A Marvel universe without Wolverine, is that even possible?

If you’ve been paying attention to the Marvel universe for the past few months you’d notice that they’ve been planning to kill of a certain hero that’s been on so many different super powered teams there should be a Guinness record for him. The one character who you’d never figure that Marvel would kill off, but looks like times are changing folks. That’s right folks, it’s time for Spiderman Wolverine to take a dirt nap once and for all. But can the Marvel landscape do without the man who’s the best at what he does and even more so can and will he remain dead?

Let’s not kid ourselves here as killing him off is definitely going to level a rather sizable hole and it’s going to be up to Marvel to decide what they plan to do about. Are they actually going to keep him off the map and permanently out of the picture or will they cave in like some many times; Spiderman, Captain America, Batman, Superman, Colossus, Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, Star Lord, Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Barry Allen, Kurt Wagner, Hal Jordan, just to name a few. See the trend there? The popular guys tend to die, some multiple dies and yet they seem to make it back to the world of the living over and over.

So what’s going to stop Marvel from putting some silly and lame story arc to descend into hell to retrieve the soul of Wolverine? Well nothing to be perfectly honest, we all know this and while I wouldn’t blame Marvel for doing this there has to be a line. It’s pretty annoying and down right disrespectful to fans of any comic shop to cheapen the death of their favorite hero if only to make a few bucks and to save face. And Wolverine is definitely one of Marvel’s biggest cash cows. He’s been on just about every X-men comic, most of the Avenger comics, his own solo comic, taken a trip or two into hell and even multiple movies and animations. That’s a pretty big piece of change to finally take him out of the picture, so why is Marvel doing it now?

Maybe it’s time to give someone else a go?

Wolverine may be a mainstay in the Marvel universe but also casts a pretty large shadow for such a small guy and perhaps several characters would do good with some added exposure. Take for instance X-23, does anyone remember her? Most people don’t anymore unless you have followed her exclusively and maybe played her in Marvel vs Capcom 3 before she became useless, seriously does anyone use her in that game anymore? She’s definitely someone who could use some exposure could fill the Canuknuckle’s role of the unstable berserker. As an added plus she can help Marvel’s image by putting forth another positive female character. She’s fast, she’s deadly and similar to Wolverine’s previous days she’s in search of answers.

But she’s not the only one to benefit from Wolverine’s death, there’s countless others that would be a suitable replacement. I’m sure Marvel is aware of this as well and has the situation under control, or do they?

Perhaps this is all a front?

Let’s be real here. Marvel’s been telling anyone who would listen that they’ve planned on killing off Wolverine for some time now. It hasn’t been a secret since  earlier this year. It’s also not a secret that death and resurrection of popular characters tend to rack in some serious money. Look at what happened to both Superman’s and Captain America’s comics during their time away. The book sales soared, hell even the newspapers and news channel’s (CNN, ABC, NBC) got into the action by announcing that these heroes have died and how the world would miss them. Some shows even ran history recaps of the characters. That says something.

And what happened after that? Well people who may have heard of them but didn’t follow them and people who never picked up a comic before made it a effort to look into the life of those heroes and picked up nearly all of their comics, a monumental effort that pushed comic book sales through the roof,. Of course they mounted more deaths and rebirths to transpire which again cheapens the deaths of comics. And let it be said I would have preferred that Bucky continued on the role of Captain America then. Look what’s happening to Wolverine’s comic, he’s not even dead yet and Death of Wolverine #1 is sitting at $260K and that’s just one issue of the Death of Wolverine arc.

Though i’d imagine that Marvel has enough money (Can you have too much?) now that they’re under the House of Mouse umbrella.

Perhaps it’s Marvel trying to get even?

Another angle to look at is maybe this is Marvel’s way of getting Wolverine out of the movie business and back to them. Wolverine along with his fellow mutants are under license to Fox and we all know due to Marvel’s success on the big screen that they are scrambling to get back the rights they sold to both Fox and Sony, namely  Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, X-Men, Daredevil,and the Fantastic Four. We all know that Spiderman is considered a success along with the X-Men but the others haven’t had a hit movie in a while. And it’s also not a secret that Marvel is still a little upset that they couldn’t re-obtain the rights to the said titles and have gone as far to admitting that they are in fact cancelling the Fantastic Four title in 2015. While that may not seem like a big deal, cancelling the title can send a signal to the fans and it kills any association to the movie since they will be dead to the world. You don’t hear Marvel touting the end of the Fantastic Four on the same magnitude as Wolverine, do you?

Perhaps this is Marvel’s way of trying to get the rights to the X-Men on the big screen back. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who doesn’t follow the X-Men comics and has only watched the films and some of the cartoons and ask them who the most popular X-man is. I’m pretty damned sure that the answer you’ll get back is “Wolverine”.

Maybe it’s time for Wolverine to finally *shikt* his claws for the final time and earn that eternal nap along side Jeanie. He’s been through so much throughout his run and maybe it’s time to let me be the best at something else. And on the 95% chance he won’t stay dead let’s just hope he isn’t brought back by some non-creative way like time travel, alternative dimension or so some other garbage. But we all know that he won’t stay dead for long or will he?