Laura Kinney.
  • Original Man: Wolverine is revealed to be one of the last living specimens in both Marville and Earth X
  • Papa Wolf: Regarding Jubilee and Kitty Pride, most notably, but young girls in general bring this out in him...God help you if you do anything to harm them. It's been suggested this is one of the reasons why Logan makes no effort to conceal his identity as Wolverine. Most heroes, like Peter Parker have close family they need to protect, so concealing their identity is necessary. Others, like Reed Richards have no need, because their loved ones are just as powerful. In Logan's case? Given his typical stance on killing, it's just not good for your health to try and harm his loved ones, so in his case, people knowing he's Wolverine is the best protection he can provide.
  • Parental Abandonment: A flashback in issue 7 of All-New Wolverine shows Logan leaving Laura behind at the Xavier School. He genuinely believes it's in her best interests to protect her from the dangers inherent in his life, but all Laura wants is some semblance of family.
  • Parental Substitute: Has been a caring father figure to Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Armor, and other young X-Men. Ironically, he was a Disappeared Dad to every single one of his actual children.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: His "Patch" alter ego; his disguise was basically just an eyepatch over one eye. In the '80s, Jessica Drew called him out on how blatant the Patch disguise was, and that no-one wanted to be the first to point it out lest they get stabbed in the face.
  • Passing the Torch: Subtly done in a flashback in issue 1 of All-New Wolverine. Laura is delirious after being shot in the head, and remembering a conversation with Logan. She's kicking herself over declining to kill an enemy when she had the chance, and it coming back to bite her (in the form of a bazooka). However Logan comforts her and congratulates her, using his own catch phrase to describe her: "You're the best there is at what you do. But that doesn't mean you have to do it." It then returns to the present, with Laura getting back up and revealing herself as The Wolverine.
  • Perma-Stubble: Wolverine always has a five o'clock shadow.
  • The Pig-Pen: He rarely bathes and he smells bad.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Logan's 5'3". This contrasts him more with his enemy Sabretooth who is 6"6".
  • Platonic Life-Partners: With Psylocke. Formerly with Storm as well, before their Relationship Upgrade in 2013.
  • Popularity Power: Uh, well, he beat Lobo. LOBO. THE GUY WHO FIGHTS ON EVEN FOOTING WITH SUPERMAN.
    • The IRL reason he lost is because the winners were determined by readers' votes, and Wolverine got more votes.
    • His rival is Cyclops, a man with Eye Beams powerful enough to crack open a tank. Realistically, every fight between them should be over in a few panels and end with Scott standing over a smoking and unconscious Logan.note  However, because Marvel don’t want to show their patron saint of badassery get destroyed by a man generally seen as boring at best and a whiny prick at worst, Wolverine typically leaps right back to his feet after taking blasts that can knock the side off a mountain, or in some especially egregious moments, holds his claws up in front of his face and just walks into them like they’re a stiff breeze.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep: Originally, Logan's healing factor simply allowed him to heal faster than the average human but it was still possible to kill him. Modern stories have him recovering from being immolated down to a skeleton by an explosion in mere minutes.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: He's got a body count to rival that of the Punisher, yet unlike Frank is very rarely depicted as a villain.
  • Progressively Prettier: Before Hugh Jackman popularized Logan on the silver screen, comic versions varied in appearance from "ruggedly handsome" to "feral and unsightly". What remained constant was his extremely short height, exaggerated musculature and his excessive body hair. After Jackman started his tenure as the character, Logan in the comics has often been drawn a little bit closer to average height, more conventionally attractive and with more realistically sized muscles and a more normal amount of body hair.
  • Protagonist-Centred Morality: The eternal paradox of Wolverine is that he’s popular because he’s a snarly Anti-Hero who slashes his way through corridors full of Mooks; however, because he’s so popular, writers (many of whom are fans of him themselves) are loathe to even imply that he could be in the wrong and sometimes even like to depict him as a moral authority and role model for more straightforwardly heroic characters. This results in a character who frequently acts in a morally ambiguous fashion, yet is consistently depicted as completely right and justified, especially in recent years where Marvel tried to push him as a replacement for Professor X and the next Big Good of the X-franchise while keeping the stabby-hacky-slashy routine that makes him “cool”. It verges on an outright double standard, as other characters generally get taken to task for doing things that Logan gets a pass for. Sometimes by Logan himself.
