How much damage can Wolverine take and still live? If all that was left was his metal covered bones would he be able to reform his body?
Depends on the author and how much freedom he feels he has to shit on what has gone before…
There’s a non-canon Punisher story where Punisher murders the whole Marvel universe, and he whacks Wolverine by flinging him into high-voltage equipment that reduces him to the metal skeleton. So that writer felt it was adequate.
Pretty much, if his brain is destroyed, he’s toast. There was a storyline a while back where it was pointed out there was a small little patch on his skull that wasn’t covered with adamantium, so that if he ever got “out of hand”, Weapon X could just put a bullet in his brain, and that’d be it. Also, there’s a “What If” where the Hulk kills him by hitting him hard enough to dislocate one of his vertebrea, thus snapping his spinal column. And in one of the latest Ultimate X-Men, Jean threatens to telekinetically remove his spine from his brain, which would also pretty much do it.
Yet, he’s still able to withstand a hit from the Hulk, which one would think would be enough to cause a serious brain contusion, but, you know…
And if he drowns, he’s dead.
But physical punishment? As has been pointed out, it all depends on the writter. Sometimes, getting shot with a full clip from an AK-47 will put him down, other times, it just pisses him off. And it’s been common belief that if his flesh were flayed/burned from his skeleton, he’d be done for as well, but in the “E is for Extinction” storyline, there’s a bit where all the flesh gets torn from his right arm up to the shoulder, and yet, it grows back rather quickly. Artist interpretation, I guess.
So, there are ways to kill him, but it all depends on how it fits into the storyline. He has died on a few occassions, mind you. In X-Men number 5, I believe, he was shot up pretty bad, had the crapped kicked out of him by Omega Red, and jumped out of a thirty story window, and that did him in. Luckily, Maverick was nearby with an adrenaline shot to get him going again (how he got it threw his sternum, I’ll never know, but I guess it doesn’t really matter).
Don’t forget the X-Men annual where Wolverine was killed by the bad guy, but one drop of flying blood touches a magical gem and allows him to will himself back to life. :rolleyes:
I want to know how the Punisher went about killing Galactus!
You mean to say, oh, I dont know, his eye socket? Or, maybe one of the other skull cavities?
I know movies usually aren’t canon, but didn’t he get shot in the head in X2? He looked pretty dead, but then he quickly healed and the bullet got pushed back out.
Didn’t he get his heart ripped out once?
I don’t think they made it clear in X2, but if you think about it, the bullet got stopped by his adamantium-coated skull, so he only had to heal from a concussion.
Back when I was reading X-comics, there was an issue where the X-Men discovered a set of programs called, I believe, “The Xavier Protocols” or something like that, and according to Xavier’s records, in order to kill Wolverine, one would have to cut off his head and remove it from the vicinity of his body to prevent his healing factor from reconnecting the two.
The Punisher used a large, 1920’s style “Death Ray.”
It wasn’t shown if or how the Punisher killed Galactus. One might speculate that he found some clever way of pulling it off. IIRC, there’s only two ways (short of the absurd, i.e., using the Infinity Gauntlet) to get Galactus: starve him or use the Ultimate Nullifier.
As to the “E is for Exctinction” story, this was around the time that the X-characters started developing “secondary mutations.” Morrison was running a sub-plot that mutations were increasing worldwide, and existing mutants were developing further. (Thus, the Beast became Tony the Tiger and the White Queen got her diamond skin.) I took it to mean that Wolvie’s healing factor went from “tough” to cartoonishly-super tough.
And, btw, old age also doesn’t seem to be a problem for Wolvie. Marvel’s running a series called Wolverine: The End which has him around 200 years old in the distant future (although, given the title, something’s gotta get him by the sixth issue).
He was killed in Rachel’s alternate future when a Sentinel incinerated all the flesh from his body.
When I saw this thread I thought of that exact same issue. But, I’m pretty sure Wolverine was pretty much graveyard dead. It was the magical gem that took a drop of his blood and went crazy with his healing factor ability. He wouldn’t have revived on his own, IMO.
Given that Cpl Logan served breifly beside Sgt. Nick Fury in WWII and was no spring chicken even then we can assume that Wolverine is 85 or older in 2003. The distant future must only be 115 years away. 
The back of his eye socket is also laced with adamantium, so a bullet there would just really fucking hurt, then his eye would reform, the bullet would pop out, and he’d be pissed again. If you could somehow aim well enough to get a bullet/projectile/sharp thing in the ocular cavity, then you’ve got him, but that’s some good aim there. I don’t know enough about the process that grafted it on, but you can probably assume his sinus cavities are also laced with the stuff, so even sticking a stiletto up his nose probably won’t work.
And in X-Men 2, the bullet was stopped by his skull. You can hear the dink when it hits. Again, though, from what I’ve seen, that shouldn’t have laid him out at all, just pissed him off.
The book Origins has Wolverine at about age 9 in the late 1890’s, so it’s already been established old age isn’t a real factor for him. I only glanced threw the first issue of The End, but I’ve hated pretty much every character retcon they’ve done of him since they ripped out his adamantium in the first place. That little device could have lead to some great character developement, but then they developed bone claws, made him animalistic, created a really shitty origin story, and things just get worse and worse from there. Basically, I’m expecting that story to be a load of shit as well.
FWIW, the Marvel website states that Wolverine is “a man of more than 120 years.”
I agree that they should stop retconning him.
“retconning?”
Retroactive continuity, Retcon for short. When writers go back and change whatever part of existing history for a character they wish, by writing changes that never originally occured.