One of Marvel’s most indestructible heroes, Wolverine‘s healing factor is a thing of legend. However, there are some rival superhumans whose abilities can overpower it, either overwhelming Wolverine’s healing or bypassing it to effortlessly bring down ‘the Best There Is.’ Here are the 5 rarest superpowers that even Wolverine’s healing factor can’t beat.
5
Dust’s Sand Control
As Seen in Young X-Men #11 by Marc Guggenheim, Daniel Acuña, Rafa Sandoval, Roger Bonet, Ulises Arreola and Dave Sharpe
X-Men’s Sooraya Qadir has the ability to turn her entire body into silicon particles, which she can then psionically control. As a hero, Dust tends to use her abilities to infiltrate and observe, or bring down Sentinels by messing with their joints. However, in Young X-Men, fans witnessed a future where – after her powers go haywire – Dust comes to blame her former mentors on the X-Men for ruining her life.
Dust lashes out at a number of heroes including Wolverine, who doesn’t survive their clash. Dust literally sandblasts the skin and muscle from Wolverine’s bones, doing too much damage too fast for his healing to reverse. It’s possible that Dust simultaneously suffocated Wolverine, meaning that even if he could regenerate, he’d still suffer extensive brain damage.
4
Kitty Pryde’s Phasing
As Seen in What If? Wolverine: Enemy of The State by James Robinson, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Robert Campanella, Carmine Di Giandomenico and Randy Gentile
In ‘Enemy of the State,’ Wolverine was brainwashed by the Hand and set loose against heroes including Daredevil, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. In this What If? special, Marvel imagines that SHIELD never managed to save him, leading to Wolverine slaughtering heroes like Captain America and Moon Knight, while grievously injuring others like Captain America.
Steve Rogers strikes back by turning Wolverine’s old protégé Kitty Pryde into a secret weapon. Sacrificing her hand (and ultimately her life), Kitty phases through Wolverine’s unbreakable skull and attacks his brain directly. Kitty unphases when her hand is through Wolverine’s head, permanently bonding them.
The move ultimately kills Wolverine, since his healing factor can’t discern between his brain and Kitty’s hand, making it impossible to ‘heal’ the damage.
3
Mad Thinker’s Virus Creation
As Seen in Ultimate X-Men/Fantastic Four #1 by Mike Carey, Pasqual Ferry, June Chung, Dave McCaig, Paul Mounts, Rob Schwager and Chris Eliopoulos
In the Ultimate Universe, Rhona Birchill was a supergenius who stole the physical brains of others and implanted them into her own skull, increasing her thinking power. As the Mad Thinker, Rhona became so smart that she could develop a mutating virus too powerful for Wolverine’s healing factor. Every twelve seconds, the virus mutates into a new variant, keeping Wolverine incapacitated as his healing factor constantly changes target.
This tactic was reified in 2011’s Wolverine #8, when the X-Men’s resident super-genius Doctor Nemesis did something similar, combining a host of lethal viruses into a single bullet. The disease-blast was enough to slow down a demonically-possessed Wolverine, though Storm forbade Nemsis from delivering a second dose.
2
Storm’s Omega-Level Electricity Control
As Seen in X-Men Forever Volume 2 #3 by Chris Claremont, Tom Grummett, Cory Hamscher, Wil Quintana and Tom Orzechowski
As X-Men’s resident Omega mutant, it shouldn’t be surprising that Storm is capable of some mind-blowing feats – including being able to kill Wolverine. In the dark future of X-Men Forever, Storm delivers a point-blank blast of lightning so potent, it fries Logan’s body to a crisp, leaving no biological material from which to regenerate.
This is actually one of the most reliable ways to beat Wolverine’s healing. On the occasions where he’s been killed by Sentinels, it’s because the powerful robots used extreme heat to incinerate his skin and muscle. Because Logan’s blood carries his healing factor around his body, totally evaporating it means his power can’t activate.
1
Scarlet Witch’s Probability Control
As Seen in What If…? Volume 1 #25‘s ‘What If… Set Had Come to Earth?’ by Jim Valentino, Rik Levins, Ralph Cabrera, Tom Vincent and Brad Joyce
Today, Scarlet Witch controls reality-altering Chaos Magic. However, for most of her comic career, she believed her mutant power was to alter probability, nudging normal events into catastrophic outcomes. This is the power she used to kill Wolverine in this story, where the evil god Set controls the minds of most of Earth’s heroes, with a small team fighting for freedom.
When Wolverine goes up against the mind-controlled Wanda Maximoff, she uses her probability control to transform his adamantium into anti-matter. The resulting explosion utterly obliterates Wolverine on the molecular level, once again leaving him nothing to heal back from.
Those are the five rarest powers that have beaten Wolverine‘s healing factor, but they’re not the only ones – let us know below what other powers belong on this list.
- Created By
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Roy Thomas, Len Wein, John Romita Sr.
- First Appearance
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The Incredible Hulk (2023)
- Alias
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James “Logan” Howlett
- Alliance
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X-Men, Avengers, Canadian Army, OSS/CIA, Avengers Unity Squad, Alpha Flight, New Avengers, New Fantastic Four, Savage Avengers, Weapon X, X-Force
- Race
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Human-Mutant
