In Wolverine’s long life, the nigh-immortal X-Man has endured more than most can imagine. Between his heroic exploits, Logan has been barbarically tortured in ways most cannot even imagine, but he always manages to brave another day. He’s been mutilated, eviscerated, and tormented in just about every way possible, living long enough to watch most of his loved ones die at least once. To be frank, Wolverine’s life is suffering.

Despite being one of the X-Men’s most prolific heroes and a true champion of mutantkind, Wolverine is like a black omen. Death, chaos, and suffering follow him like a cloud of tragedy that's reserved exclusively for him. What the torture doesn’t make him to endure directly, it makes those around him suffer in his place. For Marvel’s growing staff, Logan’s long-lived nature has become the perfect playground to unfetter their darkest whims on the only character who can consistently take it. And with that said, we've found just some of Wolverine’s most grueling moments in Marvel lore.

1 The Punisher Castrates, Butchers, And Steamrolls Wolverine

Punisher #16-17 (2002) by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson

In Punisher #16-17, the Punisher and Wolverine unknowingly find themselves to be hunting down the same criminal organization. When the two anti-heroes finally cross paths, Logan tries to slow down Frank’s already blood-soaked murder spree. The Punisher, realizing that he cannot take Wolverine on in a direct fight, promptly blasts Wolverine’s groin with his shotgun before following suit with Logan’s face. Logan, now faceless and writhing in pain on the floor, can only recoil as Frank prepares to douse Wolverine with gasoline.

Before setting the X-Man ablaze, both anti-heroes respond to the sounds of the gang nearby. Frank momentarily turns away from Wolverine to pursue his targets. Logan foolishly tries to stop the Punisher again; Frank responds by shooting out Logan’s knees with a submachine gun. After unleashing a bloody barrage of bullets inside the warehouse, killing every member of the organization, the Punisher calmly walks over to a steamroller while contemplating his job satisfaction. Despite Wolverine’s violent pleas, the Punisher leisurely rolls the steamroller over Logan before leaving the machine parked on top of Wolverine’s eviscerated head. Talk about painful.

2 Wolverine Is Tricked Into Killing His Family

Wolverine #13-14 (2011) by Jason Aaron and Renato Guedes

Jason Aaron’s Wolverine series really pushed the toxic relationship between Logan and his son, Daken. Daken, who was brainwashed by the ancient mutant Romulus, despised his father and wished to decimate every shred of happiness Logan may have had. With the help of an organization known as the Red Right Hand, a group composed of the friends and family of Logan’s many victims, Daken conscripted many of Wolverine’s long-lost children for the worst reason imaginable.

Daken went on to brainwash his siblings, now known as the Mongrels, to hunt down and kill Wolverine. Neither Logan nor the Mongrels were aware of their familial relationship, all according to Daken’s plan. Eventually, Wolverine is made to kill all the Mongrels before discovering the Red Right Hand had taken their own lives to shame the X-Man. Coated in the blood of his dead children, a final message appears from the Red Right Hand, telling Wolverine the familial truth of the atrocity he just committed. And to make things worse, these kids aren’t the only kids Logan has put into the ground.

3 The Phoenix Force Incinerates Wolverine

New X-Men #148 (2003) by Grant Morrison and Phil Jimenez

Despite his overwhelming love for Jean Grey, Wolverine has had to face the avatar of the Phoenix Force as an enemy more times than he should have to endure. Even as an ally, the Phoenix often threatens to consume Jean entirely. However, after Jean Grey and Wolverine are deceived by Xorn and trapped upon Asteroid M, the X-Men find themselves on a slow collision course with the sun. The experience is torturous as Jean barely clings onto life under the sun’s excruciating radiation.

Believing that the Phoenix was Jean’s only chance at survival, Wolverine plunged his claws into her abdomen before launching himself and Jean’s corpse into the sun. There, Wolverine stood as the all-consuming irradiated heat of the sun vaporized the hero’s near-immortal flesh. However, in the unimaginable suffering, the last thing Logan sees before his eyes melt from his face is the image of the Phoenix reborn through Jean’s body.

