The Children of the X-Men Part 4: Wolverine
Phillip Pratt
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I know I promised this as part of the last article but… Wolverine’s got too many darn kids over too many darn continuities. He’s a bit different than the rest of the X-Men. While we will indeed talk about a couple of his kids from alternate realities – he’s got more than a couple of rug rats running around the 616 universe.
Having lived more than a hundred years with the scorecard Wolverine has – it’s no wonder there aren’t more. Let’s get into this one.
Daken
As far as we know, Wolverine’s first child is Daken Akihiro– the product of his union with a Japanese woman named Itsu in 1946. Like his father – and basically, all of his brethren – Daken has superhuman senses, an accelerated healing factor, and a set of retractable bone claws on each hand.
Related: The Children of the X-Men Part 1: Cyclops
Unique to the rest of the Wolverine family, Daken’s claws protrude from both atop of and below the wrist. Two up, one down. Because of his accelerated healing abilities, Daken ages as slowly as his father – which is why he appears to be in his twenties, yet is well over fifty years old.
Daken does have some more aspects that set him apart from his father and siblings. Atop of his Wolverine-based powers, Daken can also manipulate the pheromones of others inducing fear, sadness, and paranoia among other conditions. Something else he’s famous for is his sexuality – Daken is bi-sexual.
Wolverine and his eldest have a messy, sorted past with one another. He took over his father’s role, codename, and even his book during Marvel’s Dark Reign storyline. Once having an intense hatred for his father for seemingly abandoning him – Daken has attempted to kill Wolverine on several occasions. He became such a liability that Wolverine was forced to drown his son.
Daken would later be resurrected by the Apocalypse Twins and served as one of their four Horsemen of Death (they were all previously dead). After breaking free of their influence following their defeat, he seemingly became more of a nuisance than a homicidal psychopath. The father and son have since reconciled, for the most part.
Related: The Children of the X-Men Part 2: Nightcrawler, Bishop, Colossus, Havok, and Storm
X-23
Daken maybe Wolverine’s eldest, but he wasn’t the first of his children to debut in Marvel Comics’ main timeline. That honor belongs to his kinda-clone, X-23, also known as Laura Kinney. We’ve talked about her a bunch already – so I’ll spare you and give you an abbreviated take on her origin.
In yet another attempt to duplicate the process that created Wolverine, Weapon-X, or an offshoot of the program, finally created Laura on their 23rd try – hence the codename. She was originally considered a clone, but she was produced using Wolverine’s genetic material and the ova of a woman – Dr. Sarah Kinney – so more of a test tube baby.
She was ‘raised’ to be a weapon with little to no social interactions with others. She eventually escaped the program and made her way to New York City where she became a prostitute before encountering the X-Men. She quickly grew into a fan-favorite of the franchise and with that enjoyed heavy usage and lots of character development.
When Logan temporarily died, like her older brother, Laura took on his codename and became Marvel’s Wolverine. She’s since sort of relinquished the name back to Logan upon his return, but it’s still under some dispute – even between the two heroes.
The Children of the X-Men Part 3: Rogue and Gambit
Laura’s healing factor is much stronger than Wolverine’s. This is due to only having to deal with the toxicity of adamantium covering a pair of claws on each hand and one on either foot. Laura’s been cloned herself a few dozen times. The most notable surviving one is Gabby – which also makes her a child of Wolverine… or a granddaughter?
Jimmy Hudson
From this point on, all of Wolverine’s children that we’ll be discussing will be from alternate realities or in future timelines. First up, is Jimmy Hudson. Though he eventually made his way to the 616, Jimmy originated in the Ultimate Universe – the child of that universe’s Wolverine and Magda Lensherr. Yep, that Magda – Jimmy’s the half-brother of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.
Like several characters did from his universe and others – he crossed over into the main Marvel Universe following the cataclysmic events of 2015’s Secret Wars. Upon arriving in the 616 universe, Jimmy had amnesia. With little sense of self, he ended up conscripted to work for Miss Sinister.
He later regained his memory and will before coming into contact with the team of time-displaced X-Men and joined the team. Currently, he’s exploring himself as he adjusts to life with his newly acquired symbiote, Poison. Jimmy has all the powers of his father, plus the ability to cover parts of his body in an organic metal – including his claws.
Related: Top 8 Wolverine-Based Characters Still Alive and Swinging in the Marvel Universe
Raze
Another one of Wolvie’s kids that journey to the 616 is Raze Darkholme, a future child of his and Mystique. Raze was introduced during the Battle of the Atom storyline where he and others impersonated the X-Men, but were in fact members of the Brotherhood.
Raze planned to make the 616 universe a haven for all victimized mutants within the multiverse. Obviously, his plans were thwarted. Raze possesses the combined powersets of both his parents – but according to the accounts of other characters, he’s an even more talented shapeshifter than Mystique. Whatever that means.
Wild Thing
During the late 90s, Marvel made their first attempt at creating a sub-imprint. Unlike their success with Ultimate Marvel – MC2 (Earth-982), was short-lived. The universe was basically the 616 but advanced by about 15-years and centered around the kids of heroes and villains. There, Wolverine and Elektra had a daughter.
Rina Logan, also known as Wild Thing, possessed a healing factor, superhuman senses, augmented strength, but also had psionic powers similar to her mother. Though she didn’t possess a set of bone claws – Rina manifested psionic constructs in the shape of them. They pretty much had the same effect on targets as Psylocke’s psi-knife.
Related: 10 Must Read Wolverine Stories
Sabre Claw
There was also one more child of Wolverine in the MC2 universe – Hudson Logan, Sabre Claw. His mother is unknown but he was basically a larger, gray-colored version of Wolverine – again, without the claws. Physically, he was much more similar to Sabretooth.
Scotty & Jade
In the mini-series that would eventually become an Academy-nominated film, Old Man Logan showed us a weathered, older Wolverine from a dystopian-future. There, he had a wife and two kids – Scotty and Jade. He lived on a dusty farm lorded over by a group of violent, inbred, cannibalistic Hulks.
Related: 20 Actors Who Could Be The Next Wolverine!
After a cross-country adventure with Hawkeye – he returned to find his family dead. The Hulk Gang got bored and killed them for fun. Wolverine then took it upon himself to hunt down and murder every one of them out of revenge.
Scotty and Jade didn’t display any mutant powers during the story. However, if they did, looking at how the rest of Logan’s kids turned out – it’s safe to assume they’d most likely have some semblance of his powers including a healing factor, claws, and senses. Who knows?
That’s all of Wolverine’s kids, but chances are I might have missed one or ten. Let us know what you think below and look out for the final part of our series feature Professor-X and Magneto!
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