BIOGRAPHY - Page 27
Wolverine reached his limit when Beast started drilling them for kill missions to attack targets that might threaten Krakoa in the future, but showed no interest in them yet. He quit X-Force and stormed off to visit with Jeff Bannister. Jeff asked Logan for help investigating a CIA lead on the Legacy House, but it turned out to be a trap. The Merchant held Bannister as collateral and began auctioning off pieces of Logan to the highest bidder. Surprisingly, Beast emerged from the audience and bid on the right to kill the Wolverine. Instead of teaming up to help Wolverine escape, Beast followed through with killing Logan and paying off the Legacy House. He then made Jeff Bannister vow never to contact Krakoa again or else his daughter would be murdered.
Wielding FORCE Protocols like a club, Beast talked fast and convinced the Five to resurrect Logan with a reduced memory and intelligence. He passed it off as an experiment in the recovery methods of Logan’s healing factor, but actually he only wanted a weapon. Beast had been 
increasingly convinced over the past few months that Wolverine was Krakoa’s greatest weapon, the sword that his brilliant mind wielded in their defense. McCoy had become so myopic and amoral in his focus on the national interest, he could not allow Logan the autonomy to make his own choices anymore. Instead, he had a Krakoan biotech control collar made to prod the animalistic Logan as his personal killing machine. To the rest of X-Force, Wolverine was on an extended undercover mission. In fact, he lived like an animal in a Krakoan cave until Beast released him on the nation’s enemies, killing on command over and over.
Logan’s mind slowly healed under Beast’s domination, until he broke free from his bonds and 
reconnected with Sage and X-Force. Maddie Bannister came to Krakoa alone (using a severed finger Logan gave her for emergencies to access the gates), and Wolverine sought out her father to let him know his daughter was no longer being threatened by Beast. McCoy shot Bannister with a sniper’s rifle, and Wolverine hunted him down to stick his claws through Beast’s brain and heart. Beast’s body was booby-trapped with fungal biotech, however, and it reanimated to attack and delay Logan long enough for Hank to regroup. Using illegal cloning techniques and pilfered Cerebro backups, Beast resurrected himself automatically. He separated the Pointe from Krakoa as a mobile biotech kaiju, taking the Cerebro Sword, analytics and resources to continue X-Force as a solo operation without oversight by Sage, the Council or anyone. [Wolverine (7th series) #26-31]
Wolverine dumped Beast’s body on the Quiet Council and chided them for giving McCoy such a long leash. He cut ties with Krakoa and started hunting for Beast and Beast’s next targets. He correctly assumed Maverick and the Mercs would be on McCoy’s list and found Mav at one of his safehouses. North filled Logan in on how Beast mass-cloned Wolverine for his “Weapons of X,” feral Logans guided by shock collars to kill for Hank. The Mercs and their submarine were already totaled by Beast, so Wolverine and Maverick teamed up to take their revenge together. Jeff Bannister also had a score to settle with McCoy, and the Team X members ran into a CIA strike force tracking Beast’s underwater kaiju in the English Channel. Beast attacked his pursuers and managed to take Bannister hostage.