  • A Real Man Is a Killer: Subverted. Whilst he is indeed very manly by traditional definitions, and a killer, Logan himself has significant ethical reservations about killing per se and he strongly condemns the killing of innocents. Indeed, his catchphrase of "I'm the best there is at what I do, and what I do isn't very nice" was originally meant to express his own self-doubt about the morality of his actions. In short, Logan rejects the trope even if he technically fulfills its requirements.
  • Really Gets Around: Logan has been around since the 19th Century, and by "been around" we mean "been around". The hirsute little berserker got more tail than Tony Stark and Matt Murdock combined.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Wolverine's healing factor drastically slows his aging. He was born in the late 1800s.
  • Rebellious Spirit: In most continuities, he's clearly an anti-authoritarian loner. However in the mainstream canon these days, he's now school headmaster.
  • Relationship Upgrade: With Storm following the annulment of her marriage to the Black Panther. Whether they're an Official Couple or just Friends with Benefits was never completely established.
  • Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated:
    Nightcrawler: Where have you been, Logan?
    Wolverine: Dead. But I got better.
  • Required Secondary Powers: Invoked. Early on, the writers (correctly) realized that storing metal blades under your skin and having a metal-plated skeleton would require superhuman healing powers to prevent a slow, painful death from infection and/or blood poisoning... which is the only reason Wolvie got his Healing Factor in the first place. As explained in his backstory, Weapon X's scientists decided to line Logan's skeleton with adamantium because they knew that, with his healing factor, he was one of the few people on Earth that could actually survive the process and put the add-ons to practical use.
  • Ret-Canon: In Ultimate X-Men (2001), set in the Ultimate Marvel universe, Wolverine joins the X-Men with the mission to kill Charles Xavier. Mainstream Wolverine was retconned to have done the same in Wolverine: Origins #29. In his case, Xavier knew it all in advance, and simply altered his mind.
  • Retcon:
    • Wolverine's claws were originally bionic implants... until Magneto pulled the adamantium off his skeleton, revealing that he had been born with bone claws that were infused with adamantium like the rest of his skeleton. This led to part of the Art Shift above regarding the claws' appearance. The original Weapon X storyline hinted at this, noting during the adamantium lacing procedure that an unusual amount of the metal was being drawn into his hands and wrists.
    • Laura and Logan actually shared very little time together on-panel while he was still alive. Later writers, particularly after Death of Wolverine, have used flashbacks and dialogue to suggest that they were much closer than would be evident from their actual interactions before his death.
  • Retractable Weapon: His claws popping in and out of his hands.
  • Rival Turned Evil:
    • Downplayed with Sabretooth, where it's a case of Rival Stayed Evil. They were partners in Team X and had a relationship akin to Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, as even as a Heel, Logan was a Noble Demon while Creed was a monster. Once they went through the Weapon X program and Logan made a Heel–Face Turn, it was open season between them.
    • With Logan and his half-brother Dog, a more straightforward example of the trope is in action.
  • Rogues Gallery: Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Bloodscream, Cyber, Gorgon, Geist, Roughouse, Omega Red, and the Silver Samurai. Two of the rogues were killed by Wolvie's Anti-Healing Factor Vorpal Katana made from the dark area of his soul while Cyber succumbed to carbonadium poisoning, which can be fatal to Logan as well. His son Daken took up Sabretooth's role for a time before Sabretooth resumed it. Now it seems the majority of his anger and loathing is reserved for Cyclops. His half-brother Dog Logan jumped through time to the present day to try and kill James as well.
  • Running Gag: In the earliest days of his time on the X-Men, it was a habit of some detail about him to be revealed (his name, his claws, his fluency with other languages) to the incredulous X-Men, and for him to respond with "you never asked!"
  • Samurai Shinobi: Wolverine was trained as a samurai and is often associated with numerous samurai-themed superheroes and villains, such as the Silver Samurai and Scarlet Samurai. However, his animal senses and animal-themed abilities also make him a naturally-gifted hunter and stalker, and he has been further trained in covert operations and stealth assassinations. And, as the Trope Namer of Wolverine Claws, he even employs weapons more befitting a ninja.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Killed his biological father for killing the man who he thought was his father. It was his first kill and happened right after his claws appeared for the first time.
