V: Beast Without A Past Broken glass, sirens and screams, the scent of blood and fury. Those are oldest memories of Logan, a mutant whose past was robbed by the mysterious Weapon X from whence he escaped so many years ago, claws dripping with the remains of a dozen of scientists and personel. Still perforated and attached to the machinery he tore through in his bid for freedom, he was found in the Canadian Rockies by honeymooning couple, James and Heather Hudson. Months under their care allowed Logan to regain some of his humanity back, but his memories did not return. Noticing Logan's talent for hunting and killing, James revealed himself as the founder of Department H, a metahuman agency of Canada. Using the fact Logan had come to trust him, the man enlisted the mutant, and thus the Wolverine was born, his gifts single-handedly securing the funding for the department after he was sent to stop a rampaging Hulk when the creature was sighted in Canada. The next time Wolverine was given a task of similar importance it was to assassinate a telepath named Charles Francis Xavier in the United States. That mission marked Wolverine's last with Department H, as after finding his target Wolverine approached the mutant about his telepathy and any chance of his powers helping Logan with his memories. Slowly Charles won Logan over, offering a path that was counter to his bloody ways, which the feral mutant accepted. Years later he was, however, required to take up on the mantle of the Wolverine again, once the X-Men were captured in Krakoa. VI: Finding a Pack The X-Men were like a tight-knit family, all of them young and dumb, and on the outside Logan watched over them, his short fuse a small measure of his actual anger that he kept at bay and away from the others. Alone, the Canadian berserker meditated on the animal inside of him and how hopeless his fight felt until the Charles Xavier. A cynical man, Logan still commited what he knew to be mistakes in growing closer to other X-Men, one such an event being a Christmas celebration with the others in Manhattan when he, Banshee and Marvel Girl were kidnaped by Dr. Stephen Lang's Mk. II Sentinels and taken to the orbital base of Project Armageddon. Wolverine fought to free his colleagues and on the way back he witnessed the young Jean Grey sacrifice herself to save her family, and by the time the Shi'ar came he was already fully invested in protecting the X-Men, whether the Professor could find what was wrong with his memory or not. Logan fought against the Imperial Guard, was taken down by the White Queen when trying to recruit Kitty Pryde to the Xavier's School, but it was when the Hellfire Club finally captured the X-Men in New York that Wolverine finally snapped. Upon realizing the abuse Jean had suffered at the hands of Mastermind, Wolverine, as the last free member of the X-Men still in the Hellfire Manor, having been sent to the sewers by Harry Leland's gravitational powers, lost control. What followed was a blood bath where, although he did not break Xavier's rules not to kill, Wolverine crippled and maimed his way to the Inner Circle, where he helped the X-Men free themselves. Those events led into Jean becoming the Dark Phoenix, a dangerous being of unparalleled strength. Later, Wolverine had a chance to kill her, when the young woman was subdued by the combined might of the X-Men, but he could not bring himself to kill the woman, surprising himself as he relied on Cyclops and Professor X to assist Jean Grey in subduing the cosmic entity. Although he was with the X-Men when the Shi'ar accepted Xavier's pleas for a trial by combat, Wolverine could not win the fight for his friends, and Jean would be depowered despite his best efforts. VII: Mastering The Self Months after Logan saw himself facing a time travelling Rachel Summers, who warned the X-Men of a dire future. Wolverine did trust the girl, as she shared scents with both Jean and Scott. He gave Rachel credibility among the X-Men, and they set off to stop the Brotherhood. The battle was hard-fought and drew the attention of authorities, but in the end it was no Brother that Wolverine found himself fighting, but Rachel. Desperate, Rachel tried to kill Mystique, someone she thought responsible for future. Wolverine immediately tried to stop her, as he could not allow the child of Cyclops and Phoenix to go down that path, and the girl snapped back, revealing honed instincts to fight. In the end, although he won, their violent scuffle was deeply traumatizing to Wolverine, who in his rage came close of actually killing the young woman. The fight shook Logan to his core. Even in his attempt to help he had almost slain the child of people he would die for. Maybe in serendipity, not a few days later he was approached by a man representing Oyama Kenji, an old friend now in his death bed, wishing to see the Canadian for the last time. Still feeling guilty, Wolverine gladly decided to put distance between himself and the X-Men. That Oyama could reveal things about his past was incidental at that point. Logan landed in Agarashima, a port city in the Miyago Prefecture, to find himself walking into the man's funeral and an ambush by the man's own daughter, a cyborg by the name of Lady Deathstrike. The woman believed the adamantium-lacing process had been stolen from her father and then used on Logan, which made Wolverine a disgrace to his legacy, something she would correct by reacquiring what was rightfully hers: Logan's skeleton. Forced to retreat, Wolverine was saved by the intervention of Yoshida Mariko, the daughter of one of Kenji's associates, the Yakuza lord Yoshida Shingen. Risking her life, she took Logan out of fray and gave him refuge in her family's home, where the two would remain for a while and slowly fall in love. Logan felt himself at ease for the