BIOGRAPHY - Page 17
Back in San Francisco, Wolverine learned from Maverick that Weapon X files had been leaked to a private military contractor known as Blackguard. Blackguard replicated and improved upon the adamantium bonding process, creating a dozen enhanced soldiers with laser claws and nanite healing factors called Strikeforce X. Thinking ahead, Logan provided some leads on Blackguard’s dirtier dealings to a local reporter he saved from some muggers. Melita Garner used Logan’s tip to dig up enough information to embarrass Blackguard’s CEO before a congressional hearing, while Wolverine personally hunted down and killed Strikeforce X’s commander and trapped the few commandoes that survived on a deserted island. [Wolverine: Weapon X #1-5]
Logan and Melita continued trading information for several weeks. Although he considered her a valuable informant, it was clear Melita wanted more. Logan was reluctant to open himself up to any real feelings, however. That changed after they investigated a seemingly unconnected series of homeless serial killers. Wolverine was captured by the highly unstable Doctor Rottwell, who used the Dunwich Sanatorium for his own unique and horrific brand of neurological experiments. Doc Rot physically and psychologically tortured Logan for several days while picking through his mind, and even uncovered the old Weapon X behavioral triggers buried in Logan’s subconscious. When he went missing, Melita contacted the X-Men on his behalf, and Psylocke and Nightcrawler sent Doctor Rot retreating. [Wolverine: Weapon X #6-9]
As he fled from the sanatorium, Logan instinctively made his way to Melita’s apartment to find comfort in her arms. They made love that night, and soon found themselves in a real relationship. Logan struggled with the idea, and worried that Melita would inevitably be endangered by his lifestyle, but she ultimately convinced him that it was worth it, and she was tough enough to handle anything that came their way. [Wolverine: Weapon X #10]
When Simon Trask began to stir up anti-mutant sentiment in California with his Proposition 13 movement, Logan was in Brooklyn with the Avengers. He tried to get back in time to help, but before he could return to San Francisco, Norman Osborn and HAMMER descended on the city and declared martial law, blocking all ways in and out. Osborn used this opportunity to stake his claim on mutantkind, creating an officially registered squad of X-Men with Daken and other mutant recruits. Wolverine eventually made his back into the Bay area underwater, and hooked up with X-Force. They located Osborn’s mutant prisoners and pulled them to safety on the newly established island of Utopia under mutant domain. The united X-Men drove off and an attack by Osborn, Daken, and his group of Dark Avengers and X-Men. Logan got some personal vengeance against Weapon Omega, the crazed mutant responsible for hosting the Collective that killed Alpha Flight. [Utopia] Logan informed the Avengers through Spider-Woman that mutant affairs were heating up too much for him to split attention anymore, and he resigned from active participation in Cage’s Avengers. [New Avengers (1st series) #55]
The X-Men had trouble on Utopia almost immediately when Magneto arrived on the scene. He surprisingly supplicated himself before Cyclops, recognizing him as the new ruler of mutantkind. The pack of five Predator X creatures unleashed on the island soon after weren’t as hospitable. Luckily, Logan didn’t have to get swallowed again to kill these monsters, and the X-Men managed to destroy all of their attackers. The whole attack turned out to be a ruse, however – the Predators were merely the delivery system for a nanite swarm that analyzed the X-Men and transmitted intelligence on them back to an unknown location. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #515-517] They also had to deal with the nightmare of Deadpool’s membership application. Even after Wolverine realized that Deadpool’s antics were part of a needlessly complicated plan to make the X-Men look good and embarrass Norman Osborn, they were still happy to see Wilson leave. [Deadpool (3rd series) #15-18]
Logan’s long running feud with Matsu’o Tsurayaba also came to an end many years after Mariko’s death. Logan’s torture and mutilation of the former Hand lord left him in constant pain, unable to even hold a sword to commit honorable seppuku and end his miserable existence. Logan even persuaded Yukio to watch over Matsu’o and ensure he did not manage to kill himself by other means, so that his torment would continue indefinitely. The matter finally resolved itself when Matsu’o provoked Logan’s teammate Psylocke into trying to kill him, thus leading her to uncover Logan’s actions. Betsy forced Logan to abandon his hatred of Matsu’o, and Logan allowed her to end Matsu’o’s life as he had long desired. [Psylocke #1-4]
Returning to his vendetta against Romulus, Wolverine realized he needed outside help. Romulus had been inside his head for nearly a century, and any plan he came up with Romulus would anticipate and already have prepared a counter for. Logan managed to combine two plans into a single series of seemingly unrelated events, using a plot designed by the criminal strategist the Answer, mixed with a dash of sheer lunacy cooked up by Deadpool. The plot called for Wolverine to seek aid from a motley group of conspirators, including Bruce Banner and his son Skaar, Cloak, the Silver Samurai, and the Answer’s ex-girlfriend, the super-villainess Ruby Thursday. Logan managed to leave Romulus hopelessly confused as to what he was doing, until the mastermind blackmailed Ruby Thursday into telling him Logan’s plans. This was exactly as Logan intended, because Ruby only knew about the Answer’s version of the plan. With Romulus successfully misdirected, Wolverine abandoned the Answer’s scheme and moved on to the plot he arranged through Deadpool. [Wolverine: Origins #41-45]
Next, Wolverine pretended to bring Daken in on the plan, telling him they could take Romulus down together. However, he only told Daken about the Answer’s plan, so that when Daken inevitably betrayed him to Romulus, it only seemed to confirm the intel Romulus got from Ruby. So when Daken showed up at the meeting site ready to double-cross Wolverine, Romulus was completely blind-sided when Logan seemingly stabbed his son in the chest with the Muramasa blade, killing him. It was actually a copy of the real blade, but the act was enough to draw Romulus out from the shadows. With Cloak’s help, Logan spirited Romulus away to the old Howlett estate in Alberta for their final encounter. In the end, Logan did not kill Romulus, but instead he exiled him deep into Cloak’s Dark Dimension, never to resurface again.
