Summary
Wolverineis one of the deadliest characters in Marvel Comics canon, though that doesn’t apply to those he considers his friends and family, as Logan is viciously protective and fiercely loyal. However, that depiction of Wolverine was flipped on its head the moment he decided to kill his own son, Akihiro, which he was convinced to do with a single sentence.
InUncanny X-Force#29 by Rick Remender and Julian Totino Tedesco,Wolverine and the X-Forceare trapped in a desolate future, with their future counterparts working to send them back to their original time period. While they made great efforts to keep their past selves from altering the future, there was one piece of information that future Wolverine couldn’t help but pass on to his younger self, and this information was the very sentence that doomed his son, Akihiro.
WhileUncanny X-Force#29 keeps what future Wolverine tells his younger self a secret, it’s later revealed in #35 that he said, “He’ll kill the students if you let him live”. Future Wolverine reveals that he let his Daken live, and because of that, Akihiro murders the X-Men and the rest of the mutant students residing in the X-Mansion. While Akihiro was his son, Wolverine couldn’t risk the lives of so many innocent mutants (and Daken was far from innocent at the time). So, with a small push from his future self,Wolverine murders his sonto save the X-Men.
Wolverine is Still Paying for the Sin of Killing His Son
WolverineVol. 7 #41 /Hellverine#3
Wolverine murders Akihiro to save the X-Men and the rest of the mutant students, but he still killed his own son, which is a stain on Logan’s soul that will seemingly never go away. In fact, it’s almost as though Wolverine has been cursed following this initial murder, as he has had to watch his son die gruesomely multiple times since then.
InWolverine#41, Sabretooth ripped Akihiro apart and used his mutilated, dismembered corpse to spell out “Happy Birthday” to Wolverine. Then, inHellverine#3, Logan pulls the demon Bagra-Ghul from Akihiro’s body in an effort to save him, but in doing so, Wolverine accidentally dooms Akihiro, holding his body as he slowly dies. It’s as if by murdering him, Wolverine cursed himself to witness his son’s death over and over again, which is a horrific fate that began with one convincing sentence.
Wolverine was Still Right to Kill His Son, Akihiro
Despite potentially being ‘cursed’ by his act of filicide, Wolverine was right to listen to his future counterpart. During the events ofUncanny X-Force, Akihiro wasn’t the mutant hero modern fans know him as, but a ruthless killer who would stop at nothing to hurt Wolverine. Indeed, Akihiro even created his own version of the Brotherhood of Mutants alongside Sabretooth, which is proof enough of both his villainy and his disdain for his father. In other words, if future Wolverine said that Daken was going to kill the X-Men, then present-Wolverine was wise to listen.
Even though Wolverine was right to kill Akihiro, it’s still a chilling thought to consider that he was convinced to do so by one sentence. If not for the wisdom of future Wolverine, Logan would have let his son live, and would have inadvertently doomed the rest of the X-Men. The X-Men were a single sentence away from a grisly slaughter, the same sentence that doomedWolverine’s son, Akihiro.
Wolverine
The human mutant Wolverine (a.k.a. Logan) was born James Howlett, blessed with a superhuman healing factor, senses, and physiology. Subjecting himself to experimentation to augment his skeleton and claws with adamantium, Logan is as deadly as he is reckless, impulsive, and short-tempered. Making him the X-Men’s wildest and deadliest member, and one of Marvel Comics' biggest stars. He’s played in Fox and Marvel’s movie franchises by Hugh Jackman.
