Alternate Cover: Wolverine - The spin-offs

A few years after his introduction, Wolverine became the first member of the Uncanny X-Men to get his own, self-titled spin-off series. Of course, Wolverine’s not without a few spin-offs of his own. Let’s take a look at the various offspring of the man who claims to be the best there is at what he does – and what he apparently does is dodge child support payments.

X-23 (aka Laura Kinney) – First appeared NYX #3 (in comics)
Originally created for the animated series X-Men: Evolution, X-23 is a clone of Wolverine who was grown female, because the genetic sample used was damaged on the Y chromosome. Laura is the 23rd clone (though the first viable one) and has all of Wolverine’s mutant abilities – the exception being that she has a single claw in each foot and two in each arm, rather than three in her arms. Her claws are coated with Adamantium, though the rest of her skeleton is not. Laura was bred to be a weapon, but since joining the X-Men has regained some humanity as a result of being among children her own age – though she may lose some after being assigned to X-Force, the covert black-ops wing of the X-Men, by Cyclops.

Daken (aka, er, Dark Wolverine) – First appeared Wolverine: Origins #10
Daken is the only known biological child of Wolverine known to exist currently. Daken looks like a young adult, though he was actually born in 1946 – like Wolverine, his healing factor slows down his age. Daken shares his father’s powers, though he has the additional ability to suppress his scent, which helps him hide from his father. Like X-23, his claws are a variation on Logan’s, although in this case he has two claws that come from the back of each hand, and a third that comes from the front, protruding through each wrist. Daken has grown up as a remorseless killer who hates Wolverine, and to prove the point, has taken his father’s identity and joined Norman Osborn’s “Dark Avengers” as that team’s “Wolverine”.

Amiko Kobayashi - First appeared Uncanny X-Men #181
Amiko is Wolverine’s adopted daughter, and a human with no mutant abilities or other super-powers. After she and her mother were caught in a battle between Wolverine and a dragon, leading to the death of her mother, Wolverine became her guardian. In practise, Logan tends to leave her with close friends of his to try and ensure she has the stable life that he cannot provide. She currently trains with the Shosei Samurai order, in the hope that she will become capable of defending herself and impressing Wolverine.

Wild Thing (aka Rina Logan) – First appeared J2 #5
Rina exists only in the alternate “MC2” future, although she does have the distinction of being one of Wolverine’s few possible biological children. Rina’s mother is Elektra, the ninja-mercenary best known for being played in risible fashion by Jennifer Garner in Daredevil and the eponymous film. Rina has the same healing factor as Wolverine, although her claws are psychic manifestations that tend to cause mental, rather than physical harm – a trick she learnt from her godmother, the X-Man Psylocke.

Whether or not Wolverine has any more children is hard to say – the character has been around the block a few times, that’s for sure, so chances are that there might be more out there – the real question is whether we’ll see any turn up on the big screen or not! Sequel, anyone?

James writes Alternate Cover every Monday at Den Of Geek. His previous column can be found here.