Wolverine

Born in Canada in the 19th century, James Howlett discovers his bone claws as a boy, on the day his father is killed. He runs away with Victor, the half-brother who will later become Sabretooth. Thanks to their healing factor, the two go through America's great wars as soldiers who don't die.

William Stryker recruits them into a special ops team. Logan quits the group, tries a quiet life with Kayla and gets dragged back in when he thinks she's been killed. He then agrees to Stryker's experiment: his entire skeleton coated in adamantium, a practically indestructible metal. At the end, an adamantium bullet to the head wipes his memory.

Years later, Logan makes a living in underground fights. He meets Rogue, a teenage runaway, and the two are saved by Cyclops and Storm. At Charles Xavier's school he finds a place, grumbling all the way, and helps stop Magneto's plan at the Statue of Liberty.

In X2, the search for his own past leads him back to Stryker and to Alkali Lake, where the adamantium was implanted. Jean Grey sacrifices herself at the end. In X-Men: The Last Stand, she returns as the Phoenix, kills Xavier and Cyclops and goes out of control. Logan, who was in love with her, is the only one who can get close enough to kill her.

Haunted by Jean's death, Logan goes to Japan in The Wolverine at the invitation of Yashida, a soldier he saved at Nagasaki. There his healing factor is suppressed and he ends up losing his adamantium claws in the fight with the Silver Samurai. The bone ones remain.

In X-Men: Days of Future Past, the future belongs to the Sentinels and mutants are being exterminated. Since his healing factor makes his mind the only one able to survive such a long trip, Logan's consciousness is sent back to 1973 to convince young Charles and Erik to change history. It works. He wakes up in a rewritten present, with Jean and Scott alive again.

In this new timeline, Logan's past also shows up in glimpses. In X-Men: First Class, set in 1962, Charles and Erik find him at a bar, and he curses them off before they can make their pitch. In X-Men: Apocalypse, already turned into Weapon X, he breaks out of Stryker's base in a rampage until Jean Grey calms him down and gives back a piece of his memory.

By 2029, almost no mutants are being born. Logan works as a limo driver near the Mexican border, his body poisoned by his own adamantium and his healing factor failing. He secretly cares for an elderly Charles Xavier, whose brain seizures have already killed people.

Their lives are turned upside down by the arrival of Laura, a girl grown in a lab from Logan's DNA, with the same claws. Hunted by Transigen, they cross the country. Charles is killed by X-24, a clone of Logan, and Logan himself dies after saving Laura and the other kids. At his grave, she tilts the cross on its side to make an X.

Deadpool & Wolverine reveals that death came at a price. The Logan who died in Logan was the anchor being of Deadpool's universe, and without him that reality started dying. Wade Wilson goes out into the multiverse looking for a replacement and comes back with the worst Wolverine possible: a drunk Logan who carries the guilt of having failed the X-Men of his world, who all died.

This Logan finally puts on the yellow-and-blue suit from the comics. He and Wade fight for almost the whole movie, pass through the Void, face Cassandra Nova and end up sharing the strain of the Time Ripper to destroy the machine. Wade's universe is saved, and this Wolverine gets a second chance there, surrounded by people who need him.

Wolverine first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #180 and #181, in 1974, created by Roy Thomas, Len Wein and John Romita Sr. He joined the X-Men the following year and became one of Marvel's most popular characters.