Wolverine has become one of Marvel’s most popular characters in his over fifty year existence. That’s why it was so surprising when Marvel announced The Death of Wolverine series. Marvel had a strategy in the 2010s, replacing their most important characters, through either death or other comic book shenanigans. Wolverine was put on the chopping block of the ’10s, along with Steve Rogers, Peter Parker, Tony Stark, and many others. While this practice has been maligned, it was actually a pretty good idea. Taking classic mantles and putting other people in them was a great way to give readers new kinds of stories. The Death of Wolverine came and went, and Laura Kinney became the new Wolverine. This was a very cool change, and Laura fans got excited thinking that Laura was going to become the A-list Wolverine. However, that’s not what happened at all.

See, instead of getting Laura as Wolverine in the major X-Men books, we got a refugee from a classic Wolverine story — Old Man Logan. We got a morality inverted Sabretooth in Uncanny Avengers. We even got Ultimate Wolverine’s son Jimmy. This was a moment when Marvel could have tried something different, but instead they made a series of frankly cowardly decisions.