We've discussed what the most interesting matchups would be for Wolverine, but when it comes right down to it, regardless of how "interesting" it would be to see:
{democracy:137}
Discussion after the jump.
- Reed Richards: You know how I like pitting brains against brawn, and in the Marvel Universe you'd have to go far to find a better exemplar of the stereotype than these two gentlemen. I also like that Reed's from the original Marvel stable, while Wolverine is a later addition, so you get the crusty old guy versus the tough-talking new guy. Look, Logan's tough and all, and yes he can regenerate, but Reed has the physical abilities to avoid disembowelment (does he even have bowels any more, or is it plastic through and through? And are his bowel movements also elastic? I need to stop now. Ew.) long enough for whatever insane invention he comes up with to annihilate the rogue Canadian. Dude stopped Galactus in his tracks, I don't think Wolverine has much of a shot. On the other hand, Logan's very sneaky, and Reed's fairly oblivious sometimes, so it's possible we could get a shocker one-shot from behind that Mister Fantastic never sees coming.
- Magneto: Been there and tried that. No matter how Magneto tries to rip the metal from Wolverine's bones, the little guy always manages to come out on top.
- Juggernaut: Again, we've seen this matchup before. I think it will take more than sheer brawn to kill Wolverine. Leave even a little blood behind and you're doomed.
- Batman: People often think Batman has no super powers, but this is false. He in fact has the one greatest super-power of all -- a committed fan base, and the ability to take down people in weight classes so far above him he should look more like Bat Mite to them. And yet, he gets it done over and over again. I wouldn't put anything past Bruce.
- Human Torch: When your problem is making sure not one cell remains intact to regenerate your enemy, I'd say being able to generate heat on the order of a nova would be a good place to start.
- Namor: You have to think Namor could just carry Wolverine down into the deepest trench in the ocean and leave him there under a rock. I mean, he can't regenerate air in his lungs, can he? Of course, then he wouldn't really be dead, would he? Defeat yes, death no.
- Jean Gray: Unless she manages to summon the Dark Phoenix again -- again -- I don't see this happening. TK is nice and all, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't have the sheer withering force to disintegrate a guy, which is what this job would take.
- Cyclops: I'd like to see him try, fail, then get Jean Gray to save his narrow butt again -- again -- because let's be honest, he's kind of a douche.
So out of that list, I think your best shot is with Reed Richards for the mental gymnastics to invent something appropriate; Batman because Batman; and the Human Torch, with the nova and the heat and the hey hey. I think Reed and the Torch would get sucker-punched before they knew they were in a fight, leaving only Batman as the most realistic foe who could kill Wolverine. Of course Batman doesn't kill, which renders the point moot.
Who do you think would be best suited for the task?
Reed Richards: Throws Wolverine into the Negative Zone.
Magneto: Can take the admantium from Wolverines bones, then use energy from the rest of the elctromagnetic spectrum to utterly destroy him
Juggs: Punches Wolverine into space. Or the sun if he’s feeling nasty.
Batman: No chance in hell to beat Wolverine.
Torch: Supernova. Nuff said.
Namor: The guy’s at Hulk level. He too coould knock Wolverine into space.
Jean: Uses telekinesis to pulp Wolvies brain inside his skull.
Cyclops: The sheer ammount of fail of these two coming together auses them both to dissinegrate.
Juggernaut, Omni-Man, Superman, the Sentry… any invulnerable musclehead can whip Wolvie into space or into the sun.
In the end, I voted for Reed Richards, though. I believe he’s got the power (through science, infinity gem, etc.) and the brains to figure a way to fight Wolvie and come out on top. (Unless, again, Wolvie manages to sneak up on him… which ought to be hard to do in the Baxter Building.)
Correct me if i’m wrong but in the Ultimate X-Men series, didn’t Magneto successfully kill Wolverine? I’m not sure how or even if i’m right so…
Besides Wolverine, given his original powers never could regenerate to an extreme degree, I mean in the Age of Apocalypse the guy loses a hand. I chose Magneto because he could rip the metal from his bones then encase the Canadian Shorty in the adamantium, and for the finale compress the whole thing down. Even Wolverine can’t regenerate in a space the size of a tennis ball.
however its turned out in the past, i still think magneto is wolverine’s biggest threat; he can control his skeleton… give magneto a line of sight and he can make logan slice up his own head, walk into a vat of molten metal, or go to a tanning bed for an extended period of time, get cancer and die very quickly from it with his cellular regeneration; but as that doesnt make for a herioc ending, the comics have downplayed magneto’s obvious superiority. he’s almost tied with reed, who would no doubt concoct something even more deadly to take down wolverine, but the thing here is that since they both could utterly destroy him the moment he comes into view, the best chance wolverine has is to take them by surprise; and as you said, reed is sometimes oblivious, while magneto probably has contingencies in place for every possibility under the sun, so…magneto wins.
Define ‘kill’, please. Wolverine once recovered from a single droplet of blood (albeit one that was supercharged by landing on an alien crystal), and I don’t think any of these guys is careful enough to make sure every tiny drop gets taken out.
Hmm…minor query to ponder here. If you cut off Wolverine’s arm and kept it in a nutrient bath, could you get it to grow a second Wolverine (who will immediately snikt you for cutting his arm off)?
That said, the guys with the ‘stellar repositioning’ argument do have at least a partial point. Get Wolverine into dangerous territory that’s also a poor source of food, and you might be able to force him to starve while in the midst of continuous regeneration.
Cyclops.
He’s already shown he can out think him in past (From the Ashes GN collection). We know from the Dark Future that a power blast can eradicate his cells–while not easy for Cyclops. He does have tactical thinking, judo, and despite their long rivalry–Wolverine would never expect Scott to go that far. A full on eye wide optic blast timed right? Toast.