  • Self-Mutilation Demonstration: Logan isn't above harming himself or allowing himself to be harmed, either for intimidation purposes or as a way of externalizing his emotional pain. He's pinned his arm to a table with a knife and then picked the table up with that same arm to freak people out, and in the wake of Silver Fox's real death, he allowed a biker to punch him in the face with brass knuckles, making a show of re-setting his jaw and eyeball afterward, as a way to try to externalize his internal pain.
  • Shoot the Dog: He's actually become famous or infamous depending on who you ask for doing this trope to the point many heroes and squeaky clean types cut him so much slack because he does so when they are not willing. Wolverine was actually recruited into the New Avengers specifically so that they'd have someone willing to shoot the dog on the team. With Captain America, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, and Iron Man on the team at the time, the argument was that they needed a dog-shooter for those situations when a hard morale choice might be necessary.
  • Sickly Child Grew Up Strong: As a child, young James Howlett was incredibly sickly and had to spend large parts of his childhood bedridden, though this quickly went away as soon as his mutant abilities started manifesting.
  • Sidekick: Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, then Jubilee, then Armor, then X-23.
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss: With any and all of his love interests. The sheer amount of Belligerent Sexual Tension makes you wonder how he actually feels about Cyclops, Northstar and Gambit.
  • Sleeves Are for Wimps: His superhero outfits are typically sleeveless or short-sleeved, and his most common form of civilian dress is a short-sleeved white t-shirt or vest, sometimes under a leather jacket or plaid shirt.
  • Smarter Than You Look: Despite having the appearance and demeanor of a thuggish biker, he's fluent in multiple languages, mastered several fighting styles, trained many heroes, and is an proficient in many weapons besides his claws due to having been a soldier, mercenary, samurai, and best of all, hero. He's truly the best there is.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Prior to Joe Quesada vetoing it, Wolverine smoked cigars due to his healing factor preventing/undoing any physical harm it would cause (when he temporarily lost it, he had to quit). In Uncanny X-Men #196, where Logan and Kitty are sitting on some college steps, Kitty gets so sick of his second-hand cigar smoke blowing in her face that she grabs it out of Logan's mouth, takes several puffs... and promptly breaks down in a massive fit of coughing and wheezing.
  • Sociopathic Hero: Averted, but more implied in his post-Claremont 1990s->early 2000s appearances than today. The last few years he has turned much more sympathetic since joining the Avengers and caring for the well-being of his students.
  • Soldier vs. Warrior:
    • He had this relationship with Cable back in the nineties, with Cable being the Soldier and him being the Warrior.
    • Also with Cyclops, who amusingly enough is Cable's dad. Must be In the Blood.
  • Sour Supporter: Of both Cyclops and Professor X.
  • Spider-Sense: Not of the active variety but James Super-Senses and the fact that he is in constant life or death situations against all manner of danger means that he's instantly aware when things aren't right based on what his senses are telling him passively. Often it's his sense of smell to direct him to danger first and his habit of sniffing the air before something dangerous happens is something of a trademark for him. Lampshaded by Spider-Man.
    Spider-Man: (after seeing Logan suddenly sniff the air) Oh no. I know that sniff. I fear that sniff. That sniff is the less attractive cousin to my spider-sense.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Wolverine has become a signature example of the trope. This is part of the reason the trope Wolverine Publicity is named after him, since he's given a spotlight even when he's barely there.
  • Stone Wall: Downplayed. While his claws are famous and iconic, and he does have mid-tier Super-Strength and Super-Reflexes to back them up, his Healing Factor is usually depicted as the (ahem) X-factor that brings him into the big leagues. He can't wipe out a city, but even things that can wipe out a city will have a tough time bringing him down and making it stick.
  • Strong as They Need to Be: Due to his tendency to appear everywhere and meet everyone, he’s had one-on-one fights with just about every villain and most of the heroes in the Marvel Universe. Also, given his popularity, the fight has to look at least a little competitive. This means that one week he can be shown being taken to his absolute limits by The Punisher, and next week he’s somehow posing a serious threat to the Hulk.
