Although Wolverine is dead, his influence continues to be felt by his friends and enemies. The surviving experiments from Paradise have joined forces with four of Wolverine's enemies (and X-23) to recover Logan's adamantium-encased body in hopes that his Healing Factor is the key to fixing the genetic timebomb engineered into them by Paradise, which could kill them at any time. The Wolverines themselves have agreed (read: been coerced) into helping by the means of four trigger words implanted in them sometime in the past by Dr. Cornelius, as Shogun, leader of the Paradise crew, promises to purge the words from them upon securing Logan's remains.
Wolverines contains examples of the following tropes:
- Always Save the Girl: It's revealed in the final issue that the reason why Mystique got involved in this whole mess was to find a way to resurrect her dead lover, Destiny. When she learns that the plan she got from Destiny was actually to trick Mystique into resurrecting Wolverine, she refuses to go through with it.
- An Arm and a Leg: Daken loses an arm to Sinister, who absconds with both it, one of his eyes, and Logan's remains at the end of issue 1.
- Art Shift: Every issue is drawn and colored by a different artist, which gives each issue a unique feel. The success of this, however, tends to vary, as the inconsistent art has been the main point of contention about the series.
- Deliberately invoked in issue 13: Deadpool's fight with She-Hulk is deliberately colored to mimic the look of The Incredible Hulk #181, the issue in which Wolverine made his first full appearance.
- Back from the Dead: Issue 7 reveals Mystique's end-game is to bring Destiny back to life. Issue 20 reveals that Destiny's end-game was to bring Logan back to life. Mystique isn't exactly happy to learn this.
- Bed Trick: In issue 7 Mystique actually uses this as a threat against X-23.Mystique transforms into Teen!Warren.
Laura: Warren...
Mystique: Oh yes, Laura. Warren. Think of this moment the next time he wraps you in the warmth of his wings. Think...and wonder whose hands are actually touching you. Or perhaps I'll make love to him as you...do the things he wants but is afraid to ask for, because of your...past. - Berserk Button: When Junk uses the control words to knock out Daken after Sinister takes his arm and eye and, without his Healing Factor, is in danger of bleeding out, X-23 nearly loses it in outrage.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Siphon corners Fantomelle to feed on her Healing Factor, he's interrupted when X-23 blows his hands off with a shotgun.
- Issue five ends with the Wolverines and Paradise crews separated; The Wolverines are about to be overwhelmed by an army of Ben Reillys and Neuro offers to sell them out to Sinister in exchange for his help curing them. Sinister is about to put his final plans for Wolverine's corpse in motion when the Amazing X-Men arrive.
- Badass Crew: X-23, Daken, Sabretooth, Mystique, and Lady Deathstrike are all forced to team up for a common purpose. Add in Shogun, and you have a very impressive collection of badass.
- Brought Down to Normal: Daken begins the series with his Healing Factor stripped from him by Siphon. The only other member of the cast who was aware of this was Laura.
- in issue 20, X, Sabretooth, and Deathstrike all have their healing factors drained, as well.
- Call-Back: To AXIS. In Sinister's fortress, Sabretooth tries to explain his new attitude as being a result of what happened to him on Genosha, but the rest of the team doesn't buy it. Notably this includes Mystique, who was also affected by Scarlet Witch's inversion spell, but was reverted back at the end of the event. Whether this is an oversight by the writers or Mystique is deliberately not supporting Creed has yet to be revealed.
- Chekhov's Gun: A syringe of the regen serum Kitty Pryde used to heal Wolverine in issue 3 of The Death Of Wolverine returns, when Sharp uses it on Daken when he lies dying after Sinister ripped off his arm and eye while his Healing Factor was broken.
- It comes up again in #19, when Sinister uses it on Shogun to try and end their duel: Shogun had been mortally wounded during the fighting in #18, which allowed Ogun to regain total control of the body he shares with Sharp, and Sinister correctly reasoned that healing Shogun would cause Ogun's personality to be suppressed once again. Not that it helped Sinister in the end.
- Cliffhanger: The last issue ends with Mystique not reviving Wolverine and leaving the rest of the surviving cast for dead. This can be somewhat forgiven though, because Secret Wars happened shortly after.
- The Cloud Cuckoolander Was Right: Deadpool spends issue 13 running around trying to be the new Wolverine, because he's decided the world needs Wolverine. And then issue 20 reveals he was right all along. Destiny foresaw that Wolverine was a lynchpin in saving the multiverse from the Incursions that were due to destroy it.
- Cool Plane: Changeling, Mystique's floating spaceship thing, which comes complete with a cloaking device.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover to issue five shows X-23 and Sabretooth in the middle of a fight. This scene never happens in the book.