Others might wound him, maim him, trick him and come close, but when all bets are off? Cyclops.
I voted for Magneto as he already practically killed the hairy runt back on Asteroid M. If Jean hadn’t helped hold his body together after the adamantium had been ripped out he would have died.
Reed has the brains but I think lacks the guts to do it.
The correct answer is human torch. He can fry every cell in Wolverine’s body leaving nothing left to regenerate. Magneto has already ripped adamantium off and that still didn’t kill him, and from the experience with Sabertooth getting messy lobotomy we know squeezing the brain is not enough, so that’s it for Jean Grey. Reed and Batman could certainly build something that could kill Wolverine, but they’d be long dead before getting weapons ready. Cyclops, Namor and Juggernaut could knock him good, but they’d have to hit him first so they’d also die.
In X-Men Forever, Storm managed to do it, but that’s with Claremont writing…
Trouble with the disintegration approach is that it’s been done, reducing him to nothing more than his Skeleton…
And he STILL came back!
Reed might be able to do it, but I don’t think he’s got the raw data he needs to work with…
Defeat him, yes, but kill him, not really!
{Anybody can toss him through the Negative Zone portal!}
I’d go with Jean or Magneto, have them throw him, not just into orbit (that’s been done before, too!), but into the Sun!
And, I expect Jean might have a better chance, because it was so unexpected!
While Magneto may have tried to kill Wolverine before, I blame his failure on the writers, not him. It’s not a matter of destroying Wolverine’s body with his powers. I mean, he’s Magneto. He’s brilliant. I’m pretty sure he’s mastered the art of tool-using. All he needs is something that can completely destroy Wolverine’s body for him (I’m thinking of the end of Terminator II here). Then he just walks Wolverine to it.
I suppose Jean could do that too, but then again, there was that comic with Mastermind in which Wolverine was the only X-Man to actually resist the mind control for a while, so he might still stand a fighting chance.
Jean Gray for the Phoenix, unlimited mutant unfiltered power. Adamantium be scrap metal. Physical prowess be nothing than a flicker of thought. That kind of power settles all rhetoric of the “Versus-verse”. Sorry, Phoenix is just that powerful.
I chose Magneto because theguy controls all metal and Adamantium is metal he could just rip it out and without that Wolverine is nothing but a short canadian fur ball.
definitaly Magneto
I think Magneto still could somehow pull out a win the problem is even if bucket head could rip the adamantium from wolverine’s skeleton He still can regenerate and has bone claws. Then Magneto would be toast.
Reed could send hime into the negative zone, if he can see wolverine coming.
I dont think Jean Gray’s TK could win the fight and lets face it theres only so many times she can summon the Pheonix. But lets not forget that Jean has Telepathic powers. She may not be as strong as the Professor but she can pack a punch. The old phrase goes: “It you cant harm the body harm the mind.” She could completely obliterate his mind. Not necesarily death but still a TKO.
My final vote goes to Magneto cuz even tho Jean Gray can wipe his mind, I dont see her being able to generate that kind of power. Magneto on the other hand has the brains, raw power, and determination to succeed. Hes my choice for most likely.
Magneto never really thought it through. Instead of ripping the adamantium out, he should have left it on/in the bone and just tied it into knots orfused the bones together. Wolverine in a permanent fetal position might as well be dead.
Wow. I like the way you think Bael.
Just give Wolvy a gift of Antarctic vibranium. See how long his famous skeleton lasts then!
I think either Magneto or Jean Grey (as the phoenix) would be the ones to kill him. better yet to see Magneto and Jean team up to do the task!!
I really think most of the people on the list could kill Wolverine.
Magneto (if he can indeed rip adamantium out of Logan’s pores) could collect the metal in his brain cavity and fill every artery and capillary with unbreakable metal. Juggernaut has a better healing factor than Wolverine and could literally toss him into space. That scenario you listed with Namor would be perfect! The pressure would crush any soft tissues and his brain being starved from oxygen that long would negate any kind of regeneration. Once he’s dead and stops regenerating he would just bloat and dissolve into nothingness!
Really though I voted for Jean. She doesn’t just have to generate pressure inside of his brain. She can do anything she wants to him. Jean can rip open his abdominal cavity and tear out every major organ group in his body. She could pulp his heart and tear it out through the cracks in his ribs. She could suck his brain out through his nose! Plus if she’s got any kind of Phoenix force active she could disperse his component atoms.
Wolverine is damned hard to kill, but even he’s got his limits. Plus all of those impossible recovery moments had extenuating circumstances. The drop of blood thing had a magical context. When Magneto ripped out his adamantium Jean was holding him together. When Nitro reduced him to bones he was undergoing some kind of spiritual crisis that kept him hanging on. Hell, Armor killed Wolverine by burning him for eight hours in an alternate timeline issue.
First, I have to agree with DiCicatriz that just about everyone on the list might be able to pull it off. But the question was who has the best chance, not just the only chance to be able to kill him. I thought about it, and based on wolverine’s fighting prowess, eliminated anyone without ranged powers. (Namor could drown him, but only if he could survive long enough to drag him down without being sliced and diced, for example.) (Actually, Batman was a strong contender except for the simple point that he does not kill, therefore his chances of killing Wolverine are extremely slim.) That brought it down to Magneto and Torch as the serious contenders (the entry says Jean Gray, not Phoenix). Magneto has a flaw that allowed Wolverine to live in previous death matches – extreme arrogance. Torch comes across as cocky, but nowhere near the same level, and flame is the traditional way to kill regenerating foes, from the hydra on. So I voted for Torch as having the BEST chance.