Warning: contains spoilers for X Deaths of Wolverine #3
New cover art of Wolverine's final "Omega" form shows his claws cutting through reality itself. Marvel Comics' intertwined miniseries, X Lives of Wolverine and X Deaths of Wolverine, are currently charting two time-travel missions, as the modern-day Logan of X Lives jumps through time to save the life of Charles Xavier, and the future Logan of X Deaths travels back to ensure the death of Moira X. This future Wolverine - from a time when humans and robotic life have merged, keeping the last few mutants as curiosities - is notable for his cybernetic-style redesign, which includes the power to interface with and command computer systems using his claws.
While this Omega Wolverine has so far seemed to be a closed-off killing machine, X Deaths of Wolverine #3 (from Benjamin Percy, Federico Vicentini, Dijjo Lima, and Cory Petit) has revealed that Logan is fully cognizant of his actions - here to kill off Moira X before she becomes the architect of his ruinous future, in which mutantkind is wiped out, and everyone Wolverine knows and loves dies to make way for mankind's ascension to a new form of machine life. To do that, it seem he's embraced the AI race known as the Phalanx, sacrificing his own humanity, and potentially his healing factor, for one last chance to fix the timeline.
This final, part-machine form is captured perfectly in new variant cover art from Mateus Manhanini, which will appear on select issues of X Deaths of Wolverine #5. The cover shows Wolverine tearing through reality, exposing a white field behind a futuristic cityscape. Of course, this is the perfect metaphor for Logan's current mission, on which his true aim is to erase the terrible future where he saw his children die in exchange for a fresh chance at survival - one that is far from guaranteed. The issue will hit stores March 23.
How and why Wolverine has bonded with the Phalanx is a huge question the series has still to answer, since Moira X's whole plan is for humanity to embrace machine life at mutantkind's expense. It seems in the future, Logan's final days will see him somehow make this cyborg transformation in order to travel back, bringing many lifetimes' worth of experience and hate to bear on the task of executing the ultimate mutant traitor. Of course, this is a mission complicated by the big reveals of Inferno, which finally shared the machines' side of the story and the potential future in which mutants reign supreme, committing cosmic genocide against artificial life with the god-killing Phoenix Blade.
For this reason, it's unclear whether Omega Wolverine can be considered a hero or a villain, especially since his return has already seen Logan carry out a merciless slaughter in the name of stopping Moira. As Marvel promised, X Deaths of Wolverine is shaping up to be a vital story which sets up the next era of X-Men titles, with the Omega Wolverine right at the center, sent on one final mission to tear down a reality he won't abide, whatever the cost.