first time in a while, so when Shingen arrived weeks later disavowing that a beastly gaijin could ever be with his daughter, Wolverine was ready to prove him wrong. The traditional Lord Yoshida challenged Wolverine to a bokken duel for Mariko's honor, a confrontation Shingen, at first, showed to be quite dominant at as he humiliated the gaijin. Using Logan's own insecurities against him the mobster rained blows on Wolverine until the mutant almost lost his temperment. Truth is Wolverine would have lost the duel without his mutant gifts, as midway through he realized he had been drugged, his regeneration taking some time to do away with the poison. Rallying, the physically superior mutant broke his rival. Once triumphant, Logan denounced Shingen's cowardice, disgracing the old man in such fashion that Shingen named Mariko the new leader of the Clan. After the battle, Mariko realized that the dishonor of her father's actions would haunt Clan Yoshida and that she could not be with Wolverine for as long as that stain remained. Wolverine returned to America, right in time to fight the Brotherhood in Washington. While the Canadian was instrumental for the fight in on itself, his adamantium skelleton proved to be an enormous hindrance when dealing with Magneto proper. In the end, the greatest development for Logan was being with Professor X when he met Nicholas Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Although Wolverine did not know at the time, the old military leader had recognized the X-Men, something that would change his life in the coming years. VIII: Crime and Punishment Being around the X-Men helped coping with the loss of the life Logan could have had with Mariko. Acting as a mentor to some of the younger mutants in the mansion, like Shadowcat, he helped the girl face her own demons. A warrior's instinct, or plain old pessimism, did not allow him to shake off the sensation that things were about to take a turn, however. With the arrival of Caliban at the School, wounded and begging for help, Logan knew he had been right. A massacre was ongoing, and Wolverine and the X-Men soon leaped into the fray, teleporting to The Alley. Logan's senses were in overload: it was not the massacred bodies or the blood, or terrified faces of Shadowcat and Rogue, but a scent that drove his instincts into overdrive. Someone familiar. This someone revealed himself to be the hulking beast named Sabretooth, one of the murderers who claimed to be an old friend. Logan engaged in a bloody battle, but split once he realized the X-Men needed his help. Their fight, however, did not end there, and Sabretooth tracked the X-Men to the School, where he would have eviscerated Betsy Braddock if the woman had not expertly played the feral mutant until Wolverine's arrival. By the time Logan was there, Sabretooth had taken Psylocke's vicious psy-dagger into his brain, and drooled without memories on the floor. Despite his subdued state, Wolverine still moved in for the kill, which most the X-Men opposed, including Professor Xavier, who mentioned that if the X-Men were so intolerant, they would have never taken Logan himself in. Frustrated, Wolverine left Westchester, needing to put time between himself and all of it. Weeks later, Wolverine received a threat carried by a moving shadow. Within it was demanded of him to return something called the C-Synthetizer which, if delivered, would keep Mariko from being harmed. Acting hastily, Wolverine set himself to Japan once more, not having the faintest idea of what the C-Synthetizer might be. Logan arrived to find that the clan had been in precarious position, the changes Mariko brought about having resulted in a fall from grace as the Yoshida lost presence in the underworld. After a brief moment of reprieve and reconnection, however, the two found themselves face to face with The Hand, one of their leaders in Matsu'o Tsurayaba, and a massive warrior called Omega Red. The fight was hard fought, but Logan was helped by another ghost from his past, a man called Maverick, who was aware of Logan's amnesia. Despite it all, however, there was no victory to be gained: when The Hand left, Matsuo'o had Mariko poisoned. Faced with a slow and painful death, Mariko asked Wolverine to end her life mercifully. A heartbroken Logan reluctantly complied, and vowed to Matsu'o that he would slice off a part of his body on the anniversary of Mariko's death until there was nothing left of him. Despite his pain, Logan was not allowed to grief, however, as in America, the X-Men had just suffered terrible losses in the form of the death of Iceman, the disappearance of Rachel, the transformation of Warren into Archangel and the kidnapping and subsequent loss of Jean and Scott's infant son. Unable to excuse his absense any longer, Wolverine set aside his own grief to assist the family he had chosen for himself, and even if he could not undo the damage caused by Apocalypse, he would help them with his vengeance. IX: The Blood-drenched Mercy Wolverine knew enough about people that even the young X-kids he once met years ago, now adults, would take the aggressions from Apocalypse very poorly, so when Cyclops declared a hunt on En Sabah Nur Logan was ready to join in. The team team of Logan, Scott, Warren and Hank set themselves to find Apocalypse and kill him, at any cost. This nascent X-Force was nothing Professor X would have authorized, but Wolverine knew there was no stopping a father in search of retribution. Chuck would have to understand, later. Following a lead obtained by Cyclops the four flew to the State Home for Foundlings in Nebraska. Although a normal orphanage at first glance, Wolverine did not take long to catch scents that hinted at something sinister. Following Logan, the X-Force found a whole facility underneath the long-abandoned place. While some