4 Sabretooth’s Annual (Bloody) Birthday Present

Wolverine #10 (1989) by Chris Claremont and John Buscema

Sabretooth’s gruesome obsession with birthdays began long before he ever met Wolverine. Victor Creel spent most of his early life torturing his younger brother on his birthday until the boy finally died. Sabretooth learned that a man named Logan had killed Victor’s brother, sparking a feud that would persist over the next 100 years. When Wolverine and Sabretooth later became pawns in Romulus’s machinations, Sabretooth was ordered by Romulus to kill Logan’s love, Silver Fox. Victor lavished at the chance and tracked down, sexually assaulted, and killed the woman before leaving a “Happy Birthday” note for Wolverine.

Every year since, Sabretooth has tracked down Wolverine on his birthday to either viciously brutalize the hero or someone close to him. Most recently, in Wolverine #41 (2024), Wolverine finally developed a closer relationship with his son Akihiro. One night, Sabretooth tracked down the heroes’ camp and attacked Akihiro while Logan slept. Victor gruesomely ripped the son of Wolverine apart, limb by limb. When Logan finally awoke, he discovered his son’s mutilated corpse spelling out “Happy Birthday,” continuing Sabretooth’s annual tradition.

5 Nitro Atomizes Every Inch Of Wolverine’s Flesh

Wolverine #43 (2003) by Marc Guggenheim and Humberto Ramos

Following the devastating explosion that the mutant villain Nitro unleashed near an elementary school, which catalyzed the first Superhero Civil War, Nitro escaped and fled into the woods of California. Wolverine and SHIELD, now assuming Nitro couldn't unleash a similar attack, tracked down the villain to a remote cabin in the woods. When the X-Man and SHIELD arrive, Logan tries to persuade the team to let him go inside alone, wary that Nitro may still pack some firepower.

The SHIELD soldiers surround Nitro and the cabin, pushing the mutant to embrace his final resort: detonation. Just as horrific as his last, this explosion decimates the nearby area, consuming all of the SHIELD soldiers in a blazing inferno. Wolverine becomes victim of the blast though he lives. The sheer force of the blast blows most of Logan’s flesh off his body as the flames incarnate what’s left. Soon, Wolverine is left as nothing more than an Adamantium-coated skeleton.

6 The Horseman of Death Infects Wolverine With Every Disease

Uncanny X-Force #3 (2010) by Rick Remender and Jerome Opena

In Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force series, Wolverine creates a new team of X-Force to stop a growing plot to reincarnate the mutant warlord Apocalypse. When four of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse return from the past, they enact a plot to rear Evan, a young clone of Apocalypse, to follow in the steps of his genetic template. When X-Force finally tracks down the Horsemen, the mutant heroes are immediately overwhelmed by the Horseman of Death, whose mutant abilities infect others with an “ailment aura.”

Wolverine tries to fight back, but the Horseman of Death merely laughs at Logan’s reliance on his healing factor to keep pushing. After allowing the X-Man to get close, the Horseman of Death binds his curse to Wolverine’s skeleton. Logan’s insides burst, boils blister over his body, and blood erupts from every orifice possible as the diseased power ravages Logan’s healing factor. Normally, the hero is impervious to diseases, but the Horseman finds pleasure in overwhelming Wolverine’s immune system with “every terminal disease that has ever befallen man.”

7 Wolverine Damns His Son’s Eternal Soul

Hellverine #4 (2024) by Benjamin Percy and Julius Ohta

By a twist of fate and the profane machinations of the Devil, Wolverine once became a temporary host of a “Spirit of Vengeance” known as Bagra-ghul. The Spirit was a violent force, compelled to erect vile totems in Mephisto’s name. Wolverine struggled to wrangle the demon’s carnal desires, but eventually exorcised Bagra-ghul back to Hell with the help of the Ghost Rider. While Mephisto’s grander goal required the suffering that only a Wolverine can provide, it didn’t have to be Logan.

