Warning: Contains spoilers for Murderworld: Wolverine #1The ongoing Murderworld miniseries has introduced the contestants of Arcade's latest sociopathic survival show to assaults from the Avengers and Spider-Man, but the latest entry, Murderworld: Wolverine #1, proves that Wolverine and his X-Men family are without a doubt the most brutal strike team in Marvel Comics.
Logan, the hero known as Wolverine, has gone through many periods in his long life where he has lost control and become a terrifying killing machine, but it is extremely rare to see more than one Wolverine lose control simultaneously. Wolverine, his children, and the variants that appear in Murderworld are Life Model Decoys, incredibly advanced and realistic androids made to perfectly replicate the appearance and abilities of the original Wolverine. So even though the Logan in this issue is not the real Wolverine, the brutal attack his team lands on Arcade's contestants is still legitimate.
The Snikt Family Is Terrifying Without Self Control
For decades now Arcade has used his Murderworld theme parks and arenas to capture and assault Marvel heroes as well as regular citizens, and his newest version of Murderworld is much closer to a Squid Games-style event. Murderworld: Wolverine #1 - written by Jim Zub and Ray Fawkes with art by Carlos Nieto and Victor Nava - is the third installment in the Murderworld miniseries, which has seen the villainous Arcade back at it again with another installment of his Murderworld parks. Over the past two issues Arcade's seemingly doomed contestants have had to go up against terrible explosions, harsh conditions, and assaults by LMDs of the Avengers and various Spider-Men from across Marvel's history, whittling the starting 200 contestants down to only 61. As the contestants are fleeing for their lives from a cave they've been sheltering in, the characters are forced to run into an arctic wilderness. There they are attacked by the fiercest LMD team imaginable, made up of Wolverine, Laura Kinney, Daken, Old Man Logan, and Logan from his days at Weapon X (with only Gabby, or Honey Badger, missing from the so-called "Snikt Family").
While the Wolverine team is only on panel for a couple of pages, they quickly take down at least nine contestants who are all unarmed and desperately fleeing for their lives in the hopes of winning $100 million. The three characters most focused on in the issue - Eden, Alex, and Vincent - are all able to survive the attack of the Wolverine variants, but at the cost of Eden having her forearm sliced fully off by Logan's LMD. In many ways it is not surprising that the team of Wolverine LMDs are so perfectly brutal, as they are "the best they are at what they do," but so rarely have five different Wolverines been seen fighting battles together, particularly in a situation where killing without honor is encouraged. Hilariously, it seems that the only thing the LMDs can say is Logan's iconic expression, "Bub!" Logan has killed countless enemies throughout his career, and some of his variants like Old Man Logan have slaughtered even more, but since the Krakoan government ruled that no mutant can kill humans, Marvel has severely lacked Wolverine's particular brand of brutality. It is not hard for a Wolverine to lose control while in a fight, as they all seemingly have some type of trigger either from trauma or intentional programming by their creators like Laura. But Logan and his ilk are also some of the most honorable Marvel heroes around, so to see them brutalize unarmed people is particularly jarring.
Wolverine & His Family Could Take Down Armies
It would have been a blast if even more page time was dedicated to Wolverine and his team of LMDs as they rampage through Murderworld without any sense of morals or honor, but even the quick attack is enough to prove just how brutal an X-Men Snikt Family strike team would be, particularly if they were not forced to hold back.
Murderworld: Wolverine #1 from Marvel Comics is available now in stores.