In September 2014, comicbook readers are going to see The Death of Wolverine which follows the current Wolverine series Three Months to Die. Charles Soule will be spearheading The Death of Wolverine arc which will conclude with the Legacy of Logan. Previously, Fatal Attractions ripped adamantium from his bones, Battle of the Atom recently took away Logan’s healing factor, and Jason Aaron at one point turned Wolverine into a Marvelized Dante and sent Wolverine to Hell and Heaven. However, we’ve yet to experience Wolverine being killed off in such a way that merit a macabre six month long marketing campaign. After all, why not? What else are writers supposed to do with an invulnerable super soldier other than hack up the aforementioned plot devices? We’ve already created doppelgangers in the form of Daken, his son, and Sabertooth, his sometimes relative, just to have Wolverine kill them again and again.

So why should we care? As comicbook readers should know, ever since Superman came back to life no hero has ever stayed dead. Unless you’re a civilian or a love interest, it has become an unspoken rule that heroes will come back again and again no matter how many times we confirm the dead body. Currently, we’re looking at it taking three months for Logan to begin dying, another month before we declare him dead, then another two months of talking about Logan being dead before Logan will most likely come back from the dead.

Or, will he? There are some conspirators out there who think this is the start of canceling the X titles altogether. This is stemmed from the announcement that Marvel is currently making plans to cancel the Fantastic Four series in September. One of the possible rumors behind the cancellation is to snub the licensing agreement between Fox and Marvel. By the way, Fox is the same studio who is responsible for the X Men franchise. In addition, rumors from undisclosed sources say writers and artists are no longer allowed to make new characters for the X titles. The reason being that it will give Fox more creative properties to potentially work with in future movie installments. Despite Brian Michael Bendis dispelling these rumors with reason and logic, he doesn’t completely address all the issues. In fact, in a recent interview Bendis contributes the success of Marvel to the Ultimate Marvel titles and Sony’s Spider Man Trilogy. However, Fox’s X Men also coincided with this time frame. It is unclear what naïve deal Marvel made with Fox while going through bankruptcy, but give credit where credit is due.

What if DC Presents the Death of Wolverine: Legacy of Logan? For those of you who are out of the loop Charles Soule in recent years had done a phenomenal run on Swamp Thing and Superman/Wonder Woman and the best parts of Forever Evil’s Villain Month were usually penned by Charles Soule. Now, it isn’t unusual for us to see creators consistently bounce back and forth between the big two. However, each issue of Legacy of Logan has a different creative team which consists of Charles Soule, Ray Fawkes, James Tynion IV, Kyle Higgins,Marguerite Bennett, and Tim Seely. This may seem odd because this is the same creative team who is currently behind DC’s major crossover events, Batman Eternal and DC’s Future’s End. Currently, Marvel is backing this event with a great deal of marketing. In fact, Marvel crossovers are mainly done by their in house writers and staff. Doesn’t it seem hypocritical to pull properties because they don’t want to support their competitors; meanwhile, they’re hiring the competitors talent pool? Now, the reason I find this simply amazing isn’t because I believe that Charles Soule is a not-so-secret double agent who is currently administrating a coup against the Marvel HQ in the name of DC. Hail Hydra … err I mean rather, What If this is setting us up for another DC/Marvel crossover which will be used to bring Logan & Co. back from the dead? Previously, when creative teams jump back and forth between the big two it wasn’t long before we’d see this exact team up. Although I’ve grown tired of the industry killing off popular characters in order to make a quick buck like they were some gun for hire, I have to admit every team up needs some sort of motivational factor and maybe this is as good as any. 

Is this Marvel event the beginnings to a Big 2 Crossover Event, is this another blow to Fox, or is it simply a gimmick? Only time will tell.