Summary

• Wolverine made a deal with Apocalypse to re-graft adamantium on his skeleton after Magneto's attack cost him his powers.
• The aftermath of losing his adamantium led to a dark path for Wolverine, eventually leading to a showdown with Sabretooth.
• Despite being restored to his iconic form with adamantium, Wolverine struggled with being Apocalypse's Horseman before breaking free.

After the X-Men hero Wolverine had all of the adamantium removed from his body by Magneto, it was the nearly omnipotent Apocalypse who was able to re-graft the signature metal back on Logan's skeleton... but it came at a price.

Having gone through a long period of recovery and reflection after the traumatic event, Wolverine agreed to this deal with the devil because the alternatives were too terrible to consider. While Apocalypse was successful where others failed, his one demand in restoring the X-Man was that Wolverine would him as his latest Horseman, the cloaked assassin called Death.

Magneto Stripped Wolverine's Adamantium Skeleton

Wolverine was nearly killed, trying to stop Magneto in "Fatal Attractions"

When the X-Men faced Magneto in 1994's "Fatal Attractions" storyline, they confronted the crazed mutant in Asteroid M after the villain used an EMP blast to take out electronics across the planet, killing thousands of innocent lives. Wolverine saw an opening to attack the terrorist responsible for the deaths of countless civilians and prevent him from killing his estranged son Quicksilver, brutally stabbing Magneto in an attempt to stop him. Magneto retaliated by forcibly removing all the adamantium coating Logan's skeleton, exhausting his healing factor keeping him alive, and almost killing the beloved hero.

The "Fatal Attractions" was a crossover event that took place in X-Factor #92, X-Force #25, Uncanny X-Men #304, X-Men #25, Wolverine #75, and Excalibur #71.

The removal of Logan's adamantium from his skeleton set him on a dark path and also revealed that his true mutant ability was his bone claws, something he did not know he even possessed. Wolverine's pain and suffering continued when Tyler Dayspring AKA Genesis tried and failed to re-bond adamantium to his skeleton, leaving Logan in an increasingly feral state.

Although he was able to recover physically and mentally from this experience, with the of his peers, Wolverine then reed the X-Men for a mission in space which saw them attacked and boarded by a group of Skrulls. While one Skrull took Wolverine's place without his teammates' knowledge, the others took the real Logan to meet with their master: the man known to the world as Apocalypse.

Apocalypse Offers Wolverine His Metal, With a Catch

Logan gains his adamantium skeleton back, but in the darkest way possible

Wolverine losing his powers, whether his adamantium or his healing factor, is generally considered a low point in his extremely long life, one that he barely recovered from. While his healing factor, training, and bone claws still made him a formidable opponent, the absence of his adamantium was noticeable, and others tried and failed to re-bond the rare metal to his skeleton and claws. In Wolverine #145 by Erik Larsen and Leinil Francis Yu, Apocalypse gives Wolverine the chance to become one of his Horsemen, as payment for putting adamantium back on his mutant skeleton.

When Logan scoffs at the idea of working for Apocalypse, he learns that this isn't a job offer but actually an audition, as someone he knows very well also wants the position. Wolverine is set to battle his old nemesis Sabretooth (who also has been granted an adamantium-laced skeleton along with his savage powers) for the honor of becoming Death.

When Apocalypse made his offer, Wolverine was faced with a hero's dilemma; would he become a killing machine in hopes of one day breaking free, or let someone even more ruthless and feral take his place among Apocalypse's Horsemen? No matter the impact that Apocalypse's transformation would have on Logan, the X-Men hero knew that En Sabah Nur's Celestial powers in the hands of Victor Creed would spell disaster for the entire world.

Despite his opponent's metallic advantages, Wolverine beat Sabretooth in the fight, earning the right to become Death, thinking his previous experience with such matters would allow him to resist his reprogramming. Which was sadly not the case.

Wolverine Got His Adamantium Back (From Sabretooth)

Apocalypse stripped Victor of his adamantium, rebonding it to Logan's skeleton

Using adamantium taken directly from Sabretooth, Apocalypse subjected Wolverine to another re-bonding process but unlike with Genesis, this time it was successful. Forced to undergo the adamantium-bonding procedure for a third time - piling even more trauma on Wolverine's shoulders - finally restored Logan to his iconic Weapon X form. It is fascinating that Wolverine, who hates Victor Creed with a ion, was forced to exist with a major piece of his nemesis stuck inside of him. Sabretooth was left for dead by Apocalypse, found and kept alive by the X-Men hero Gambit, and eventually had adamantium rebonded to him by a revitalized version of the Weapon X program.

Logan operated as Death for Apocalypse for a while, completing missions while seemingly unable to resist Apocalypse's conditioning. Wolverine not only was forced to fight against Hulk - again - but was tasked with killing the Skrull that had been impersonating him among the X-Men. When his Skrull impostor's ruse was eventually revealed, it took all of the X-Men to help Wolverine break Apocalypse's control. While Logan was able to be restored to his original adamantium-plated form, his long journey as a feral mutant hopefully taught Wolverine that he will always be the best at what he does, with or without the adamantium covering his skeleton.

Although he wasn't the first of the X-Men to have found themselves under Apocalypse's thumb, and even though he prevented Sabretooth from becoming one of En Sabah Nur's Horsemen, he wasn't able to resist Apocalypse himself. Sadly, the only way for Wolverine to recover from Magneto's brutal assault was to become indebted to an even worse X-Men villain. A high price to pay for metal claws.