- Crazy-Prepared: Sinister, natch.
- Destination Defenestration: Fantomelle's boyfriend gets unceremoniously tossed out a window by Siphon, though Sabretooth saves him during his fall.
- What She-Hulk does to Deadpool when she gets fed up with his antics in her office. Being Deadpool, he shrugs it off.
- Due to the Dead: Daken insists in issue 1 that once they recover Logan's remains, that they are to be treated with respect.
- Once a year Fang meets with Logan to beat the crap out of things. This year he shows up only to discover Logan has died. After initially attacking the group, whom he recognizes as Wolverine's enemies (and Laura) believing they're responsible, once the confusion is (sort of) cleared up he decides the best way to honor him is to continue his and Logan's tradition, and take each of them on safari to kill something.
- Dynamic Entry: X's arrival at Fantomelle's apartment when she's under attack by Siphon.
- In issue five, Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler bamf into the heart of Sinister's lair while he's distracted observing the Wolverines and Paradise Crew, and working on Logan's remains.
- Deadpool smashes through the window of She-Hulk's office because he's decided his first act as "Wolverine" is he needs to fight a Hulk.
- Foreshadowing: In issue 12 Fantomelle keeps one of Wolverine's old costumes rather than turning it over to Deadpool along with the rest of the memorabilia she recovered as part of the job they hired her for. In issue 13 she gives this costume to X-23 as a "thank you" for saving her in issue 3. Several months later Marvel announced that Laura would be taking up the Wolverine mantle as part of the relaunch at the conclusion of Secret Wars (See
What Could Have Been on the Trivia tab). - Gambit Pileup: Throughout the series Mystique has been manipulating the others towards her own ends to varying degrees of overtness. #16 reveals that Sinister has had his own plans in motion ever since his previous defeat, maneuvering the Wolverines and remaining Paradise members into a trap, directly threatening Mystique's plans.
- Gender Bender: Before Paradise got hold of her, Endo was a man.
- Greed: The Wrecking Crew are only at Paradise because Sinister hired them to find Wolverine's remains. Mystique takes advantage of this to secure her own team's exit after Sinister absconds with the corpse and Daken's arm and eye by bribing them. Since Sinister already has what he came for and the job's done, and it now means getting paid twice for the same job, the Crew accepts and allows them to depart.
- Heel–Face Turn: Sabretooth begins the series Inverted after the events of AXIS. This leads to an amusing exchange in issue 1 when Sharp expresses his distrust of Creed after he recently tried to kill him twice (in The Weapon X Project and The Logan Legacy), and Creed honestly asks Sharp if he would believe if he's changed. Sharp's answer is a laconic "No."
- Idiot Ball: Grabbed by pretty much everyone in the finale: After being trapped with Siphon by Mystique, Sabretooth, X-23, and Deathstrike get their healing factors drained one-by-one by Siphon because they essentially attack him one at a time. Additionally, Shogun and Daken — the two characters who can safely take him on — just stand by and watch, with Shogun only stepping in when Siphon finishes Creed and Laura and turns on Deathstrike. Afterwards, when they finally escape they use Siphon as a bloodhound to track Mystique down, but rather than actually turning him against her (because her healing abilities are still working) Deathstrike decides to decapitate him just to make a point. Then Mystique uses some sort of gas bomb to escape, at which point the entire team scatters to find her even though they're looking for a shapeshifter, and the safest way to deal with her would be to stay together so they can keep track of who is who. Laura also forgets that she figured out how to recognize Mystique when she's in disguise. End result: Mystique ambushes them one-by-one, and leaves them for dead to carry out her plans.
- Really, Mystique seems to carry a rather large one with her at all times that she's immune to, but affects everyone around her.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Issue 13, fittingly, due to the appearance of Deadpool; Wade decides the world needs to have a Wolverine and takes it upon himself to do so, while failing spectacularly and being rejected by the X-Men, Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., and Alpha Flight. After being defeated by Dogtagger, Punisher, Black Widow, and Captain America (read: snikting himself in the head), Wade wonders why he couldn't do it, and Dogtagger immediately asks him why he thought replacing Wolverine would be easy. When one remembers the widespread fan speculation over the possibility of a "Battle of the Cowl" following Logan's death...
- Let's You and Him Fight: Issue 8 begins with this between Fang and the Wolverines. Fang believes the group (all of whom except X-23 being his enemies) are responsible and attacks them. Laura mostly clears up the confusion and talk him down, but Mystique is still determined to find a way to kill him anyway.
- MacGuffin: Wolverine's adamantium-covered corpse.
