Born in 19th century Canada to rich plantation owners, James Howlett grows into manhood on a mining colony in Northern Alberta, adopting the name "Logan", which is the last name of the plantation groundskeeper, Thomas Logan and his son Dog. [15] Logan leaves the colony and lives for a time in the wilderness among wolves, until returning to civilization, residing with the Blackfoot Indians. Following the death of his Blackfoot paramour, Silver Fox, he is ushered into a Canadian military unit. Logan then spends some time in Madripoor, developing his "Patch" persona; before settling in Japan, where he marries and has a son.
During World War II, Logan teams with Captain America versus HYDRA, and continues a career as a soldier-of-fortune/adventurer. Logan works for the First Canadian Parachute Battalion[16] and the CIA before being recruited for Team X.
As a member of Team X, Logan is given false memory implants. He continues on the team, until he is able to break free of the mental control and joins the Canadian Defense Ministry. Logan is subsequently kidnapped by Weapon X, where he remains captive and experimented on, until his rescue by the Winter Soldier, after which he returns to the Canadian wilderness. It is during his imprisonment by Weapon X that he has unbreakable adamantium forcibly fused into his bones.
Logan is eventually discovered by James and Heather Hudson, who help him recover his humanity. Following his recovery, Logan, this time under the supervision of Department H, once again works for Canadian Intelligence. Logan becomes Wolverine, one of Canada's first superheroes. In his first mission, he is dispatched to stop the destruction caused by a brawl between the Hulk and the Wendigo.
Professor X recruits Wolverine to a new team of X-Men.[17] Disillusioned with his Canadian intelligence work and intrigued by Xavier's offer, Logan resigns from Department H. However, this only happened as recently discovered (2008) in the "Sins Of The Father" story arc after Professor X actually wipes Logan's memories and forces him to join the X-Men after Wolverine was sent on a assassination attempt to kill Xavier. This is a major story edit that changes the history of the character in a huge way because it opens up his past. After all one of the long standing character traits of Wolverine has always been his inability to remember his past and how his memory loss came to be. If his memory wipe and mental blocks were created by Professor X as a manipulation shortly before becoming an X-Man it would open his pre-X-Man past for major re-evaluation. Luckily for Logan and his fans his memories have all been recovered to him and his story lines over the coming years will delve more and more in to his past as he continues to adventure as a superhero.[18]
In X-Men #25 (1993), at the culmination of the "Fatal Attractions" crossover, the supervillain Magneto forcibly removes the adamantium from Wolverine's skeleton. This massive trauma causes his healing factor to burn out and also leads to the discovery that his claws are actually bone. Wolverine leaves the X-Men for a time, embarking on a series of adventures during which his healing factor returns, greatly increased in speed and efficiency. After his return to the X-Men, Cable's son Genesis kidnaps Wolverine and attempts to re-bond adamantium to his skeleton.[19] This is unsuccessful and causes Wolverine's mutation to accelerate out of control. He is temporarily changed into a semi-sentient beast-like form in which he gains greater physical power than ever before, at the price of part of his humanity; he kills Genesis shortly after this occurs. Finally, the villain Apocalypse captures Wolverine, brainwashes him, and has the adamantium re-bonded to his skeleton successfully. Wolverine overcomes Apocalypse's programming and returns to the X-Men.