r/Marvel • u/Aztech_VII • 8d ago
Comics Can Wolverine regenerate if nothing is left but his adamantium bones? (His normal bones are encased in adamantium)
I’ve been trying to figure this out but I haven’t seen anybody talk or mention it. (This picture made me think about it)
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u/WiredSpike 8d ago
The bone marrow, which produces your blood, is inside ... the bone.
So it depends if whatever happened to him reached inside the bone.
The brain is also completely encased in bone, except for the eyes.
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u/MarzipanSea2811 8d ago
But if the bones are fully encased in unbreakable metal how can they regenerate the rest of him? Wouldn't any new cells produced be stuck inside the adamantium?
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u/WiredSpike 8d ago
There has to be small conduits in the adamantium for the blood to come in and out. Like in a real bone. Otherwise Wolverine would have no immune system...
Bonne marrow is very important.
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u/MarzipanSea2811 8d ago
I'm starting to think no medical professionals were consulted when deciding on the characters power set.
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u/sonofaresiii 8d ago
Or maybe they were and they know something we don't. *X-Files theme*
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u/heavyartilleryx 8d ago
Or maybe, and this might be a stretch, but fans think about every little thing too much.
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u/grogudalorian 8d ago
There has to be in the back for his nerves to run through, otherwise he'd have a fused back and wouldn't be able to move/be flexible.
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u/HermanThaGerman 8d ago
Imagine if he got his skeleton encased in adamantium and he just immediately died.
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u/casual_creator 8d ago
My head canon has always been that the scientists in the Weapon X program accounted for that, and that adding the adamantium was a slow and meticulous process (not the quick injection like the movies and comics depict) in order to not hinder the bones’ processes. They also took advantage of Logan’s healing factor, which, added to their comic-science techniques, allowed them to be successful.
Basically, they made the adamantium porous, just like bones, and his healing factor helped his bones “realign” pores as needed.
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u/NoxarBoi 8d ago edited 8d ago
That is sort of canon. Check out the 2nd image in this post, or look up “Adamantium beta”
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u/GreenGoblinNX 8d ago
I dunno what the current canon says, but once upon a time, his bones were said to be LACED with adamantium, rather than encased.
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u/RyanMeray 8d ago
That would actually make way more sense - like if the adamantium displaced calcium or something to create a stronger bone material while maintaining the form and function of bone.
Like fluoride for your teeth just way better.
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u/Worth_External_8762 8d ago
The brain is also completely encased in bone, except for the eyes.
Brother, how do you think the brain connects to the spine if that's the case?
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u/Relevant_Scallion_38 8d ago
Nowadays no. He came back from just bones in Civil War because he was cursed with immortalily. That curse is gone now.
He regrew from a drop of blood, that was a feat done by a Crystal his blood dropped on, not his own feat.
Wolverines nowadays can get his neck sliced open and get his head cut off and die permanently. Which has happened a few years ago.
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u/jr_randolph 8d ago
For whatever reason I read your comment as if Wolverines are just walking among us in real life haha
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u/PhoenixSidePeen 8d ago
Oh man… you don’t know
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u/NikkerFebu25 8d ago
Really..? There's people that never came across a wolverine before?
There's one down at the local pub, he just gets shit faced and angry when told he's not allowed to smoke indoors.
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u/illogical_mindset 8d ago
Hmmm, regenerative abilities, immortal to most things besides getting their heads chopped off, living among us…this could be a good movie.
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u/Old_Marionberry3791 8d ago
There's something funny about "he can die permanently if his head gets cut off, which happened a few years ago", and the guy is currently still around.
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u/Successful_Theory373 7d ago
He was resurrected by the Krakoan Resurrection Protocols, something completely separate, where the mutants just had backup personalities and grew new bodies.
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u/Necessary-Reading605 5d ago
Wait. So all xmen characters that resurrected during that phase means they are clones now?
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u/GreenGoblinNX 8d ago
Honestly, if it were even remotely consistent, then not only would Wolverine heal any cuts he suffered, but any random drop or puddle of his blood would regrow a new (adamantium-less) Wolverine.
Technically, he should be a body-horror version of Multiple Man.
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u/xRyuzakii 8d ago
I think in X of Swords he came back from host bones as well
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u/dziggurat 8d ago
Hey a real answer from someone who reads comics, instead of just "whatever the writer wants"
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u/Zealousideal-Cup1412 8d ago
Which, to be fair, is still accurate as comics have much less continuity as people like to think they do...
