In defense of mutantkind, Wolverine has crossed more than a few lines, but his cruelest moment with X-Force proved that Captain America was right to call him a murderer. Captain America has expressed how he feels about Logan’s violent tendencies on more than one occasion. And with Wolverine’s bloody track record, it’s hard to argue with him.
Logan has killed hundreds of people, but the kill that nearly broke him was none other than his son Daken, also known as Akihiro. While Akihiro has since returned, his death at the hands of his father tainted Logan worse than any other life he’d ever taken. But Daken was hardly the first person that Logan ever killed in the pages of Rick Remender’s run on Uncanny X-Force, but events of the series’ “Final Execution” story arc, hit Wolverine harder than anything else after Akihiro’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants systematically threatened X-Force.
With Akihiro waging a personal war against his father, his Brotherhood is specifically designed to target X-Force. Including villainous mutants like the Shadow King, Sabretooth, and even Mystique, the team incapacitates Wolverine’s hit squad one by one, even capturing Evan – a child version of the reborn Apocalypse – out from under Wolverine’s nose. When Wolverine heads after Evan with X-Force at his back, the squad is quickly separated and taken down. Eventually, Logan manages to break free and confronts his son one-on-one in one last violent battle. The two Wolverines go head-to-head, slicing each other to pieces. But when Logan gets the upper hand on Akihiro, he doesn’t hesitate and ends up drowning his own son in a shallow puddle. In the end, once Wolverine’s son is dead by his own hand. Sabretooth then emerges just long enough to tell his old enemy how he manipulated Daken against his dear old dad, just to hurt Logan worse than he ever had before.
Unfortunately for Logan, Creed’s plan worked perfectly. Akihiro’s life was far from the last one Logan would ever take, and he was far from the last mutant to later be resurrected. But the act of killing his own son haunted Wolverine more than anyone else that he’d ever killed. It broke Wolverine, and while he dissolved X-Force as a result, the damage caused by the team’s actions had already been done and he dealt with the consequences during Remender’s Uncanny Avengers is where Cap’s distrust for Logan bubbled to the surface.
Given that Wolverine killed his own son, it’s no wonder that Steve didn’t feel he could trust the X-Man-turned-Avenger. In Cap's eyes, Logan was a murderer who shouldn't have joined the Avengers in the first place. After all, Logan may be a hero, but he’s still a ruthless killer. With the character’s inevitable MCU debut, it’ll certainly be interesting to see if Logan lives up to his violent comic book habits on the big screen.
The MCU has certainly seen its fair share of killers before, but it may not be ready to handle a character as morally grey as the old Caknucklehead. But regardless of whether Logan’s silver screen counterpart gets his hands as dirty as the comic book favorite, one thing is certain. Logan is undoubtedly the best there is at what he does, and his son learned first-hand that Captain America was right – what Wolverine does best is bitter work.