Continuing the legacy of its predecessor, X Men ’97 leaves no stone unturned when it comes to adapting and remixing the great X-Men comics of the ’80s and ’90s. And the final moments of this week’s episode, “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2,” are no exception.
If you’ve seen it, you know, and if you haven’t yet, you need to go watch it, because what comes next is one of the strangest swerves Marvel Comics has ever attempted with Wolverine.
(Ed. remark: This piece contains spoilers for ‘Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2’, the penultimate episode of X Men ’97 season 1.)
Image: Marvel Animation
At the end of ‘Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2’, Magneto rips the adamantium from Wolverine’s body, in a moment ripped straight from the pages of 1993. X Men #25, and originally inspired by an off-hand comment at a Marvel writers meeting. Comics writer Peter David remembered the moment to comic book sources in 2007:
What happened was we all discussed how we were going to make sure Magneto’s return would be a big deal. The other writers were bouncing around the idea of a huge Magneto/Wolverine brawl and I said, thinking out loud, “Boy, you know, if I’m Magneto, I don’t even bother with Wolverine. I’ll just rip out his skeleton and be done with him.’ And there was dead silence for a while, and then everyone looked at me and said, “That’s a great idea.”
And thus the adamantium-less Wolverine era was born. The loss of his metal did not cause much trouble in his sobs; much to the surprise of the X-Men (including Wolverine, thanks to his history of amnesia), it turned out that Logan’s claws were actually part of his mutation, and not a modification of the Weapon the first place. Beneath the metal he had a sextet of pointed, retractable claw bones.
So he could still take a guy out, but remember, the whole point of adamantium is that it can cut through anything except more adamantium. Wolverine was no longer the checker and dice something man, and while his healing factor was still there, it was now possible to, for example, cut off his limbs.
Since X Men ’97‘s version of this takes place at the end of the episode, we can’t say for sure where the show is going with a non-adamantium Wolverine. But the comics offer one, somewhat questionable, path forward: Wolverine’s Beast Age.
That time Wolverine lost his nose
Image: Marvel Comics
After losing his adamantium, Wolverine gradually became more and more animalistic in nature. Like, he started living in the woods outside the X-Mansion instead of, you know, in a house. After a failed attempt to put the adamantium back into him, he also began to physically transform, most notably losing his nose. Eventually he almost stopped talking altogether and was just… kind of a weird dog guy? That the X-Men knew? There’s a comic where he licks Cyclops’ face in an attempt to bring him back to life.
The idea behind the slow redesign was that now that some of Wolverine’s healing factor was no longer constantly occupied by preventing his body from shedding the pounds and pounds of inorganic metal trapped within it, it had room to release its full “potential” as a means to show. mutation. And that potential was… this.
Image: Marvel Comics
Wolverine’s wild slide only lasted a few years, but it was, as you can see, quite memorable.
How did Wolverine get his adamantium back in the comics?
Finally, just as the decade was coming to a close in 1999, Wolverine got his adamantium skeleton back, thanks to Apocalypse. The big blue villain wanted a new Horseman of Death, and pitted adamantium-less Wolverine against his old adamantium-laced nemesis Sabretooth in single combat to see who was more worthy. Wolverine won the fight, and Apocalypse – a villain who never misses an opportunity for ironic outrage – ripped the adamantium from Sabretooth’s body and stuck it into Wolverine’s.
With only one episode left in the season, X Men ’97 season 1 doesn’t have time for a really wild Wolverine arc, or for Apocalypse to show up and go through a whole horseman trial. But the performance has received the green light for a second and third season.
You may not have to say goodbye to Wolverine’s nose just yet, but you may need to get used to the idea, just in case.