    • The ultimate example of this would be Old Man Logan, where a hallucinating Wolverine kills the X-Men (literally all of the X-Men), despite the fact that many of the X-Men should be able to mulch Logan without even trying, and have in other stories. It’s explained that they were deliberately holding back to avoid killing him, except: a. between them they should have at least a dozen ways of restraining or incapacitating him non-lethally, and b. Wolverine is effectively immortal, so there’s no reason for anyone to hold back against him.
  • Stronger Than They Look: Despite his incredibly short stature, he's superhumanly strong. He can hold an elevator with one hand, and lift a tree trunk to use it as a melee weapon.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: He's a spitting image of his biological father, Thomas Logan.
  • Stubborn Hair: His... unique hairstyle may be the fault of his healing factor. "Marauders"#1 reveals that Logan uses "Dapper Dude" pomade on his hair, as it is on his shopping list for Kitty Pryde.
  • Super Drowning Skills: A Logical Weakness of his and one of the few things that can kill him, given an oxygen-deprived brain does not heal, and his buoyancy is next to none due to the added weight of adamantium in his bones making him too dense to float. Note that the comics are inconsistent on this — he's often shown to be a very strong swimmer, and after being drowned by Daken, who kept in trapped in a water-filled tank for a prolonged period, he was able to recover after just a few minutes out of the water.
  • Super-Reflexes: Logan has heightened reflexes and reaction times, which are tied to his healing factor. In the past he's demonstrated reaction times nearly on-part with Spider-Man's.
  • Super-Senses: A side effect of the healing factor is that all of Logan's senses are superhumanly keen, although his sense of smell gets emphasized more than the others (See The Nose Knows). He can see at far greater distances, with perfect clarity, than an ordinary human and retains this same level of clarity even in near total darkness. His hearing is enhanced in a similar manner, allowing him to detect sounds ordinary humans couldn't hear at a greater distances, enough to hear a teardrop in another room that have thick walls with enough focus.
  • Super-Speed: He's crazy fast and agile, to the point where he moves faster than the eye could follow. He can dice and chop people up before they can react and even Spider-Man was surprised with how quick he is.
  • Super-Strength: Yet another byproduct of his healing factor. Logan's muscles, bones, and connective tissue are all denser than those of a normal human, resulting in enhanced strength. In Logan's case this is even further augmented by his adamantium skeleton—not only does he need to be stronger to lug around the 100 pounds of metal inside his body ever day, \because his bones are unbreakable, he doesn't have to worry about structural failure when he tries to lift things, as his bones won't break from too much weight, and he can utilize far more of his muscles' potential than would normally possible.note  This also lets him push himself harder during workouts, as the healing factor accelerates the natural process of muscles being damaged so they grow back stronger, which means he can recover from intense strength training much faster and maintain his physical condition more easily. It also means that he can sustain an adrenaline rush for far longer than a regular human and recovers from adrenaline crash much more easily.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: He can communicate with wild animals such as wolves and bears, though he does so on their level. His feral nature, not to mention the time he spent with a literal pack of wolves affords him a unique kinship with what to everyone else are nothing but feral beasts.
  • Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Sabretooth tracks him down every year on his birthday and beats him to within an inch of his life. Despite being friends with some of the most powerful superheroes in the world, and knowing for a fact that his Arch-Enemy would come after him on one specific day every year like clockwork, it never occurs to him to set a trap for Sabretooth or simply ask for backup.
  • Sympathetic Sentient Weapon: He was abducted and turned into an adamantium-infused living weapon by the Weapon X program. Granted, it did make him close to indestructible, but the process itself, during which he was completely dehumanized and essentially tortured on a daily basis was absolutely horrifying.
  • Tame His Anger: Wolverine tries to do this a lot, but it doesn't last. Notable examples include Origin, where Wolverine and his childhood friend Rose worked at a mine in British Colombia and Wolverine found peace and tranquility. That peace was interrupted when his half-brother Dog caused him to inadvertently kill Rose. In Wolverine (1988), it's revealed that Wolverine had fallen in love with a Native American woman called Silver Fox and settled down. Sabretooth, jealous of the peace Wolverine found, killed Silver Fox.]]