Beast could only produce a finite number of Wolverine clones, and Logan and Maverick were able 
to capture two during the fighting. McCoy reached out and offered to trade Bannister back in exchange for his “property.” Wolverine called in Sage and X-Force to attack Beast’s mobile base during their arranged meeting. They destroyed the cloning lab, while Maverick shot off the control collars of Beast’s “bodyguards.” Bannister was rescued, and the kaiju destroyed, but Beast escaped to continue his black ops work alone. Logan owed a debt to Sage and X-Force, but he was done working for Krakoa as a country after Beast’s exploitation of his body “in the national interest.” [Wolverine (7th series) #32-35]
Wolverine saw another example of power corrupting when he learned the Punisher had joined the Hand and become Fist of the Beast. With supernatural power and an army of ninjas at his control, Frank Castle traveled the world, murdering criminals, terrorists and warmongers. He believed he would truly find happiness with his resurrected wife Maria once his mission was done, and refused 
to accept that the mission would never end. Logan joined forces with Captain America, Daredevil, Black Widow, Moon Knight and Doctor Strange to bring down Castle. However, it was Maria’s rejection of Frank after she learned the extent of the atrocities he had committed in his family’s memory that really defeated the Punisher. Logan tried to force Frank to admit he had gone too far, but Castle refused to let Logan lecture him on the subject of killing. [Punisher (13th series) #9-12]
Logan’s disgust with Krakoa meant he was absent when Orchis attacked the Hellfire Gala. Many of his friends were killed by Nimrod and the majority of Krakoa’s mutant population was forced off-world via the gates before they were disabled permanently. Logan only received a psychic good-bye from Jean moments before she died, telling him to resist. The few mutants who remained on Earth were scattered and largely disorganized, prey to Orchis and Sentinel hunting squads deporting any mutant they found to Mars. [X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 #1]
Wolverine spent his time hiding from the authorities, saving what mutants he could and putting out fires along the way. The Weapon Plus Program merged with the supernatural to create Project: Hellfire, an Orchis directive to harness a demon specifically to hunt and kill mutants. Wolverine 
and Ghost Rider tracked the Bagra-Ghul and its young host through the horrific corpses it shaped into offerings to Mephisto. When they tried to storm Project: Hellfire, Father Pike used repurposed Weapon X tech to make Logan into a new and superior host for the Bagra-Ghul, the Hellverine. Johnny Blaze and Jeff Bannister helped Logan expunge the demon back into its original host, dispatching them and Father Pike into Hell. [Weapons of Vengeance crossover]
On the run, Logan dealt with several outstanding threats, using covert messaging with Jeff Bannister to gather intelligence. He hunted down and killed three AWOL Logan clones from the Weapons of X who went missing when Beast was defeated. He attacked Legacy House to recover a good deal of X-Men tech and personal belongings that had been confiscated, and he took a run at the Orchis space station using one of their own ships. Wolverine had to deal with the new model Sentinel Zero drones, robots built around the discarded Adamantium skeletons salvaged from Logan’s deaths on X-Force missions gone bad. Along the way, Wolverine found himself working with Spider-Man, Captain America, Hulk and Black Panther, among others. It helped to remind him how much his friends and community really meant to him. Despite the sour ending for X-Force, Logan accepted that he was never at his best when he was alone. [Wolverine (7th series) #37-40]
Logan’s missions caught attention and Sage reached out from what remained of X-Force. Together, they worked with Black Tom to build a Greenhouse in the frozen north as a safe zone for mutants on the run. Kid Omega sent out a telepathic signal that brought other mutant refugees to their doorstep, including Fang, Northstar and Aurora. Akihiro had been working with Alpha Flight to 
ferry threatened mutants in Canada to safe haven. With Laura active with X-Force, Logan was comfortably reunited with his son and daughter. [X-Force (6th series) #47] They finally dealt with Beast Prime through Sage’s unconventional approach of resurrecting an older back-up of Beast to confront his hopelessly lost self. X-Force prevented Beast Prime from unleashing a black hole doomsday weapon for the greater good of Krakoa, and the mad McCoy died in that final battle. [X-Force (6th series) #48-50]
Wolverine’s focus on his current troubles may have left him too complacent regarding an old one. 
Sabretooth had escaped from the Pit months earlier and seized control of Orchis tech assets when Orchis and Krakoa’s Exiles tried to come after him. He crafted an army of extra-dimensional Creeds culled from the multiverse and returned for Logan on his birthday to begin the Sabretooth War. Creed murdered Akihiro and Kid Omega, plus managed to storm the Greenhouse and kill other mutants under Logan’s care before abducting Laura as well. These losses provoked Logan to act rashly and pursue Sabretooth alone, refusing aid with the intent of keeping anyone else he cared about from harm’s way.
