BIOGRAPHY - Page 19
Logan was a broken man after the Red Right Hand was done with him. He spent weeks tracking down the families of the Mongrels, returning their bodies to their homes, and confirmed for himself what the Red Right Hand said. After that, he climbed to the top of a mountain peak and threw himself to the valley below. Over. And over again. Finally, Logan regressed to a feral state and returned to the wild, living with a pack of wolves for a time. He eventually recovered, and with the help of Melita and his friends returned to civilization, but the fate of his children was ever-present in Wolverine’s mind in the days to come. [Wolverine (4th series) #14-15]
When the Asgardian Fear God known as the Serpent awoke, he and his agents the Worthy unleashed cataclysmic terror over the world. Wolverine fought against the growing fear on multiple fronts: he stood with the Avengers in defense of New York City, joined X-Force in stopping a suicidal splinter group of Purifiers, and personally defeated rogue STRIKE agents that hijacked a nuclear-armed Helicarrier. The final conflict came at the site of Asgard in Broxton, Oklahoma. Wolverine and several other Avengers received armor enhancements forged by Iron Man and enchanted by Odin. As “the Mighty”, Wolverine and the others engaged the Worthy until Thor fulfilled the prophecy of killing the Serpent in battle. [Fear Itself crossover]
One evening, Wolverine and Cyclops attended an arms control conference at the United Nations. Representing Utopia, they called for all the nations of the world to disarm and dismantle their Sentinels and mutant-hunting programs for the good of the world. Their plea was interrupted by the self-appointed mutant freedom fighter Kid Omega, who publically embarrassed the leaders of the world by telepathically forcing them to reveal their deepest secrets on live television. The world leaders had prepared for an attack and had brought a cadre of Sentinels, which they unleashed following Quire's telepathic assault. The resulting backlash was an open increase in Sentinel activity around the globe. Wolverine wanted to hunt down Quire for what he unleashed, but Cyclops said to ignore the teenage revolutionary, since his work was already done. Even when Quire showed up at Utopia, claiming “sanctuary”, Cyclops refused to tell the Avengers or other authorities about Quire, choosing instead to keep him in mutant custody to face mutant justice. [X-Men: Schism #1-2]
Disagreeing with Scott’s tactics, Logan was off sulking at a bar when a Hellfire squad attacked the X-Men at a mutant history museum opening. The attackers defeated the senior X-Men present at the museum and prepared to detonate a bomb that would kill the X-Men and the civilians present. Cyclops and Wolverine were alerted to the attack, and began separately making their way to the scene. They made contact with the only mutant still active at the museum, a fourteen year old recent recruit named Idie Okonkwo. It was Idie who told them about the bomb over the telepathic comm-link, and wanted to know what to do. Wolverine insisted Idie stay safe and get away from the Hellfire soldiers, but Cyclops matter-of-factly told her that they weren’t going to make it in time, and she should do what she has to. Idie chose to stay. She used her powers to kill a dozen Hellfire guards and then got the hostages to safety. [X-Men: Schism #3]
Logan was furious at Scott for turning Idie into a murderer, but Scott responded by telling Logan it was her choice to make. The debate was interrupted when a massive Sentinel unit activated in San Francisco and began making its way towards Utopia. This was the Hellfire Club’s plan from the start: stir up Sentinel activity around the globe to get the X-Men too spread out to defend their base of operations.
Indeed, Cyclops and Wolverine were the only active X-Men on Utopia, with reinforcements more than 37 minutes away. At least, that’s how Logan saw things. There were still a dozen or more mutant students on Utopia who hadn’t been dispatched to Sentinel battlegrounds. Logan saw them as innocents needing protection; Scott saw an army of X-Men. Wolverine refused to allow Cyclops to turn more children into killers than evening, and rigged Utopia with a metric ton of plastic explosives to detonate the island and the Sentinel with it. The debate between Cyclops and Wolverine became physical and personal as Scott tried to stop Logan from detonating the explosives, even as the Sentinel bore down on them. Eventually, the students chose to enter the battle against Logan’s wishes, and the super-Sentinel was destroyed on Utopia’s doorstep by the teenaged mutants.
