Wolverine is one of the most violent characters in the Marvel Universe, and the X-Man takes it up a notch in Savage Avengers #15.
In Savage Avengers #15 (by Gerry Duggan and Patch Zircher), an Avengers team including Wolverine, the Punisher and Hellstrom proved why they are among Marvel’s deadliest heroes. The team went after the Priest of Sickles, a ruthless mystic who began spreading his dark influence through drugs that transformed users into zombie-like creatures.
After Wolverine and his teammates tracked down their man, Logan ensured the Priest of Sickles’ reign of terror came to an end by murdering the villain, and it may have been one of most brutal kills in all of Marvel’s history.
Wolverine’s Most Violent Murder Took Place in Savage Avengers
Wolverine has enacted fatal justice against quite a few enemies over his nearly 200 years of life, but the dispatching of the Priest of Sickles outdid all his other murderous acts. After the Punisher unleashed a reign of bullets on the priest, Wolverine dragged the villain to a woodchipper and threw him in, shredding him into a messy pile of blood and gore. To top it all off, Wolverine then instructed Hellstrom to incinerate the remains for good measure.
While this might seem like a case of overkill, Wolverine was avenging his friend Saviano, who was killed in the first issue of Savage Avengers. The viciousness of this killing also sent a message to the Priest of Sickles’ master, Kulan Gath, whose plans to take on Shuma-Gorath’s god-like power made him an existential threat.
Wolverine Can’t Escape His History of Bloodshed
Although he is a hero, Wolverine is no stranger to killing. Prior to his vicious shredding of the Priest, Wolverine previously beheaded his longtime enemy Sabretooth in Wolverine #55 (by Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi), and slaughtered his adult illegitimate children in Jason Aaron and Renato Guedes’ Wolverine #10-13. Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Old Man Logan storyline even had Wolverine ripping an alternate universe Hulk in half from the inside.
While these deaths all rank high on the list of the most horrific murders committed by Wolverine (or anyone else in the Marvel Universe), they pale in comparison to the sheer savagery displayed in the Priest of Sickles’ grisly demise. While Logan usually only inflicts lethal injuries in self-defense and stops when his enemy’s death is certain, here he acted out of spite, maximizing his victim’s pain. Normally Wolverine avoids taking lives, but Savage Avengers #15 shows why Wolverine is still the best there is at what he does, even if what he does isn’t very nice.
