How did Wolverine die in Logan? Full recap before Deadpool 3
Everything you need to know ahead of his return!
Back in 2017, Hugh Jackman famously bid farewell to his long-running Marvel character, Wolverine, in his final standalone film, Logan. After 8 films, the actor felt that the gritty, darker iteration was the “perfect end” for the character that he had played for almost 20 years. That is until Ryan Reynolds called in 2022…
Now, Jackman will return in the threequel, Deadpool & Wolverine, to face his arch-nemesis Wade Wilson, who appeared in X-Men: Origins: Wolverine (although this was a different version of Wade). Yet, there’s just one small problem… Wolverine died in Logan.
Broken and beaten, it was a poignant end for the Wolverine who had always been searching to understand himself as he battled between whether he was the monster or the hero. Logan culminated in the violent, heroic death of Wolverine, hand in hand with his daughter Laura (Dafne Keen).
As Reynolds and Jackman have confirmed that Deadpool & Wolverine will not encroach on Logan or his memorable death, it begs the question, how does Wolverine come back for the threequel?
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How did Wolverine die in Logan?
Let’s start with the most important fact: Wolverine does die in Logan. This isn’t a tricksy misfire where he suddenly reappears in the post-credit scenes (like Loki), there is a grave and finality to his death that couldn’t be re-written.
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In Logan, Wolverine discovers that he has a daughter with similar mutant abilities, who was made by Transigen using his DNA. Mutants haven’t been born biologically in 25 years, and an ageing Logan is reluctant to help Laura, especially now his healing abilities have started to slow and fail with age.
But when Laura’s life and all the other fellow mutant children who have been experimented on are being chased, he intercepts the gunmen to protect them, alongside his daughter.
With so many gunshot wounds, Logan’s weakened healing abilities can’t work fast enough to help him recover. It seems as though he could be able to take the remaining few gunmen, until they release their ultimate weapon, a clone of Logan called X-24, who has already killed Charles Xavier.
Laura ferociously tries to fight off the super-serum-fuelled mindless clone, while Logan is shot with a steel iron through his thigh. X-24’s strength is too much for Laura, he overpowers her, but the mutant children fight back with one burying the raged clone under a truck.
For a moment, it looks as though they’ve won. Logan orders the children to run, just as X-24 breaks out from underneath the truck. The duo fight, before X-24 drags Logan and impales him on a wooden spike from a fallen tree, straight through his stomach. With no way to heal, X-24 continues to attack Logan, before Laura shoots X-24 in the head with an adamantium bullet.
Laura tries to cut Logan free, dropping him down to the floor, but he’s already lost too much blood and spends the final moments with his daughter. For any sceptics about Logan’s death, it is proved to be final, as the film ends on his grave with an X marked over the mound of stones.
How could Wolverine return in Deadpool 3?
So, the Wolverine in Logan is definitely dead, but if Wolverine is back in Deadpool & Wolverine, is it the Wolverine we already know? Or a different variant?
In Deadpool 2, Wade travelled back in time to save the love of his life Vanessa from being fatally shot. With this technology, it seems possible that he could go back in time to beyond the events of Logan, when the Wolverine was still alive, and Deadpool & Wolverine would be set at a different point of the existing timeline.
However, after the final trailer, it seems more likely that the Wolverine who Deadpool encounters is a different variant of the character from another timeline. In Deadpool & Wolverine, Wade crosses over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe when the TVA (Time Variance Authority) turn up on his doorstep.
As seen in Loki, the TVA protect the sacred timeline, but have full access to the multiverse using their TemPads to travel not only through time but universes too. Now that Deadpool is in the MCU, it opens up the possibility of Wade entering the multiverse, too – especially considering Marvel is deep into their Multiverse Saga of films and TV series.
This could mean that the masked vigilante teams up with a different variant of Logan from another timeline, which would not impact the events of Logan, but could completely re-write Wolverine’s character that fans know from the existing X-Men movies.
Either way, Logan will return in Deadpool & Wolverine. As for whether it’s the Wolverine that fans have invested two decades in or an alternate Comic Book variant, only time will tell.
Logan is available to stream now on Disney Plus. Deadpool & Wolverine is set to be released in cinemas on Thursday 25 July.
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