While Wolverine has undergone some drastic design and power-level changes over the course of his Marvel Comics career, his ‘burning claws’ power was easily the most shocking as it gave his already upgraded mutation an even deadlier enhancement. Though the upgrade was surprising, it wasn’t anything readers haven’t seen before as Wolverine’s forgotten daughter predicted that particular ability years before Wolverine adopted it as his own.
James “Logan” Howlett aka Wolverine is a mutant who developed a number of animalistic powers including heightened senses, super strength/speed, a healing factor, and razor-sharp bone claws that extended from his fists. After Wolverine was abducted and experimented on by Weapon X, he received the unwanted upgrade of having his entire skeleton coated in adamantium, including his bone claws which made them deadlier. That wasn’t the last enhancement his claws would see, however, as in the miniseries Return of Wolverine by Charles Soule and Steve McNiven, Logan is brought back to life after dying earlier in continuity, and with his resurrection came a newfound power that was a manifestation of the excess energy used to bring him back: Wolverine’s 'hot claws'. From that point forward (until it was retconned, of course), anytime Wolverine got mad enough, his claws would become burning hot–making them vastly more dangerous than they were before his temporary death.
In Wolverine Vol. 4 #12 by Jason Aaron and Renato Guedes, Wolverine is involved in a brutal ongoing conflict with an organization known as the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand is a collective of individuals who have been wronged by Wolverine in the past and they have gathered together to enact bloody vengeance against the man who caused them all so much pain. The leader of this organization even managed to track down one of Wolverine’s long-lost daughters and tricked her into attacking Wolverine–and she was known as Fire Knives.
Fire Knives wields massive blades that heat up to extreme temperatures during combat and proved to be incredibly useful even against Wolverine himself. This character and her signature weapons were created in 2010 with the release of this Wolverine series, whereas Return of Wolverine didn’t come out until 2018. This means that Wolverine’s daughter had the exact same power he would later receive upon his resurrection years before he did. Each of Wolverine’s children who were introduced in this series–as Fire Knives wasn’t the only one who made an unexpected appearance–had some variation of his own mutant power with Fire Knives clearly exemplifying the nature of his razor-sharp claws.
While each of Logan’s children seemingly represented different sides to him as a mutant hero with a complicated past, Fire Knives stands alone as she is the truest example of Wolverine's evolution as opposed to being a less powerful knock-off. Fire Knives’ blades are far more deadly than Wolverine’s claws because of the heat they generate upon attack, showing that even Wolverine’s iconic weapons had room for improvement and in doing so, predicting Logan’s ‘burning claws’ years before Wolverine wielded them.
