It's been almost 20 years since we first caught a glimpse of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in X-Men, and we've been hooked ever since. After an entire X-Men trilogy, a few well-placed cameos in even more X-Men films, and two solo films, it looks like the Wolverine franchise is coming to an end with Logan. As the third film in the solo series, Logan has been teased as Jackman's final outing as the superhero. And — major spoiler alert — if you've seen the movie, you know it just might be. Logan ends with Wolverine, aka Logan, dying. And he didn't just close his eyes and stop breathing on camera — he was actually buried. His fate appears to be sealed, but is Wolverine really dead in Logan?
I'm just going to rip off the band-aid: Wolverine is dead. For real. There, I said it. He went down in blazing glory at the end of Logan, sacrificing himself for Laura and the other mutant children trying to escape to Canada. It was a perfect ending for Wolverine's story — a bitter man going from lone wolf to protector. And he even received a Wolverine-worthy burial, with an X marking his grave instead of a cross. (I'm not crying, you're crying.) At the end of Logan, not only did Wolverine seem very dead, his story felt complete too.
Granted, all of that doesn't mean much in the comic book world. As shown in Logan, there are still dark forces in possession of Wolverine's DNA, and cloning him again wouldn't be too wild of an idea. Then there's all those other X-Men movies still to be made that will take place in the '80s and '90s, following the events of X-Men: Apocalypse, in which Wolverine had a small cameo. Are there ways for Wolverine to be revived in the franchise? Yes. But that doesn't mean that he will be.
Seeing Wolverine take his last breath and die in Logan isn't the only proof we have that Wolverine is, in fact, dead (even in the comic book world). We know Wolverine is dead because Jackman has proclaimed Logan to be his last time wearing the claws. In fact, Jackman knew that Logan would be his last turn as the superhero before he began filming. "When I had the script, I was like, 'Yes.' And when I was shooting the movie, yes. As I sit here today, yes," he told The New York Times about whether Logan would be his last Wolverine film.
It's hard to imagine a world without Wolverine, as Jackman has been playing the role for nearly two decades. He's the thread that ties the entire X-Men movie franchise together, reboots be damned. But, if you're willing to let go of the idea of Jackman as Wolverine, then you probably won't have to live in a Wolverine-less world for very long. Reboots are coming, people. Jackman might be the most iconic Wolverine, but he probably won't be the last.
