Warning: spoilers ahead for New Mutants #20!
While Wolverine is undoubtedly a hero willing to risk his life and happiness to help others, he's also someone who tends to end up hurting - and often killing - the people he loves. Now, the friends of Gabrielle Kinney - a clone of Logan's biological daughter Laura Kinney - are calling out the way Wolverine and his son Daken treat love and family, demanding they use the new mutant nation of Krakoa as a chance to do better.
Wolverine has a tragic history of being called on to kill, acting as a lethal enforcer for both the Avengers and the X-Men at different points in his life. A loner, Wolverine tends to return to those he loves only in extreme situations, which often means engaging in violence on their behalf. At its most extreme, this has even meant taking it upon himself to kill those he loves. Wolverine killed both his great loves Mariko Yashida and Jean Grey to spare them more painful deaths (though Jean was quickly resurrected), and even drowned his son Daken to protect the students of his mutant school. While each of these moments broke Logan's heart, they follow a pattern where he exists at a distance from those he loves until it comes time to express the depth of his adoration by performing violence.
Fortunately for the X-Men, not every member of Logan’s family is as emotionally repressed as him, and few mutants are as beloved as his youngest daughter, Gabby. Known by the mutant names of Scout and Honey Badger, Gabby is a fan-favorite hero who was sadly killed in New Mutants #19. Now, in Vita Ayala, Alex Lins, Matt Milla, and Travis Lanham' New Mutants #20, her young friends are determined to bring her back, and No-Girl possesses her body in order to secretly utilize the island's resurrection system (for which they suspect Gabby, being a clone, will not be eligible.) On their way there, the teens reflect on what Gabby means to them as a friend, and when they run into Daken, No-Girl doesn’t hold back on how she feels about how he treats his younger sister. When Daken objects that he'd kill for Gabby, No-Girl points out that, “Paying attention to me while I’m around is worth more than stabbing some stranger. But of course the murderer thinks that being willing to kill is anything other than selfish.”
The words may actually be coming from No-Girl, but everything she says is absolutely true of both Daken and Logan. Like his son, Wolverine is a murderer with a history of harming those he loves. Father and son both see killing as the ultimate sacrifice, even though it’s an action they’re already predisposed towards carrying out on any given day. This is contrasted with the supportive friendship Gabby has always shown her fellow mutants, with Anole pointing out that Gabby believed, “having your back didn’t just mean when you were in danger.” This highlights how different Gabby is from the rest of Wolverine's family. She cares enough to show her affection with a daily commitment rather than grand gestures of violence.
Not only is Logan historically incapable of expressing his love healthily, but this toxicity also bleeds into his ability to effectively lead a team. Most of the time, Wolverine finds himself pushed into a leadership role, and though he’s not ineffective, he’s such a natural loner that he can make it hard for those he leads to work together, often coming close to bullying those under his command. Meanwhile, though she wasn’t her friendship group's official leader, Gabby’s openness and emotional honesty inspired her friends to break the law rather than let her down.
On behalf of the X-Men, Logan has saved and ended countless lives, but despite all the lives he’s touched, he’s still not fully comfortable maintaining his relationships in healthy ways. Krakoa is a chance for new beginnings, and it’s clear that Logan has taken steps to bring his family closer together, but he’s still got a long way to go. Wolverine is the best there is at what he does, but when it comes to the expressing love, his daughter Gabby clearly has him beat.