Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Weapon X-Men #1!Wolverine’s healing factor is easily his most useful power, not just in a battle or wartime setting, but in every facet of his life. Logan’s healing factor makes him immune to disease, impervious to lasting injury, and it increases his lifespan exponentially (indeed, it’s revealed Wolverine can live upwards of 1,000 years in Powers of X). However, for as god-tier as Logan’s healing factor seems to be, Marvel Comics just confirmed it has a ‘kryptonite’ – and it’s incredibly disturbing.
In Weapon X-Men #1 by Christos Gage and Yildiray Çinar, Wolverine variants from across the multiverse have been gathered by a Phoenix-possessed Jean Grey to find and eliminate an alternate version of Onslaught. The Wolverines-in-question are: Age of Apocalypse’s Weapon X, Old Man Logan, Zombie Wolverine, Logan from Earth-X, and the newly-introduced Jane Howlett. When the Weapon X-Men team is sent to a world where Onslaught is hiding, they rendezvous with the local X-Men/Avengers team to find him – at which point, Zombie Wolverine makes a startling revelation.
When Weapon X asks Zombie Wolverine, “So, healing factor didn’t help with the bite?” Zombie Wolverine answers with a short yet telling “Nope”. Obviously, fans have known that Wolverine’s healing factor didn’t help since first seeing him in Marvel Zombies, but this is the first time readers have gotten verbal confirmation that the virus actually beat his healing factor. Wolverine has beaten other forms of viruses and infections with his healing factor in the past (supernatural or otherwise), but Weapon X-Men confirms that this specific ‘zombie virus’ strain is effectively Wolverine’s kryptonite.
If Wolverine from the Marvel Zombies reality can be infected by ‘the Hunger’, then that means every Wolverine in every conceivable reality can also be infected, and their healing factors won’t help them in the slightest. That’s a horrifying realization, and one that adds greater significance to Marvel Zombies canon. In Marvel Zombies Return, the Seeer decides that this zombie virus strain cannot be beaten, so it must be contained.
Every zombie is thrown into a time loop in order to keep them from spreading throughout the multiverse, and while the importance of neutralizing the virus is stressed throughout Marvel Zombies Return, fans get a new appreciation for how imperative it was that this ‘Hunger’ virus was effectively eradicated in Weapon X-Men. If something as strong as Wolverine’s healing factor is no match for the virus, then truly nothing can stop it, so sectioning it off from the rest of the Marvel multiverse was the only way to defeat the virus – and it’s a good thing the Seeer was successful.
In an alternate timeline within the pages of Marvel Comics’ What If…? series, Wolverine gets turned into a vampire by Dracula himself, and his healing factor doesn’t fight off the infection. Interestingly enough, however, Wolverine does find a way to combat the virus by the end of the comic, though it isn’t his healing factor that helps him, it’s his indomitable spirit. Wolverine chooses to be a hero, even as an undead vampire hellbent on infecting the entire planet. However, even though his heroism helped Wolverine win the day, his healing factor sure didn’t.
While Wolverine did succumb to vampiric infection in a What If…? comic, that continuity is notorious for bending the rules of established Marvel Comics canon (that’s kind of the whole point), so events that happen in a What If…? should be taken with a grain of salt. However, Marvel Zombies is firmly canon, something that’s strikingly apparent in Weapon X-Men, as Wolverine’s healing factor kryptonite is always lurking somewhere in the multiverse – and perhaps even a time loop won’t be able to neutralize it.
Weapon X-Men #1 by Marvel Comics is available now.