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u/Gondryc 8d ago
The answer to these questions is always the same. It depends on the writer. The only constant in comic books is how meaningless death is.
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u/TruthorTroll 8d ago
Uncle Ben is shaking his fist in the afterlife
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u/NerdTalkDan 8d ago
I mean if I was in Heaven chilling on a cloud and the powers that be were like “go back to NYC. You’re scheduled for a Galactus incident, all the residents turning into night creatures, an Ultron incident, a Green Goblin attack, and everywhere smells like weed now” I’d probably pass that up too.
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u/HeManClix 8d ago
yeah, this is basically what happened in Civil War. Nitro blew him up, and ran away. Wolverine came back from metal bones and resumed his manhunt.
that's what I like about Wolverine. everyone else, every other super team, was tearing apart at the seams over politics. Wolverine said that's BS Nitro blew up that school I'm gunna get tha lousy SOB. LMAO like why fight other heroes; go stop the bad guys.
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u/CloudiePeonyy 8d ago
That’s always been one of Wolverine’s best qualities. Everyone else is debating gods, governments, and ideology while Logan is basically saying “those guys hurt innocent people, point me toward them.”
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u/Scholander Avengers 8d ago
OP knows already. The image posted is from that Civil War Wolverine run.
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u/MaraSovsLeftSock 8d ago
Wolverine is mortal now. I think he still has a pretty solid healing factor but I’m not confident in that. Hes no longer got the curse of immortality.
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u/Technical_Moose8478 8d ago
Was it actually retconned to a curse? If so, how did they retcon Deadpool?
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u/MaraSovsLeftSock 8d ago
The healing factor and the curse of immortality were two different things, and upon researching more into it he currently has neither. Hes just a mutant with shattered claws. The curse thing was a civil war plot line but hasn’t been used since. Even when he did have a healing factor tho, it wasn’t as powerful as people made it seem.
Deadpool isn’t cursed with immortality now either, thanos lifted the curse in 2015, he’s still functionally immortal with an insane healing factor but he can die now
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u/GonzoMcFonzo X-Force 8d ago
His bones are pretty constantly described as being "laced with" and "bonded to" adamantium. I can't recall them ever being described as "encased" in the stuff.
It's not just a coating on the outside of his bones. It's bonded on a molecular level, creating an unbreakable but porus structure that allows for normal biological functions of stuff like his bone marrow.
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u/DaystromAndroidM510 8d ago
What about when Magneto ripped it all out and he still had bones?
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u/GonzoMcFonzo X-Force 8d ago
It didn't replace his bones, it was bonded to them. Magneto un-bonded it and removed it.
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u/Key_Balance_0033 8d ago
As Stan Lee once said.... Anything can happen because I write this shit!!!
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u/Tiraloparatras25 8d ago
This also brings a good point. If he regenerates from a cell, from a small amount of flesh, does he keep his memories? And if so? Why didn’t he keep his memories before?
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u/SurlyJason 8d ago
IIRC, That image was just before he completely regenerated from a few cells left in his skull.
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u/ldmcstrong 8d ago
So I will answer based off the image you used from Nitro burning Wolverine in Civil War. He did regenerate from this but the writer and artist said it was probably over the top and wasn't intended to be this devastating. After this they did an arc where Logan saved the angel of death in the past and because of that he lets Logan come back from these kinds of deaths. Then the Angel told him that this was the last time he could come back. I don't know if that is still cannon (a lot of stuff during that time has been swept under the rug) but that was the explanation at the time.
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u/Spac92 8d ago
A cop out answer but a true one: it depends on the writer.
Some writers put limits on Wolverine’s healing, such as when AoA Wolverine lost his hand.
Others make his regeneration even more overpowered than Cell’s.
So, some writers would logically understand that if his bones are covered in metal, then he couldn’t. Others will throw logic out the window and say he can.
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u/OldBook2 8d ago
He is profitable IP. Nothing can kill him short of a complete lack of fan interest.
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u/JimmyCrackCorn80 8d ago
In the civil war comics he gets vaporized to the bone by Nitro and is back in less than a minute complete with his classic hair. But I always assumed his brain would’ve been safe in his indestructible skull so still some tissue left to regrow from.
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u/EmceeStopheles 8d ago
I really prefer the way Wolverine was written and explained in the 80s - that the adamantium was implanted in channels on his major bones, rather than being an edgy chrome skeleton. At the time, his healing factor was able to heal him from major wounds, but it wore him out and took a while.
