Home Comics & Toys Wolverine’s healing factor, explained

Wolverine’s healing factor, explained

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You don’t become the best there is without spilling some blood along the way. Over the years, James Howlett AKA Logan AKA the Wolverine has seen plenty of crimson splattered across his claws, from both enemies and himself. Wolverine’s key mutant trait isn’t a natural selection of bone claws or superhuman tracking skills. It’s a regenerative healing factor that has kept him away from death’s door in dozens upon dozens of scenario’s that would have easily killed a lesser mutant.

But how does it work exactly? Depending on the writer, the iconic healing factor has been able to heal anything from a severe boo-boo to an extreme case of having the Adamantium yanked off of the bones of Logan. Over the years, Logan has bounced back from being burned alive, shot, having entire organs mutilated and even regenerating his entire musculature system within minutes.

Not only that, but Wolverine’s healing factor is also constantly fighting off the effects of Adamantium poisoning, something which somewhat limits his powers from their full potential when a writer remembers that fact. But even with the level of his healing factor in flux, certain constants remain:

Contaminant Immunity

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Anyone wielding poisons or various drugs when going into battle against the Wolverine, is going to need to pack in plenty of the stuff. Logan is pretty much immune to getting drunk, while any attempt to drug him will require massive doses such as when SHIELD were forced to pump a lethal 80ml of anesthetic per minute into his bloodstream in order to keep him knocked out.

Disease Immunity

Not just able to heal from any injury instantly, Wolverine also boasts an immune system which keeps him safe from any disease or infection on the planet. Basically, he has a ton of sick days saved up that he’ll never ever get to use.

Delayed Aging

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While he isn’t immortal, Logan will still outlive all of his comrades by a good measure of time. Almost 200 years old, Logan’s healing factor has slowed the decay of cells down to a crawl and kept him in the physical prime of his life for decades now.

Psionic Resistance

Extending to his mindscape as well and augmented by Professor Xavier over the years, Wolverine is now also highly resistant to any form of telepathy unless he chooses to lower his guard.

Superior Physical Conditioning

Combined with his Adamantium skeleton, Wolverine’s physical attributes border on the superhuman. Having to constantly move with 50kg of Adamantium attached to his skeletal structure has resulted in Logan pushing his muscles beyond their natural limits and his healing factor augmenting his musculature system to compensate for this.

With an immunity to lactic acid build-up as well, Logan can fight and survive for hours and hours of physical activity without any fatigue building up. Thanks to his stamina, Logan has fought the likes of Omega Red for more than 24 hours and other foes for entire days at a time. With superhuman reflexes and agility that take advantage of his body’s natural tendency to surpass known human limitations, Logan lives up to his animal namesake and then some when he engages in battle.

Ultimate Wolverine

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The Ultimate Universe created an interesting twist on Wolverine’s powers: Not to heal, but to survive at all costs. Similar to his Earth-616 counterpart, this version of Wolverine could also bounce back from any injury, his body modifying itself to survive ridiculous amounts of damage. Such as being ripped in half by that version of the Hulk, his head severed and even briefly being incinerated by Cyclops’ eye beams and Tony Stark’s repulsor blasts before Magneto finished him off for good by stripping the Adamantium off of his skeleton.

The end?

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Wolverine’s healing factor can only go so far however. His mutant ability can be shut off by the effects of the Muramasa blade, while his actual death in the Marvel 616 universe was the result of a sentient virus that permanently closed off his mutant abilities and rendered him more mortal than ever before. In other possible future timelines, an older Wolverine also finds that his healing factor has begun to decay as it imperfectly knits his body back together and prolongs his agony.

Much like in that upcoming movie starring Hugh Jackman as an aged berserker…

Last Updated: January 4, 2017

5 Comments

  1. Cool: so, basically, age and actually, you know, removing the ability to regenerate, are the only two things to, medium term, actually hurt Wolverine. And awesome character, in many different forms.

    Reply

  2. Admiral Chief

    October 28, 2016 at 07:40

    Epic write-up D

    Reply

  3. Don

    October 28, 2016 at 08:06

    this is one of the many reasons why i love Lazygamers so much! write ups from gaming right through to comics!

    Reply

  4. Original Heretic

    October 28, 2016 at 08:07

    One of my favourite storylines in the old cartoon was when Apocalypse engineering that disease to wipe everyone out, where Bishop come from the future, gets Wolverine infected to create antibodies that can counteract the disease. Super cool!

    Reply

  5. Dungeon of JJ

    October 28, 2016 at 09:51

    Always enjoy reading your thorough comic-book article. I can do with many more of these.
    Kyle at Because Science from Nerdist did an excellent job at explaining this too.

    Reply

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