- Meta Fiction: Issue 13 has a very distinctly meta feel in its A-plot, appropriately starring Deadpool. Deadpool's entire experience comes across as the writer directly addressing the reader speculation of who would take over for Wolverine after his death, by highlighting just how difficult it is for Legacy Characters to find acceptance. That the issue ended with Fantomelle giving X-23 one of Logan's costumes only further fueled the debate.
- The Mole: Mystique is secretly working at cross-purposes to the rest of the group, and is using them to advance her own goals thanks to information provided to her by Destiny.
- Mythology Gag: The Clone Saga gets a nod when the Wolverines encounter an army of Ben Reillys, including a remark that Sinister found it amusing to use Reilly as a template for an army of clones.
- All over the place in issue 13, courtesy of Deadpool.
- Noodle Incident: While tracking Sinister in issue 2, Neuro mentions that when Cornelius experimented on the Wolverines that he implanted a genetic tracking device in them, which they can use to find Sinister's lab. However much like The Logan Legacy, when and how Cornelius captured the group has yet to be explained.
- Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: Fantomelle's boyfriend tries to drive off Siphon when he attacks their apartment seeking to feed on her Healing Factor. He has this reaction when Siphon No Sells the punch to the jaw he delivers right before Siphon chucks him out a window.
- Right Behind Me: In #16 Junk goes into a frustrated rant about the Wolverines, calling them all monsters. Just as X-23 walks into the room behind him.
- Send in the Clones: With Sinister as the primary antagonist, this goes without saying. The Wolverines encounter an army of Ben Reillys while the Paradise Crew has to deal with a clone of Fin Fang Foom (with a clone of Thor
as his tongue). All of Sinister's mooks we see are clones with Theme Naming.- In #16 Sinister is revealed to have created clones of Daken using his arm.
- Sequel Series: To The Death of Wolverine, The Weapon X Project, and The Logan Legacy.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: By the end of the series, nothing has been accomplished, with each of the characters unable to fulfill their wanted goals.
- Split Personality: Shogun is a combination of two people: The body and mind of a former Delta Force soldier named Sharp who was granted enhanced tactical ability by Paradise, and Ogun, Wolverine's one-time mentor and a spirit who has been Body Surfing ever since Logan killed him. Sharp's personality is usually the dominant one, though Ogun can exert influence as well. They tend not to agree on their courses of action.
- Suicide Mission: After Sinister gets hold of Wolverine's body in issue 1, the team is left with no other choice but attempt to raid Sinister's base to get it back. Mystique immediately calls out just how insane this will be to try, given it's Sinister we're talking about. Crazy-Prepared doesn't even cover it
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Wolverines themselves. Though X-23 and Daken already had a more or less functional understanding and relationship, the rest of the group were very unlikely to ever work together given the choice, and Laura was the only undeniably good character in the group (though Daken generally leans more towards Anti-Villain and Anti-Hero), and the friction between them was actually a selling point of the book. There's also the fact that the group is not working with Shogun and the Paradise crew willingly: Most of them are only there because he has promised to clear the trigger words from them, and because he essentially blackmailed them by threatening to use them to kill them if they decline his "offer."
- This actually gets twisted and played with right from the start, as Sabretooth is inverted after Axis.
- Time Skip: One of an indeterminate length occurs between The Logan Legacy and Wolverines, allowing for the events of AXIS to invert Sabretooth
- Token Good Teammate: Laura is the only one of Logan's past associates who was a friend and ally, being his Opposite-Sex Clone and adopted daughter. Sabretooth could also qualify considering he begins the series Inverted. Endo is this for the Paradise crew, being the only one of the experiments who was not a criminal, a killer, or otherwise violent before Paradise got hold of her.
- Took a Level in Badass: The Wrecking Crew, often depicted as something of a joke, actually present themselves as a legitimate threat. Mystique ultimately resorts to bribing them to let the rest of the group leave Paradise, since Sinister already has what he wants and they'll now be getting paid double for the job.
- Unexplained Recovery: Despite apparently having been killed by the Brood, Fang shows up in issue 8 with the only explanation for his survival being "I'm Lupak."
- While Rome Burns: Issue 20 reveals that the plan Mystique was given to follow by Destiny turns out not to be intended to bring her back, but Logan, instead: Destiny had a vision that revealed Wolverine was going to be a central figure in saving reality from the Incursions, so manipulated Mystique into bringing him back because the world needed a Wolverine if it was going to survive. When Mystique learned the truth of this, she didn't take it well and refused to carry out Destiny's plan. She preferred to let existence die than resurrect Logan.
- You Monster!: X-23 says this to Mystique when the latter tries to murder Fang.