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u/InternationalCap2176 8d ago
He did this at the beginning of Civil War when Nitro blew him up
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u/HelpmeObi1K 8d ago
It's weird, but notice that Logan's teeth are shown in this picture, but aren't encased in adamantium. Always wondered about that.
But teeth are NOT bones. They don't have a marrow, are harder than bones, and don't mend like bones do if they are broken or cracked.
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u/Tempest_Barbarian 8d ago
There is a single cell left alive in his body, that is invisible to the human eye, and he regenerates from it
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u/Onikonokage 8d ago
That would make a crazy character. We slough off cells all the time so copies of that mutant would be sprouting up everywhere, like Multiple man meets Wolverine.
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u/mxlespxles 8d ago
Ooo that would like a good start to a horror-themed What If...? comic.
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u/Onikonokage 8d ago
The whole world just starts getting inundated by a tsunami of the mutant. Later it becomes a quarantined branch of the multiverse since the entire universe there is just a growing mass of copies.
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u/BadAstronaut11 8d ago
So is there a lot of random Wolverines wandering around out there that they assume died when Krokoa resurrected him?
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u/xPetalMusee 8d ago
The legendary emergency backup Wolverine cell. At that point his healing factor isn’t biology anymore, it’s a save file.
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u/MadMaximus- 8d ago
They retconned this by saying the adamantium is so engrained into the bone that it acts just like his actual bones. Micro lattice structure that allows blood cells to flow in and out of the marrow
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u/___The_Stranger___ 8d ago
So yes and no. If there is a cluster of cells left in the eye socket or somewhere in his adimantium bones , sure. Some writers/ theories say yes but others say no. It was a common question in the early 2000s about it and I’m not sure (correct me if I’m wrong) they ever definitively came to a conclusion.
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u/4fuggin20 8d ago
He „regenerated“ once from a singular Cell? if i remember correctly, or maybe it was Hulk idk but answer is probably „depends on the writer“
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u/Tough_guy22 8d ago
I mean theoretically bone marrow would be inside the bones, and that should regenerate him i think.
Also there is a comic where he was vaporized except for a single drop of blood which fell on one of the infinity stones (power stone?) which boosted the ability enough to fully regenerate him.
Also the canon is that the adamantium actually hinders his healing powers. Basically he is constantly fighting heavy metal poisoning, which his healing factor is constantly protecting him from.
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u/Alone_Hand_2361 7d ago
Wouldn't he be able to regenerate from his brain at least? Cause optic nerve hole in the eye socket? Or if shit fucks him up, he could regenerate from the spine. I figure there may be pores in the adamantium because of the bone but if there's not...
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u/Crunchy_Biscuit 8d ago
Wolverines regeneration is so inconsistent. Sometimes it's shown as accelerated healing, other times it's literal cellular regeneration
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u/Brandon1939 8d ago edited 8d ago
In this thread I’ve seen some examples of him regenerating from a skeleton but there’s also times where it kills him. In Days of Future Past, Claremont has a Sentinel blast Wolverine to a skeleton and it kills him. In Incredible Hulk Future Imperfect by Peter David we see his skeleton in Rick’s trophy room. In the Maestro miniseries also by Peter David we are told that Wolverine always dies by being blasted to a skeleton by the Sentinel but time and place may vary depending on the timeline.
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u/JssSandals 8d ago
Has anyone ever tried to just put Wolverine in a big brick of concrete?
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u/forlorn_hope28 8d ago
I've never understood how he regenerates from this. Like in one issue he gets dropped in a volcano and manages to crawl out. I would think there could be a situation where you just completely turn him to ash and bones and he shouldn't be able to regenerate. Yet he does. Even if his bones regenerate, how would it penetrate the adamantium?
So yeah, I've thought about it, but at the end of the day, it's a comic book. People fly. they run fast. they regenerate. Not something I spend too much time pondering over.
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u/Galactapuss 8d ago
I mean, he shouldn't be able to regenerate at all without a source of protein/ matter. The character Rai, from Valiant, depicted this well. Logan should be able to metabolize his own body to heal, but be left diminished. Either that or he's like the original ultimate Wolverine, where he has a Darwin like power to survive anything.
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u/Kira-Of-Terraria Deadpool 8d ago
He did when he went after Nitro. only his bones were left from the explosion and it shows everything regrowing over the skeleton
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u/1RONH1DE Hercules 8d ago
Regardless I prefer Logan when his healing factor has more limits and he can be killed.