  • That Man Is Dead: In Origin, a young Logan gradually loses all memory of his life before going on the run, and angrily rejects his friend Rose's offers to tell him about his childhood and family, outright telling her that he's Logan, not James Howlett.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: Subverted; his views are more along the lines of "Thou Shalt Not Unnecessarily Kill". Wolverine is against using lethal force in a situation where it's not necessary, but has no problem doing so if he has to. He tends to be a bit more loose with this rule in the comics than in the cartoons and movies.
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Pretty much all his relationships involve this trope because he's so short.
  • Token Anti-Heroic Teammate: On the more traditionally-heroic Avengers, he serves this role.
  • Token Motivational Nemesis: His biological father Thomas and his half-brother Dog.
  • To the Pain: He's more than capable of this if he feels someone is deserving of it. A prominent example is his treatment of the crimelord Matsu'o Tsurayaba, who dishonorably poisoned his rival and Wolverine's lover Mariko. As punishment, Wolverine lifted a page out of Sabretooth's playbook, visiting Matsu'o once a year and cutting off a piece of him. He kept this up for several years, leaving Matsu'o a horrifically scarred and psychologically broken shell of a man. Even after this, Wolverine was outraged when Psylocke wanted to give him a Mercy Kill, and fought her over his fate, a grim testimony to how vindictive he can be.
  • Tranquil Fury: Despite his usual way of expressing his anger, he will enter this when someone pisses him off so much he regains control, and God help you if you are the one to make him enter this state.
  • Truly Single Parent: His daughter X-23 was cloned from him without his permission.
  • Übermensch: He lives by his own morals and does not care what others think about his morality... which has no restraints against killing in certain situations. Thus he fits the trope's requirements of rigidly sticking to a morality that many others often consider at least debatable. See the quote under Anti-Hero above. On the other hand, he is loaded with self-doubt and plagued by intense guilt about his past, and if he wasn't effectively immortal he might be suicidal. He sticks rigidly to his morality not because he believes it is the best or most ethical, but because it's an anchor to his humanity, knowing that there are still lines he hasn't crossed yet and that he has some traces of goodness in him. He agrees with the people who question his morality; he follows it anyway because it's a compromise between the man he is and the man he wants to be.
  • The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: He's the ugly guy to Laura's hot daughter. It particularly stands out because she's his Opposite-Sex Clone (though depending on the genetics she may have gotten her looks from Sarah Kinney).
  • Unbreakable Bones: The Trope Maker in comic books and perhaps pop culture. His adamantium-laced bones keeps him from getting snapped like a twig, despite all the abuse he takes.
  • Underwear of Power: During the 1970s, he had this in his costume like most comic book superheroes. He eventually stops wearing them in the 2000s.
  • Undying Warrior: It's implied he's been around since The American Civil War and participated in both World Wars. This can be chalked up to his Healing Factor, which also had the side effect of dramatically slowing his aging to the point of near-immortality.
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: Wolverine's gone through several costume changes, although most of them have been based on the costume in the page pic or his iconic brown/tan costume from the '80s and '90s.
  • Unobtanium: The adamantium coating Wolverine's bones is a very rare commodity. When a villain wanted to give it back to him after he lost it the first time, the metal had to be stolen from another person using adamantium at the time... as his skin.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: Although he's an expert martial artist, he doesn't strategize and his attacks are more focused on rage than anything else, while also using his healing factor as an advantage, obviously.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Whenever he goes into berserker mode... which tends to happen a lot.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: As a young child, James Howlett was a sickly, sheltered little boy with a kind heart.
  • Verbal Tic: Wolvie has a habit of calling people "bub", particularly when he's pissed.
  • The Vietnam Vet: Wolverine served in Vietnam, during which he was responsible for torturing Nuke and also brainwashed him into becoming a Manchurian Agent.
  • Villain Killer: He's typically the character on the X-Men who is most likely to do whatever it takes to defeat the current villain, sometimes to the protest of the other X-Men or whatever other heroes he happens to be teamed up with.
  • Villain Protagonist: In the flashbacks of Wolverine: Origins.
  • Villainous Widow's Peak: Not villainous, but unpleasant nonetheless, in the early years, Logan's hair had an incredibly prominent widow's peak to go with his horn-like hair and overall intimidating look.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds:
    • Whenever he's with Gambit.