Sabretooth used Orchis tech to keep Quire’s head alive as a psychic weapon under his control. It revealed the existence of bio-tech under Forge’s skunkworks in Krakoa that Creed would be interested in. Krakoa was currently quarantined by Orchis and Stark Sentinels, and Sabretooth’s Orchis tech only gave him so much leeway in pushing past them. When Wolverine arrived on Krakoa hunting him, Sabretooth had Kid Omega psychically regress Logan to their Team X days together. This allowed Creed to guide him as an ally to complete a mission, like the old days. The astute Quire correctly deduced this was what Creed really wanted from Logan – a comrade-in-arms, another killer like him, and one who didn’t act like he was better than Victor because he killed for some “noble cause.”
Sabretooth had made other enemies, such as the other Exiles from the Pit (including Idie) who came searching for him. They detained Creed temporarily, but not before he got a hold of Forge’s Neutralizer and zapped Logan to rob him of his powers. Wolverine and the Exiles sought out a bunker which Forge had prepared for him months earlier, containing the Muramasa blade and a 
specially-fitted Adamantium armor. Now ready for a rematch, Wolverine returned to Krakoa where the Exiles and X-Force assembled to support him against Sabretooth. Creed’s army was gone, he betrayed his doppelgangers, he even killed his own son. In the end, he stood alone against Wolverine, whose friends stood behind him and whose powers were reactivated by Forge’s tech. Logan ultimately accepted that Creed was not a lost friend, or even a great nemesis, but just a mad dog who didn’t know how to do anything but bring hurt and pain to others. Wolverine stood up for his people and used the Muramasa blade to finally kill Sabretooth, dismembering him even beyond their healing factors’ ability to recover from. [Wolverine (7th series) #41-50]
By the time Logan reconnected with the X-Men resistance against Orchis, he was uncomfortable to see Kate Pryde had assumed his role in the group. As Shadowkat, Kate fully embraced her training from Ogun, a dangerous line to walk and one that risked her falling into darkness. [X-Men (6th series) #28-29] Working with Colossus and Nightcrawler, Wolverine made an attempt at rescuing Cyclops from Orchis custody, and later infiltrated their space station, the Bloom. They 
fought against Nimrod directly but also had to deal with the betrayal of Charles Xavier. The professor willingly made a deal with Orchis in order to protect mutant lives in the face of annihilation. It was part of a plan to get close to Moira X and finally turn his friend back to the light, but it also meant Xavier resorted to killing humans and opposing his students’ heroism “for the greater good.” [Fall of the House of X #1-5]
Shadowkat was prepared to assassinate Charles Xavier in her vendetta against all those who threatened Krakoa but she finally broke when the simplistic Caliban refused to help her find Xavier and commit murder. Kitty couldn’t see the line anymore, and Logan stepped in to do what needed doing so she wouldn’t have to. Wolverine claimed Ogun’s blade from her and was ready to execute Professor Xavier. [X-Men (6th series) #34] Xavier turned himself over to the authorities for his crimes while infiltrating Orchis, and Logan intercepted his prison transport. Magneto also made himself known, however, and dismissed Wolverine with a magnetic gesture so that he and Charles could have their final talk. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #700]
The X-Men dispersed for some time after the fall of Krakoa, dealing with various issues, such as re-establishing their old citizenships and determining what the world’s governments would think of mutants now. Logan learned that Project: Hellfire had brought back his son Akihiro from the dead, now bonded to the Bagra-ghul as the new “Hellverine.” Logan could not separate Akihiro from the demon without killing him again, so he trusted Fang to use the spirit to only bring vengeance on those who deserved it. [Hellverine (1st series) #1-4] When Varnae blacked out the sun and summoned an army of vampires, Wolverine reunited with Louise of the Nightguard to oppose them. Maverick was turned by Alyssa of the Siren Sect and tried to present Logan to her as a general for her armies, but Wolverine managed to kill North’s sire and free him from the curse. [Wolverine: Blood Hunt #1-3]