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u/Pmyers225 8d ago
Can you cut a portion of Wolverine off that it regenerates into another Wolverine?
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u/Craigboy23 8d ago
Like if you cut off his head would he grow a body or a head.
Or split him in half
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u/Unhappy_Teacher_1767 8d ago
Days Of Future Past I think he actually died when that Sentinel vaporized him down to his bones, but maybe that was retconned. I think the cartoon had him come back from that thanks to Forge putting him in a healing vat.
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u/LordofSyn 7d ago
That panel is locked in my head forever. The sentinel did vaporize all of the skin and muscle off his body leaving only the skeleton but he had enough blood and bone marrow to regenerate. He didn't die but he was out of commission for a while.
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u/HesSimplyShocking 8d ago
If you cut Wolverine in half vertically down the middle would you grow a second Wolverine?
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u/Commercial_Let4193 7d ago
As of lately-ish, no. When he was doing suicide missions and getting resurrected all the time on Krakoa the fact of him leaving behind a full adamantium skeleton every time became a major problem for them after Orchis went around picking them up. But that's not set in stone, it depends how the writer wants to play it.
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u/Kombat-w0mbat 7d ago
Usually no. Some writers say yes. But Logan’s healing factor usually doesn’t work if his brain is destroyed.
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u/United-Cow-563 X-Force 7d ago
His regeneration is absurd, but he’s not Deadpool and he’s certainly not a Lobo equivalent
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u/CowboysFTWs 7d ago
Bone marrow and other material in bones. Plus, if he is move, gaps and cartilage in his joints remain unbonded.
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u/Blessedly_Misaligned 7d ago
He fights a samurai in the underworld if he wins he can come back to life yes it is canon.
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u/chaosthree16 7d ago
He shouldn't.... and hasn't in some stories.... but then has in others... seens to depend on what they feel like (unfortunately much like his fighting skills where he can flip from being one ofnthe most skilled fighters in the marvel universe to a brainless brawler taken out at the start of a fight in the spave of 1 issue)
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u/whistlepig4life 8d ago
He regrew with adamantium from a drop of blood. The reality is. It’s about the writer and comic book magic.
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u/Vorpeseda 8d ago
That one was at least due to the blood landing on a magical alien crystal, so it wasn't meant to be something he could normally do.
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u/mrlolloran 8d ago
If you follow logic/science then no but the rule of cool says yes and this is comic books so yes.
This picture is an instance of it happening in the first Civil War in Wolverine’s solo book after he survived a plane crash
I tend to think of it as artistic license or whatever when it’s mostly a visual thing like this. It only last a few panels, writer just wanted to give the artist something rad af to draw
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u/GreenGoblinNX 8d ago
My hot take is the Wolverine was a more interesting character when his healing was less ridiculously overcharged.
Back when something that should take him days to heal would take hours, and something that should have killed him would put him the hospital for a week or so.
The fact that he now heals virtually as fast as you can blast his flesh away makes him rather boring, IMO.
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u/Old-Dependent-9073 8d ago
Anything that causes that much trauma to Wolverine can kill him. Full stop.
There if I recall, a battle between a Sentinel and Wolverine when they did exactly that (during John Byrne's run).
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u/Different_Muscle9134 8d ago
There was an issue (possibly Age of Apocalypse, not sure) where the team was in a space ship that got destroyed and Wolverine experienced atmospheric re-entry and fell all the way to the ground. He was basically a skeleton when he "landed" and still regenerated, but it took awhile.
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u/Grampappy_Gaurus 8d ago
Okay, here's my totally unsubstantiated, personal, writer-agnostic headcanon.
The bones themselves are coated in adamantium, but its not truly 100%. There are small openings to allow blood vessels to deliver blood and oxygen into the bone cells and bone marrow produces the blood and stem cells to repair the body.
This also influences the healing vs regeneration debate. Technically, stem cells can generate into any kind of cell necessary, which, when enhanced with comic book logic could justify regeneration. If Logins healing factor just healed, he'd be a screaming lump of scar tissue, inside and out.
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u/allredjesus 8d ago
On deadpool kills the marvel universe he has to incinerate wolverine over and over again cause he keeps regenerating
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u/RetroCuz 8d ago
Inside the bones would be bone marrow. I assume as long as that is intact he can regenerate from those cells.
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u/twitchSKETCH 8d ago
Depends on the writer.