Eventually, Mephisto binds the demon to the mangled corpse of Wolverine’s son who was still buried in the tundra where Sabretooth had once ripped him apart. Now reborn as the new Hellverine, Akihiro is made to face the same internal damnation that Wolverine once felt. Logan tries to free Akihiro from the demon’s curse, only to learn that Bagra-ghul was the only reason Akihiro is alive. With the decaying carcass of his son in his hands, Wolverine, desperate for a second chance with Akihiro, releases the demon back to Akihiro’s corpse, condemning his son to damnation.

8 Wolverine Is Tortured To "Save" A Child

Wolverine: The Best There Is #4 (2011) by Charlie Hutson and Juan Jose Ryp

In Charlie Hutson’s The Best There Is story, Wolverine becomes the victim of a terrifyingly pale and lanky man named Winsor, who has been abducting “unkillable beings” like Wolverine to harness their healing factors. Winsor’s son, whom he kept trapped in a sub-basement laboratory, had fallen terminally ill as the result of generations of inbreeding. To keep Wolverine complicit in his experimentation, Winsor strapped an explosive collar around his son’s neck and threatened that any resistance would kill the child.

Wolverine sickly complied and became the subject of countless torturous experiments. Other captive mutants, each immortal in their own way, mutilated Logan’s body, consumed his raw energy and memories, and inflicted numerous corrosive afflictions to test the limits of Logan’s healing factor. A collar is implanted into Wolverine that dulls his senses while a noxious combination of corrosive elements infest his body every time his healing factor triggers. After freeing himself, Logan violently massacred his way through the facility, emerging on the other side broken, burned, and diseased.

9 The Crucifixion Of Wolverine

Uncanny X-Men #251 (1989) by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri

The crucifixion of Wolverine is one of the X-Men franchise’s most iconic scenes of all time. At the time, the X-Men were based in Australia but constantly conflicted with a local paramilitary group known as the Reavers. These soldiers were gruesomely mutilated and outfitted with cyborg technology that severely distorted and disfigured their bodies. The Reavers had previously been defeated by the X-Men, driving the gang of cybernetic monstrosities to seek revenge on the team of heroic mutants.

Wolverine eventually visited the X-Men base after one of his adventures in Madripoor but was abducted by the Reavers immediately. The Reavers mounted Wolverine to a crucifix, laid on its side to form the shape of an X, and left Logan outside to burn in the Outback’s heat. Logan spent hours leaning to face the setting sun as its unabashed rays scorched his skin, unable to free himself from the exhaustion of his torture. By the night’s end, Logan’s mind had broken as visions of his friends, enemies, and greatest regrets plagued his thoughts.

10 Wolverine Becomes A Cannibal’s Buffet

Wolverine #165 (2001) by Frank Tieri and Sean Chen

After finding themselves to be victims of a sinister conspiracy, Wolverine and Beast were made into prisoners of an underground SHIELD facility called “The Cage.” Logan was kept in a cavernous pit within the prison for days, deprived of food, water, and clothing. Even further underneath the facility, the body of an 18th-century French sorcerer and former prisoner was exhumed. The Cage hoped that the mystic’s necromancy powers could kill Wolverine as no other traditional weapon could.

The guards lowered the sorcerer into Logan’s pit, trapping the already wary X-Men with a threat outside his control. To the shock of everyone, including the guards, the sorcerer reveals his powers are derived from the consumption of human blood. Soon, the prison guards watched in horror as Wolverine was flayed inch by inch, as the ancient evil consumed Logan’s immortal flesh. Wolverine’s blood drenched the pit’s floor while the mystic ripped out his eyes as a treat. But before the guards could stop this inhuman assault, the sorcerer disappeared, leaving Wolverine missing chunks of his body.