This left only Daken. Wolverine returned to confront his son and ensure that Daken would never become the ultimate weapon Romulus planned for him to be. They fought, Logan wielding the Muramasa blade against Daken’s Muramasa claws. Wolverine proved the victor and impaled his son in the chest with his adamantium. Logan acknowledged that there was no hope for Daken’s redemption. Instead of making peace with his son, Logan surgically removed the Muramasa claws from Daken’s forearms. The bone claws would regenerate given time, but the unstoppable psycho-metal was no longer his. Logan then buried his blade and the claws in an unmarked grave on the Howlett estate, ending Romulus and his legacy forevermore. [Reckoning crossover]
Though Logan had vanquished Romulus, other threats soon arose to threaten him and mutantkind. Bastion upped his game when his human council weaponized the Legacy Virus, turning unwilling mutants into suicide bombers that died as their powers erupted. They were sent into populated areas by the Leper Queen and her Sapiens League to cause massive human casualties and stir up anti-mutant sentiment. Wolverine’s squad was unable to stop the deaths of Beautiful Dreamer, Fever Pitch, and hundreds of innocent humans. As Logan and his team were dealing with this problem, Hank McCoy was narrowing the search for Bishop and Cable in the future and getting closer to having a lock on them. To be prepared for the moment when Bishop was located, each member of X-Force was provided with a specialized time travel device. This device would transport them through time and provide the team with 33.2 hours of chronal stability in the future before potential side effects, such as death, began to occur. Cyclops made it abundantly clear to Wolverine and his team that the Leper Queen was important, but finding Cable and the baby took priority. The situation with Bastion's anti-human campaign escalated when several former teammates -
Surge, Hellion and Boom-Boom - were kidnapped from San Francisco as the Sapiens League’s next victims. Wolverine’s squad located the Leper Queen… just as Beast finally located Cable in the future. Wolverine screamed at Cyclops over comms to give them just a few more minutes, but Summers made the call and remotely jumped X-Force into the future before they could save their friends. [X-Force (3rd series) #12-13]
Materializing in 2973, Wolverine and X-Force encountered Cable and the mutant child, now several years older and named Hope. They were caught in a chronal net cast by Bishop and his new ally Stryfe to catch Cable and Hope as they moved through time. Bishop was using Stryfe’s vendetta against Cable to manipulate him and his resources in order to get at Hope. A brutal conflict followed, which ultimately led to the resurrection of the future Apocalypse himself, but Stryfe was defeated and Bishop fled back into the timestream. The 33.2 hours were up for X-Force, though, and the cellular make-up of the team began to deteriorate rapidly. [Messiah War crossover]
Returning to the present at the exact moment they left, X-Force raced to rescue the Leper Queen’s victims before they were used to destroy New York. Wolverine, Archangel and Elixir found them at the United Nations building, but the Legacy injections were already causing Hellion and Surge’s powers to go haywire. Warren losing control of his Death persona didn’t make things any easier, but they finally got Elixir close enough to purge the virus from his friends and save the day. [X-Force (3rd series) #17] Back at base, Logan threw Cyclops through a window for leaving their friends to die. Even though the three kidnap victims were safe, X-23 disappeared during the operation. Logan swore he would hold Scott personally responsible for anything that happened to Laura and quietly confessed to Domino his remorse for ever letting Laura get involved in their kill squad. [X-Force (3rd series) #18-20]
Almost immediately after Laura was recovered from the Facility, Utopia came under attack when Selene’s forces made their big move. Using Eli Bard and his T-O virus, Selene resurrected dozens of mutants as unkillable cyber-zombies and sent them to annihilate the X-Men. That was only the opening gamut, as Selene and Bard then resurrected the entire mutant population of Genosha. The Black Queen intended to consume millions of mutant souls all at once in a ritual to increase her powers to the point of godhood. 
Wolverine and X-Force pursued her inner circle to Genosha and, with Warpath’s help, prepared themselves with Ghost Dance rituals as protection against her power. Selene was defeated and the souls she unearthed returned to their rest, but the team was burnt out by the experience. Nearly half the group resigned, and Wolverine insisted Cyclops take X-23 off the roster as well. He was determined that Laura spend time as a human instead of as a weapon. [Necrosha crossover]