Rumor: Wolverine To Die In 2014?

I usually try to stay away from gossip in the same way I try to stay away from Mormon, Tea Party rallies, and AA meetings. But when a rumor comes along that's more outrageous than a priest being caught in a prostitution sting, I just have to report it. Earlier today, our friends at Bleeding Cool posted this little nugget.

The Death of Wolverine in 2014?

I understand that, spinning out of gossip from the Marvel Creative Summit this last week, that next year there is a plan at Marvel to kill Wolverine. In a way that gets round his healing factor and his seems supernatural deal to keep coming back from the grave.

That it may involve the effects of time travel on his body as a result of the Age Of Ultron upcoming series. And also the idea that, even given his reputation as a bloodthirsty killer, this time he may have gone too far…

This is currently just rumour and gossip, but Wolverine will be probably playing a time travel role in the X-Men Days Of Future Past film next year. Who knows, maybe it will have further implications?

In terms of dipshit ideas, this ranks right up there with anything in Rick Santorum's presidential campaign. Killing Wolverine? Marvel's most popular character and the major star of four X-men movies? Has Marvel really gotten that desperate? It's not enough to piss off Spider-Man fans by mind-fucking Peter Parker with the brain of Doc Ock, but are they really willing to piss off Wolverine fans and the women that want to bone him?

Moreover, this shit has been tried before and it hasn't translated into long-term success. Marvel foolishly killed Wolverine (and a fuckton of other characters) in Ultimate and replaced him with a hillbilly, de-aged rip-off. And according to the latest sales stats for January 2013, Ultimate X-men is selling worse than an issue of Wolverine MAX. Another good example is X-men Forever. Haven't read up on that series for a while? Well there's a good reason for that. Because it got fucking canceled! Chris Claremont killed off Wolverine in the first few issues of this series. After just a couple years, the series burned out worse than Vanilla Ice's rap career. Even if this shit is temporary, it's still a fucking stupid idea.

But perhaps I'm being too subtle. After all, they have plenty of reasons for doing something like this. Believe it or not, I get why Marvel likes to kill off big characters. It's not their fault. It's ours. It's us, the fans. For reasons that would make Aristotle himself blow his brains out, we still buy into this shit. We give Marvel our money. And if they find out tomorrow that fans will buy a couple stacks of paper with a dick on each page, they'll fucking do it and they'll keep doing it until it stops working. The sad truth is these tactics of killing big name characters still work. And we have nobody to blame but ourselves. So I guess I can't be mad at Marvel. I have to be mad at fans like myself. Fuck, that sucks. I need a drink. Nuff said!