    • Does this a bit with Spidey too.
    • Deadpool thinks of himself as this by way of being listed (even on That Other Wiki) in Logan's Rogues Gallery.
    • He used to be like that with Cyclops too, but then Schism and AVX happened and now Wolverine HATES him.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Whenever he's not in costume (and sometimes when he is!), his clothes will be removed or destroyed in some fashion, nine times out of ten.
  • Wall Crawl: He can do this by poking his claws into surfaces and climbing.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Water. Because of the 100 lbs of metal encasing his skeleton, he sinks like a rock in water. It's also worth noting that asphyxiation is one of very few things that his healing factor can't really do that much about.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Growing up, his best friend was the groundskeeper's son, Dog Logan, who was secretly his half-brother. However after everything that went down when they were teenagers, not to mention the fact that Dog hunted the now adult Logan down seeking revenge, which led to the accidental death of Wolverine's first love Rose, Dog Logan's hatred for Wolverine is very much reciprocated.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: After Wolverine nearly fatally stabs Rachel "Phoenix" Summers in "X-Men" #207, to prevent her from murdering the psychic vampire Selene, Kitty very justifiably chews him out big time, not only for valuing the life of a ruthless enemy over a teammate, on top of playing judge, jury and executioner when it comes to supposedly preserving the X-Men's "conscience", but the sheer ridiculous, hypocrisy of a born killer like Wolverine trying to kill a teammate to keep them from killing.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He has a fear of water, as it's very difficult for him to stay afloat due to his adamantium, and drowning can kill him.
  • Wife-Basher Basher: In one of the solo-series issues after the adamantium was removed, he goes after an alcoholic wife beater, who later runs him over.
  • Wolverine Claws: The Trope Namer. A lot of people forget that an early plan for Wolverine was that his gloves contained the claws. The writers eventually decided that then, anyone could be Wolverine by putting on the gloves, and made it so that they were inside his body.
  • The Worf Effect:
    • Occasionally, a writer will remember that Wolverine is supposed be be barely above normal in terms of raw power and will have a much stronger or faster character stomp him in a matter of panels, i.e. the Thing punching him clear through two buildings, Superior Spider-Man effortlessly dodging his swing and smashing his head into concrete, Molly Hayes laying him out with a single punch, etc.
    • He once got into a fight with Wonder Man, who is one of Marvel's heavy hitters, yet also kind of a second tier character and not exactly a mainstream name. Typical comic book logic would suggest a brief, fairly even skirmish. Simon delivered an absolute beating to Logan, with every hit sending him flying. Wolverine was utterly helpless, never got a shot in or even managed to pop his claws. The fight is eventually broken up by Thor, who is actually in Wonder Man’s weight class, but it does realistically depict how a fight would actually go between a man of above average but relatively normal physical capabilities whose primary offensive move is stabbing; and someone orders of magnitude stronger, who by his very nature is immune to being stabbed, and, given that his opponent would be fine in a few hours anyway, would feel no obligation to hold back.
  • Working-Class Hero: In most stories where he isn't an active super hero or living as a wild animal, Logan prefers a low-key, blue-collar lifestyle, usually as some kind of manual laborer and hanging out at the local bar. Origin revealed him to have worked in a stone quarry for most of his adolescence.
  • World's Best Warrior: He's one of the greatest fighters in the Marvel Universe. Wolverine isn't the best soldier (that would be Captain America), he's not the best fighter (that's split between Iron Fist and Shang-Chi), he's not the World's Strongest Man (that's usually the Hulk) and he's not a Person of Mass Destruction or Physical God. However, he is good enough to put up a fight against all of that to be the world's most dangerous man.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Logan generally detests violence against women, but that goes out the window when it comes to the women in his Rogues Gallery and other similarly lethal female opponents. Lady Deathstrike, the Viper, Lady Mastermind, Mystique, and even Rachel Summers can attest to that.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Logan almost did this to Billy Kaplan in Avengers: The Children's Crusade. Thankfully, Magneto stopped him.
  • You're Not My Father: He hates his biological father, Thomas Logan, for killing the man who he considered his real father, John Howlett. When he meets the man in hell, he outright says this trope word-for-word to his face.

Alternative Title(s): Wolverine James Logan Howlett

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