Summary
More than two decades after fans finally found outWolverine’s origin, Logan finally has closure over a death that’s been haunting him for most of his life. Thanks to Weapon X’s brainwashing,Wolverine’s past was a mysteryfor the majority of his time with the X-Men. However,following Scarlet Witch tampering with reality inHouse of M, Wolverine’s memories were finally restored. Fans then learned the horrifying foundational experiences that created the Wolverine, including the tragic death of Rose O’Hara.
InWolverine Annual 2024, Wolverine fights Apex -the current holder of the Power Stone. In order to break them up, Apex’s ally Multitude uses his Soul Stone powers to summon spirits relevant to each of them. For Wolverine,his old friend Rose O’Hara manifests, finally forgiving him for accidentally killing her.
Rose was Logan’s one friend throughout his childhood, as well as being his first love. After Logan was forced to leave his family home, he and Rose traveled together, and she even gave him the name ‘Logan’ to hide his true identity. Sadly, whenWolverine’s brother tracked him downlater in life, a vicious fight between the two ended up accidentally claiming Rose’s life. The act not only killed Rose on the eve of her starting a new life but solidified Logan’s lifelong fear that his mutation makes him less than human.
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Wolverine’s childhood was finally revealed in 2001’sOrigin, from Paul Jenkins, Bill Jemas, Joe Quesada, Andy Kubert, Richard Isanove, John Roshell and Saida Temofonte. The story reveals thatWolverine was originally James Howlett - the pampered son of a rich family. However, James' life collapses after the groundskeeper Thomas Logan (who is secretly Wolverine’s biological father) attempts to kidnap his mother. Thomas kills James' father and the stresscauses Wolverine to pop his clawsfor the first time, killing Thomas. James' mother rejects him, taking her own life shortly after kicking him out of the family home.
Rose was taken into the Howlett house as a child and was charged with looking after James, who was often ill before the manifestation of his healing factor. After Thomas' attack, the two traveled together for years, eventually settling in a mining town where Rose met Brendan Smith. Smith acted as a mentor to James, instilling him with much of the stoicism and self-sufficiency that defined him in later life. While Wolverine struggled with Rose and Smith falling in love, he eventually gave them his blessing.
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Sadly, this was whenJames' brother ‘Dog’ Logan returned. James' childhood bully, Dog blamed him for the death of their father, and had finally tracked James and Rose down.The two entered into a brutal fight and, when Rose tried to separate them, she tripped and was impaled on Wolverine’s claws.The experience destroyed Logan, who exiled himself to living in the wilderness, as well as breaking Smith’s heart, causing him to lose both his fiancée Rose and his surrogate son James.
For a long time, Wolverine tortured himself over the death of Rose, with some fans speculating that his instant attraction to Jean Grey was partly due to subconscious memories of Rose. As this annual confirms, once a year Wolverine makes a journey to Rose’s grave to commemorate his former friend and love. However this time, he actually got to see her.
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Interestingly,this isn’t the first time Wolverine has encountered Rose’s ghost. In 2002’sWolverine #176, Logan found himself in the afterlife after aparticularly vicious fight with Sabretooth. Wolverine is guided through Heaven by a red-headed woman he takes to be the shade of Jean Grey, but eventually decides to return to life. As the doors of the afterlife close, the shade informs him that she’s not Jean, with imagery of a Rose confirming her true identity. Sadly, this story took place beforeHouse of M, meaning that Wolverine didn’t recognize Rose and they couldn’t meaningfully discuss their past.
Now - over twenty years later - Rose and Wolverine finally get to have that much-needed discussion, and she offers him closure and forgiveness for causing her death. It’s a heartbreaking final chapter in one of the most defining traumas of Wolverine’s life, as Rose offers a new perspective on the death that convinced him he didn’t belong in society.Weapon X may have wiped Logan’s memoryto use him as a living weapon, but they didn’t actually erase his trauma. For much of Wolverine’s adult life, he believed himself to be a monstrous living weapon, made worse by the fact that he didn’t know why.
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Now, Wolverine has turned a corner. While it’s too late to reverse the dark consequences Rose’s death had for his life, he at least knows that his first friend has forgiven him and still regards him with love. It’s somewhat bizarre for Wolverine’s entry inthe otherwise unrelated ‘Infinity Watch’ event(taking place across Marvel’s 2024 annuals) to bring closure to one of his most famous stories. However, it does serve to illustrate the immense power that Infinity Stone bearers have compared to other superhumans. For 20 years, fans have watched Wolverine reckon with Rose’s death, only for a chance encounter with Multitude to give him closure.
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Logan Already Confronted His Father in Hell
Rose’s return closes the book on this aspect of Wolverine’s past, and it’s not the first time he’s gotten to settle up with a character who died inOrigin. In Jason Aaron and Renato Guedes’Wolverine #4,Wolverine met his biological father Thomas Logan in Hell. Having been consigned to the Pit, Wolverine fought many old enemies, and was eventually sought out by his father, who wanted to have their first conversation where both understood their true relation. Ultimately, the two rejected each other,with Wolverine proudly claiminghe is no son of Thomas'.
That just leaves one dangling thread from Wolverine’s past - his brother Dog. Wolverine has seen Dog multiple times since Rose’s death, with his brother becoming one of his strangest villains. Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert’sAmazing Spider-Man & Wolverinerevealed that Dog had independently discovered a set of ‘Time Diamonds’ which allowed him to time travel, collecting an arsenal of sci-fi weaponry from the future then journeying to the present to once again hunt Wolverine.Dog was even part of the Hellfire Academy - a rival to Xavier’s School where a staff of villains trained young mutants.
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Dog was presumed dead in thedestruction of the Hellfire Academy, but no body was ever found. Interestingly, Dog had begun to come around to the idea that dedicating his life to killing Wolverine was a mistake, with the potential for some kind of reconciliation between the two. Sadly, this plot line hasn’t been followed up on since Dog’s disappearance, leaving him as the last vestige of Wolverine’s childhood and original family with which he doesn’t have closure.However, if Rose can return after 20 years, it’s only a matter of time until Dog re-enters Wolverine’s life.
Killing Rose shattered Wolverine’s belief in his own humanity and began the worst era of his life, only made worse when Weapon X stole his past, but not the trauma that came with it. It’s an essential aspect ofWolverine’s character that he’s always fighting through his pain and self-hatred to become a better man, but hopefully Rose’s forgiveness will make that fight just a little bit easier.
Wolverine Annual 2024 #1is available now from Marvel Comics.
Wolverine
The human mutant Wolverine (a.k.a. Logan) was born James Howlett, blessed with a superhuman healing factor, senses, and physiology. Subjecting himself to experimentation to augment his skeleton and claws with adamantium, Logan is as deadly as he is reckless, impulsive, and short-tempered. Making him the X-Men’s wildest and deadliest member, and one of Marvel Comics' biggest stars. He’s played in Fox and Marvel’s movie franchises by Hugh Jackman.