rooms were inconspicuous, others denounced barbaric acts visited upon the children sent there. The lower levels were the most harrowing, the stench of discarded bodies almost overwhelming even Wolverine, but pushing through ended up rewarding the feral mutant with a scent that defied logic. Following, the four men found themselves staring at a vat where a young woman resembling Marvel Girl still lived in a state of stasis. Deciding to free her, the men welcomed a young Madelyne Pryor to the world. The girl was designed by someone with no good intentions in mind, but given his earliest memories were of a facility not unlike that one, Wolverine couldn't help but feel empathy. Good or bad, the girl deserved a shot, as he had been given one. At first the girl proved to be quite different from Jean, eagerly experimenting with her nascent powers until she stumbled into a part of Warren's psyche that, while locked within the man, called to her telepathic gifts like a beacon. Suddenly, Warren felt Death within, and that it was being called somewhere considered 'home'. Assembling the X-Force, the four orchestrated an assault upon the Usermaatra-setepenra space station, the place Archangel was being called to. From the start things were not right, as most the people in the space station were dead, drained of life. The remaining ones were no match for the assembled X-Men who proceeded to tear through the space and the remaining Akkaba forces, disjointed as they were. In the process, however, the team split so Hank could drain the place from all the data available, while Cyclops, Archangel and Wolverine destroyed the brunt of En Sabah Nur's forces that remained in the space station. All the while the pleas to spare their master signaled that the men were closing in, and by the looks of Warren and Scott not even the Professor would have stopped the two then. Wolverine had no intention of stopping them either, more than willing to kill En Sabah Nur for what he had done, so it was with no small amount of surprise that when the X-Force broke into the final chamber they found a young man, grey-skinned and with blue marks on his face. Logan need only but a look to realize that was not Apocalypse, and immediately stopped Archangel from slicing the youth in one clean sweep of wings. As the three tried to make sense of it all, the glyphs on the walls painted the picture of what the child was meant for: Apocalypse's reincarnation. Logan, once more, saw himself in the role of passing on the mercy he was given, and spoke against the young man's death, opposing Warren and his grim outlook that the kid would grow to become En Sabah Nur, once more. In the end it was Cyclops who weighted against it, concluding the mission and deciding to take Genesis back home. As they arrived, and Sabretooth was revealed to have gotten out, and claimed Psylocke's life, Wolverine silently seethed. He knew what had to be done, and did nothing about it. He had failed, and would not do so again. X: An Odd Silver Lining Wolverine watched the news of Genosha's destruction with grim realization that it was a declaration of war. In silence, Logan realized that the deeds of the X-Force would not be a one-off from then on, but a constant in the life of the X-Men, and he was unsure if the others could take the routine. Deciding to pay Charles' office a visit days later, Logan found the man profoundly changed by Genosha. Methodically, Charles laid his plan before Wolverine, his use of Krakoan vegetation, the medicine he would produce and the ultimatum he would give humanity. Moreover, he had a gift for Wolverine, something he had gotten from the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. right after the Genoshan Genocide: a dossie labelled X-23. It contained annotations and surveilance on a young prostitute going by Laura Kinney living in Mutant Town, one in possession of retractible adamantium claws both in her hands and feet, shown in pictures to have infiltrated numerous high-profile facilities over the years and evaded capture by the Avengers, maybe with the help of the director himself. The implications were immediate, and Logan left immediately. Wolverine decided to find the young woman on her day job at Wannabe's, a mutant fetish bar in Mutant Town, but soon found himself chasing a ghost, the girl evading him just long enough to frustrate Logan before she struck. Some things became immediately apparent: the girl had a scent similar to his, she had powers similar to his own, and she was the nastiest fighter Wolverine had faced yet. She repeatedly attacked his joints, tendons, humstrung him, all to set up killshots that only did not work thanks to Logan's adamantium coating. The fight coated the alleyway with with the feral man's blood, but thankfully, albeit he was slower, Wolverine was much more resistant thanks to his skeleton, managing to hurt the girl just enough to make her listen to him. In doing so, Wolverine managed to tap into a sense of hierarchy within the other feral mutant, having her understand the existence of some connection between them. Despite being too old of that sort of madness, the more experienced mutant made sure to abuse the authority he had gained by defeating Laura to force her to stop her aggressions and follow him out of the gutter. From that day since, Wolverine has had trying to learn more about the mysterious girl while seeing in her a mirror to his own issues with self-control and the balance between the crippling loneliness of their bloody life, the feral impulses coursing through her head, and her unspoken desire to be normal. Suddenly somewhat a father, Wolverine's new outlook on Charles' whole utopia has suddenly shifted from responsibility to impossibly high personal stakes, as the man without a past now possesses something very real he might yet lose.