The next day, Logan told Scott he was done working with him. Their differences of opinion had grown too wide to accommodate any further. Cyclops maintained that mutantkind was on the verge of extinction, and that all mutants had to stand up for the cause. He wouldn’t force anyone, young or old, to fight for the X-Men, but the choice to do so was theirs. Logan recognized the need for killing and for soldiers, but in his opinion that was a job for the adults. It was up to them to preserve the cause of mutant rights so that children like Idie could BE children, and could be protected until they were old enough to make informed choices on their own. Logan saw it as his duty to make the hard choices so that others didn’t have to. At an impasse, Wolverine told Cyclops he would be leaving Utopia soon. [X-Men: Schism #4-5]
While the X-Men struggled to recover from this break in their leadership, X-Force faced an even greater threat. With Apocalypse dead, the Celestial engineering latent in Warren Worthington’s cells began transforming him into the new Apocalypse. The “Death Seed” within him fed on murder, and each assassination by the kill squad furthered his corruption. By the time Wolverine and the others recognized the problem, it was too late: Archangel was in full control of Angel. Seeking some alternative to killing their friend, X-Force retrieved one of Apocalypse’s former lieutenants, the Dark Beast of the Age of Apocalypse. He told them about a counteracting Life Seed found in his home reality that could purge Warren of Apocalypse’s influence.
X-Force journeyed to the Age of Apocalypse timeline with Dark Beast, but he betrayed and abandoned them there almost immediately. They encountered the X-Men of that world, and regrouped in the hopes of finding a solution to both their worlds’ problems. The meeting was difficult for Logan. The AoA X-Men included a living Nightcrawler, Kirika (the daughter he might have had with Mariko), and of course their leader - Jean Grey. This Jean was mourning the death of her own Logan, Weapon X, and the two of them nearly fell into each other’s arms purely on animal instinct. With all the will he could muster, however, Logan remembered his commitment to Melita and refrained from doing anything with Jean.
The AoA X-Men faced an unidentified heir to Apocalypse themselves, and so the heroes borrowed McCoy’s plan and went to retrieve two more Life Seeds from the Celestial Gardener to save their worlds. Unfortunately, only one Life Seed remained. Even worse, the heir to Apocalypse turned out to be the Logan of that world, ascended like Archangel and now known as Weapon Omega. He murdered his daughter Kirika and turned the Black Legion loose on the X-Men and X-Force. Despite Wolverine’s insistence to the contrary, Jean realized her world was irrevocably shattered, and she forcibly sent X-Force and the Life Seed back to save their world while she held off Weapon Omega to cover their escape.
X-Force returned home only to discover McCoy had freed Archangel, now fully ascended into the new Apocalypse. Despite preparing for this moment, both Wolverine and Psylocke held back from delivering the killing blow against Archangel. In the battle, Wolverine was caught in the radioactive fire of Genocide, Archangel’s latest operative, burning away half his body. By the time Logan recovered, the situation had gone from bad to worse. Archangel killed over three thousand people in a Montana town testing the power of the Life Seed to restart evolution on Earth and undo the Decimation’s stagnation of mutant development. He planned on using the Doom Fountain to unleash the Life Seed’s effect over the entire planet.
Wolverine received some last minute aid in stopping Archangel thanks to the Age of Apocalypse’s X-Men and a surprising young man named Genesis. It seemed that when Fantomex killed the young Apocalypse months ago, he retained a genetic sample of the lad and re-cloned him in the World, using virtual reality programming to give the boy a happy home life and development to solve the debate between nature and nurture. Fantomex cultivated the boy’s powers as a failsafe against Archangel’s ascension. With these new factors in play, the Doom Fountain was destroyed and Psylocke plunged the Life Seed into Archangel’s gut, purging him of the Apocalypse Strain. [The Dark Angel Saga]
With the Apocalypse averted, Wolverine returned to Utopia one last time to wrap up his affairs. Logan decided the best way to look after the children was to restart the school in Westchester. He approached many of his friends and allies in the hope of recruiting them for the endeavor. Some, like Iceman and Shadowcat, readily accepted, but others did not. Storm ultimately chose to remain on Utopia to act as Cyclops’s sole remaining conscience. Psylocke remained a secret part of X-Force, but disagreed with Logan about a school being the best thing for mutantkind at the moment. Hank McCoy returned to the X-Men to join Logan after months of separation following his falling out with Cyclops. Idie and the majority of the teenaged X-Men also agreed to support and attend Logan’s school. [X-Men: Regenesis #1]