Wolverine Names His New Son After an Iconic X-Men Hero (Who Joined at the Same Time)

Warning: contains spoilers for Weapon X-Men #2!As Wolverine‘s new son and daughter enter Marvel lore, it’s revealed that Logan has chosen to honor some of the biggest influences on his life – including an X-Men rival who few fans would suspect he respects so highly. From his biological kids Laura and Akihiro to unofficial ‘cubs’ like Quentin Quire and Jubilee, Wolverine has a huge family, but these new additions are particularly meaningful.

In Weapon X-Men #2, fans get to see an actual happy ending for Wolverine. Chasing a new version of the villainous Onslaught across the multiverse, the comic’s team of Wolverines from different realities arrive on a world where the X-Men succeeded in their goal of safeguarding mutants. They arrive on the day of an engagement party, as Wolverine’s foster-daughter Amiko is about to marry Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor’s son Nate. This world’s Wolverine then arrives, revealing that in this blissful timeline, he ended up with arguably the love of his life, Mariko Yashida.

Not only are Mariko and Logan together on this world, but they have three children: Amiko (Wolverine and Mariko’s foster daughter, who also exists in Marvel’s mainstream canon), Elizabeth (named for Logan’s mother) and Shiro (named for Wolverine’s longtime X-Men ally Sunfire, who is also Mariko’s cousin.)

Wolverine Gets a Happy Ending with Mariko

Logan Names His Son After X-Men’s Sunfire

In Weapon X-Men, an alternate reality’s Jean Grey has assembled a team of Wolverines from different realities, intent on destroying the multiversal threat of the new Onslaught. The heroes have been chosen for their indefatigable nature, moral flexibility, and familiarity with the people and stakes the hunt necessitates. Onslaught is capable of hiding within the minds of mutants, making each new reality a fresh crime scene where the Weapon X-Men have to discover who has been possessed.

In Weapon X-Men #2, the team discover that Onslaught is hiding within the mind of Cyclops and Madelyne’s son Nate, but are actually able to free him from the villain’s control thanks to some major quick thinking. However, Jean (who is native to this universe) finds herself blamed for Onslaught’s arrival, and the issue ends with these tragic Wolverines and their leader kicked out of the engagement party, underscoring how there’s no place for them in a world where things actually worked out for the X-Men.

Wolverine & Sunfire Have a Long, Complicated Relationship

The Two Have Served on Both the X-Men & Avengers Together

While Wolverine and Cyclops’ kids marrying is a perfect ending to their rivalry, some fans might be surprised that Logan would name his son after Sunfire. A former X-Men enemy introduced in Roy Thomas and Don Heck’s X-Men #64, Shiro Yoshida joined the team in Giant-Sized X-Men #1 – Len Wein and Dave Cockrum’s franchise-shaping reboot which introduced a new team including stalwarts like Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine. A prideful and irascible hero, Sunfire left the team after their first mission, but he’s remained an ally and sometime member ever since, often serving alongside Wolverine.

While the two have butted heads throughout Marvel history, Wolverine has an abiding respect for Sunfire. Indeed, when Captain America launched the Avengers’ Unity Squad – an attempt to promote human/mutants relations, also known as the Uncanny Avengers team – Wolverine reached out to Sunfire during one of his darkest moments, recruiting him to the team. Sunfire also worked with Wolverine’s daughter Laura Kinney (who also uses the codename Wolverine) on the main X-Men roster following the first Hellfire Gala, appealing to his fellow mutants to elect him to the team.

While both are hotheaded, often lethal heroes, Wolverine and Sunfire’s real bond is through Mariko. Logan’s one-time fiancée, Mariko is connected to the sprawling Clan Yashida – a major crime syndicate operating out of Japan. Mariko is related to both Sunfire (her cousin) and the villainous Silver Samurai (her half-brother, Kenuichio Harada), as well as being the daughter of the villainous crimelord Lord Shingen. It therefore makes sense that, in this world, Mariko and Logan settled on naming their son Shiro in reference to their heroic family member.

Wolverine’s Happy Ending Is a Bittersweet Reveal

Wolverine’s Connection to Clan Yashida Has Resulted in His Best and Darkest Moments

Wolverine’s engagement to Mariko is one of his most famous stories, especially since she called off their wedding in Chris Claremont and Paul Smith’s Uncanny X-Men #173, echoing Wolverine’s deep worry that he wasn’t worthy of her love (in fact, she was being manipulated by the villainous Mastermind.) Sucked into the Japanese underworld due to her family’s connections, she was later poisoned, and Wolverine ended up killing her at her request to stop her suffering. This being comics, Mariko later returned to life, becoming the vigilante known as the Scarlet Samurai – however, by that point she felt that it was no longer possible for her and Logan to reclaim the simple love they’d lost.

Seeing Wolverine and Mariko end up together is the ‘happy ending’ Logan himself would likely have chosen, at least for most of his life in Marvel comics. The issue also reveals that Earth’s heroes have effectively ended the threat of worldwide supervillainy, with the Avengers now concerned with individual crimes rather than Earth-threatening attacks. Wolverine naming his daughter Elizabeth also suggests that in this world, he discovered and reconciled with his past. It’s hard to think of any Marvel story that has depicted a happy ending for Wolverine so grounded in his actual narrative journey.

Weapon X-Men Is an Exploration of Wolverine’s Multi-Faceted Life & Potential

The Series Is Exploring the Different Ways Wolverine’s Story Could End

So far, Weapon X-Men has done a great job of imagining different endings to Logan’s story – from his joyful family-man life this issue, to the first issue’s reveal of a world where Wolverine and Cyclops died fighting side by side, saving the world from an alien invasion. In Marvel’s mainstream comics, Wolverine’s story is designed never to truly end, however the publisher has always used alt-realities and timelines to offer fans satisfying ‘endings’ for their favorite characters. Weapon X-Men is doing a fantastic job not just of presenting satisfying endings to Wolverine’s story, but of offering fans of different X-Men eras their own definitive conclusions. For fans of the iconic ‘Claremont Run’ of X-Men, this issue is the ideal epilogue.

Of course, the flipside of Wolverine’s happy ending is that it’s witnessed by a group of Logans who can never achieve it. From the undead Logan who craves flesh to the Wolverine of the Wastelands who was tricked into massacring his found family, these Wolverines are the worst-case scenarios for how his story could end. Hunting Onslaught offers them a second chance at making the world a better place, but it’s also exposing them to a full realization of exactly what they lost.

Like any great Marvel comic, Weapon X-Men is an action-filled romp on the surface, while also acting as a character study of Wolverine and Jean Grey – exposing what matters most to these iconic X-Men heroes and the losses that have shaped them over their decades of stories. And for fans of Wolverine‘s always-expanding family tree, it’s rare that X-Men ever wastes a good alternate reality, so expect to see Shiro and Elizabeth return at some time in the future.

Weapon X-Men #2 is available now from Marvel Comics.