Warning! This article contains spoilers for Wolverine #19
Since the series that redefined the Wolverine rightfully hates. Wolverine has been defined as a loner survivalist, even as a main member of the X-Men he still occasionally went off on solo missions that oftentimes pitted him against nature in a fight for his own survival. Every mutant survival need is met on Krakoa without worry or struggle, something Wolverine can’t stand. While Wolverine’s disdain for the X-Men’s new home is pretty surface-level, the problematic nature of Krakoa perhaps transcends even his own understanding while giving merit to his feelings of hatred.
In Wolverine #19 by Benjamin Percy and Javier Fernandez, Wolverine is hunting a gigantic sea monster that has been killing a number of mutants who swim in the ocean off the coast of Krakoa. Throughout his hunt, Wolverine has a constant internal monologue that tells readers exactly how he feels about the X-Men’s new island home. Wolverine says he misses the fight for survival and hates how everything is handed to him. Logan fully enjoys hunting the leviathan out in the ocean because it is the first time he has found himself in real danger since moving to the island. Wolverine is successful in killing the beast, feeling fulfilled in the fact that he once again bested a powerful force of nature in a world where that kind of effort is no longer necessary.
As a loner survivalist, Wolverine was eager to get his hands dirty again before returning to the secluded paradise of Krakoa. While Wolverine simply hates Krakoa because everything is handed to him, he has plenty of other reasons to despise the nature of the X-Men’s move there that goes beyond his preferred living conditions and puts into question the nature of the entire team’s sense of heroism. Since the X-Men decided to leave human society and form their own mutant nation, they stopped being heroes akin to the Avengers and became something more like an army fighting only for a specific country than for the greater good. The X-Men no longer fight for the good of the world, they now only fight for themselves and the good of mutantkind. When there is a threat that doesn’t necessarily impact mutants but greatly threatens others, the X-Men now turn a blind eye to the problem where they once would step in and fight for what is right for its own sake.
The best example of the X-Men’s departure from super-heroism is in the new Marvel Comics event Devil’s Reign in which the Kingpin makes it illegal for someone to be a superhero and turns a number of villains into law enforcement officials to conduct the arrests of those heroes. When making an official statement on the matter, the representative of Krakoa, Storm, basically says that as long as no harm comes to mutants, the X-Men will not get involved. The lives of the heroes the X-Men once fought side-by-side with are now in mortal danger, but because the law doesn’t target mutants, the X-Men refuse to help proving that they stopped being heroes the second they formed their own nation on Krakoa.
While the lack of heroism exhibited by the X-Men wasn’t one of the reasons Wolverine disagrees with their move to Krakoa, it certainly backs up his argument that the X-Men’s establishment of the island nation was a mistake. The X-Men used to be heroes fighting for what is right and helping their fellow heroes, mutant or not, if they found themselves in danger, but now they have proven that those days are behind them all because they moved to Krakoa. Wolverine hates the X-Men’s move to Krakoa, and for more reasons than one, he’s absolutely right.
