Taking down the Wolverine is no easy feat. The longtime X-Man is practically unkillable, meaning in order to put him down (even temporarily), those fighting him have to get creative. In one case, the X-Men had to take down their fellow member and used multiple illnesses and viruses to stop him.
In Jason Aaron, Daniel Acuna, and Cory Petit’s ‘Wolverine vs the X-Men,’ arc from Wolverine (2012), Wolverine’s body was possessed by demons from the Red Right Hand. The mind-control causes Wolverine to turn against his fellow X-Men teammates and leads to the team trying to stop him. However, while Storm tries to deal with him, Doctor Nemesis has other ideas about taking Wolverine down.
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In Wolverine #8, Storm seems to have a raging Wolverine under control, trapped in a mini-tornado. But, when Fantomex and Doctor Nemesis arrive on the scene, the latter decides to shoot first and ask questions later. He pulls out n advanced tranquilizer gun and shoots Wolverine in the face. Storm demands to know what he just did, and Doctor Nemesis reveals he shot him with “the bubonic plague, I believe it was. With a side of mouth cancer. And just a dash of flesh-eating bacteria.” Storm tells Doctor Nemesis if he raises his gun again, she’ll “run a lightning bolt through your insides.”
Unfortunately, despite the numerous infectious diseases being shot into Wolverine, he doesn’t stay down. He shoots fire out of his mouth before Cyclops arrives and takes him down with an optic blast. Again, Wolverine rises. Fantomex and Doctor Nemesis shoot even more disease into Wolverine. Nemesis admits his goal is “to short out his healing factor.” After getting hit with another blast of fire, Wolverine starts vomiting as his healing factor is temporarily overloaded due to the illnesses. As Cyclops is about to kill him, Wolverine utters the words “Jean.” Cyclops doesn’t shoot, but Wolverine’s possession is lifted (as he emerges from his own internal fight with the demons).
While loading Wolverine with the nastiest diseases and illness imaginable is a truly twisted plan, it actually managed to work. Wolverine’s healing factor was overloaded, which stopped him before he could do any more damage. While it’s hard to kill him, the X-Men learned on that occasion that in order to stop him, they need to load him up with the worst diseases known to man. It’s messed up and disgusting – but it stopped Wolverine, so it’s hard to argue the results.
