Wolverine #1
Wolverine #1 (2014) is the opening chapter of the sixth volume of Logan's solo title and the second major prelude to the 'Death of Wolverine' event — making it the narrative hinge between the 'Killable' arc, which stripped Wolverine of his healing factor, and his eventual death later that year. The series launched under Marvel's All-New Marvel NOW! initiative and committed to one of the most audacious long-term character pivots of the era: presenting Wolverine not as a hero, but as a mortal man who has abandoned the X-Men to work for a crime lord, carrying a gun in place of the invincibility he no longer possesses. Because the entire 12-issue run was engineered as a deliberate countdown to Logan's death, this first issue functions as a prologue to what Wikipedia describes as 'the second prelude to the Death of Wolverine story arc' — giving it an outsized place in the character's publishing history. It also introduced readers to 'The Offer,' the crime boss at the center of the series' central moral conflict, and to a newly vulnerable, tactically desperate version of Logan that the character had never quite been before.
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Writer Paul Cornell had already been steering Wolverine's fate since the Marvel NOW! relaunch in 2013 (vol. 5), where he and artist Alan Davis introduced the Microverse virus that destroyed Logan's healing factor during the 'Killable' arc. When Marvel relaunched the title as part of All-New Marvel NOW! less than a year later, Cornell was retained but Davis was replaced by Ryan Stegman — an artist coming off a high-profile run on Superior Spider-Man — whose grittier line work was seen as a deliberate tonal shift away from Davis's cleaner style. The relaunch was editorially driven by a desire to use the fresh #1 numbering to signal the dramatic new status quo: a mortal, armor-wearing Wolverine operating outside heroic norms, with the entire series pre-planned as a bridge to Charles Soule and Steve McNiven's 'Death of Wolverine' miniseries.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published February 5, 2014 by Marvel Comics as part of the All-New Marvel NOW! initiative; it is the first issue of Wolverine Vol. 6.
- Written by Paul Cornell with interior art by Ryan Stegman; inking by Mark Morales, colors by David Curiel, and lettering by Cory Petit.
- The issue opens the story arc titled 'Rogue Logan,' in which a healing-factor-less Wolverine — rendered mortal by a Microverse virus in the preceding 'Killable' arc — has left the X-Men and begun working for a crime lord known as 'The Offer,' alongside a team of low-rent supervillains.
- Introduces 'The Offer' as the series' central antagonist/employer, a crime boss who is described across the run as affably professional rather than gratuitously cruel.
- The full 12-issue series was structured as a sustained countdown to the 'Death of Wolverine' event miniseries (by Charles Soule and Steve McNiven), making this #1 effectively the opening chapter of Logan's final chapter.
- Multiple variant covers were produced for the issue, including covers by Jerome Opeña (a 1:50 retailer incentive variant), Kris Anka (a design variant), and Katie Cook (an 'Animal' variant), reflecting All-New Marvel NOW! era heavy-variant marketing.
- Ryan Stegman came to the book directly from his celebrated run launching Superior Spider-Man with Dan Slott, bringing a notably grittier visual approach than predecessor artist Alan Davis.
- The series was collected in two trade paperbacks: 'Wolverine: Three Months to Die Book 1' (collecting issues #1–6) and 'Wolverine: Three Months to Die Book 2' (collecting issues #7–12).
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Reprints
Reprinted in Wolverine: Three Months to Die #1 (2014), Wolverine #5 (2016), Death of Wolverine Prelude: Three Months to Die #[nn] (2020), Death of Wolverine Omnibus #[nn] (2024)
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