X-Men '97 Just Gave Wolverine's Bone Claws A Hilarious Twist

Spoilers for "X-Men '97" Season 2 Episode 1 follow. 

When "X-Men '97" Season 1 ended, Wolverine's (Cal Dodd) fate was up in the air. After Logan stabbed Magneto in the back, the Master of Magnetism decided to declaw Wolverine permanently by ripping the adamantium off his skeleton. "Tolerance is Extinction" concluded with Logan bedridden and unconscious. Could even his healing factor keep him alive?

Yes, of course it could. (What — did you expect an "X-Men" show without Wolverine?) "X-Men '97" Season 2, Episode 1, "Days of Past Future," clears up Logan's fate alongside those of Morph (JP Karliak) and Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith), who were also MIA at the end of Season 1. All three were sent into the far future (3960 AD) alongside Cyclops (Ray Chase) and Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale). The five X-Men have joined rebels led by Mother Askani (Gates McFadden) and been fighting against the forces of Apocalypse, who rules this barren dystopia of a future. 

As Marvel fans probably knew, Wolverine isn't quite as depowered as Magneto intended. His claws are actually made of bone, and were only coated in adamantium. Even the episode's intro sequence is tweaked to give Wolverine bone claws in his title card. But this puts Wolverine at a disadvantage against Apocalypse's robotic enforcers. Previously, his metal claws could slice through such robots easily. Bone, though, is more brittle than metal. When Wolverine goes to work slicing the robots, he shatters his claws and they have to regrow.

There's an especially funny bit when Wolverine leaps onto a robot and tries to slice its head off — only his claws break, his eyes go wide, and he screams like he just stubbed his toe. So, Logan rips the robot's head off instead.

"X-Men '97" giving Wolverine bone claws means the show is undergoing the same retcon as the comics. Up until 1993's "X-Men" comic "Fatal Attractions" (a primary influence for Magneto's heel turn in "Tolerance is Extinction") when Wolverine lost his adamantium, his claws were understood to be artificial implants. 

That's definitely how "X-Men: The Animated Series" portrayed them. Season 2's "Repo Man" flashes back to the Weapon X experiment where Wolverine was bonded to the adamantium. When the claws first pop out of his knuckles, he's horrified. Later, Mister Sinister disables the X-Men's mutant powers. Wolverine, though, can still use his claws because according to him, "There's nothing mutant about these!" (Without his healing factor, it is incredibly painful to unsheath them, though.)

Then there's Season 5's "Old Soldiers," about Logan teaming up with Captain America (Lawrence Bayne) during World War 2. Wolverine explicitly does not have his claws — but he does wear some climbing gloves that have metal blades attached, saying they "aren't half bad."

Retcons can be good; Magneto's backstory as a Holocaust survivor wasn't introduced until 1981, almost two decades after he debuted. But I hold that the bone claws weaken Wolverine's character. It undermines the tragedy and body horror of his past; Weapon X stripped away all his humanity and implanted the claws because they saw Logan as a weapon or a beast, not a human being. The claws' only purpose is to kill, and many of Logan's stories are about him rising above his killer instinct.

Regardless, it's all but confirmed Logan will get his adamantium back; the "X-Men '97" Season 2 trailer shows him with metal claws. How this transpires remains to be seen.

"X-Men '97" is streaming on Disney+.