Wolverine
Real Name: James Howlett
Byname: Logan
Place of Birth: Alberta, Canada
Citizenship: Canadian
Life Span: About 200 Years
Weight: 195 Lbs (Without Adamantium skeleton), 300 Lbs (with Adamantium skeleton)
You must be the exotic one if you have not heard, seen, or read the “Marvel comics” or the “Marvel movies.” It was created in the United States of America since 1939 with its first release of a comic book called, “Timley’s Publication.” Throughout the time, Marvel entertainment published abundance of new and adventurous comic books including many distinguished characters especially the superheroes. Those superheroes were illustrated and put into the stories whose astonishing superpowers possibly could be explained by our modern physics whether it is practicable or impractical.
As mentioned, in the entire Marvel history, there are a lot of established fictional characters who significantly play her or his roles in the comics or movies of their mind-blowing superpowers. Moreover, you must be wondering who is the man above. Generally and as written above, his name is James Howlett and also known as “Wolverine.” He is actually one of the top Marvel superheroes: Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Black Widow, Daredevil, and Captain America. His first appearance in Marvel comics was in the “Incredible Hulk” since 1974.
Who is Wolverine?
Wolverine is a mutant (meaning his DNA is changed) with many incredible powers who has the “ability to regenerate ability to regenerate damaged or destroyed areas of his cellular structure at a rate far greater than that of an ordinary human.” People have deemed him as a “subspecies of humans (Homo sapiens superior). Furthermore, he has the powers of withstanding all types of poisons, resisting aging, and having an acute sense of seeing far distance. So you can say that he is immortal; in fact, he is mortal. He could be dead if there are potential accidents that he got injuries at the “vital organs” and loss of physical form.
Despite his superpowers, he does have abilities like other humans. He did train at many tasks as a C.I.A operative, a soldier, a Samurai, a spy, a member of X-men, and hand to hand fighter known as the “combatant.” In addition, Wolverine is also an expert in many types weapons, vehicles, computer system, explosive, and assassination techniques. If you are a truly a supporter of Wolverine, you might notice that he could speak in multiple languages such as Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Spanish.
Regeneration
As a matter of fact, you may experience regeneration at some points while playing your video games. The best example is Minecraft. There is a portion that you can drink to regenerate the player at a fast speed and limited duration. But for Wolverine, his ability to regenerate is overwhelmingly impressive. Regeneration is a permanent ability he has; it is inherently working when he got cuts or even in an intense situation of someone poking him with a sword.
When a normal human received a wound or cuts, it takes times to heal or regenerate which depends on the wound condition. And by means of regeneration, it is the “process by which some organisms replace or restore lost or amputated body parts,” or biologically, it is the “reactivation of development in later life to restore missing tissues.” In reality, there are actually some organisms who can regenerate itself when it lost its limbs or some other parts of their body. For instance, the salamanders, axolotls, starfish, spiders, and other types of lizards have the ability of regeneration.
Wolverine’s regeneration in the fictional comics or movies is actually a complicated one. The first explanation that can crack this enigma is related to Wolverine’s last name, Howlett; it is surprisingly a protein. According to the paper was submitted to the Journal of Superhero Mutational Science by graduate students from the University of British Columbia, stated that “Wolverine’s healing abilities have striking similarities to that seen in axolotl, an amphibian with the capacity to regenerate amputated limbs.” The Howlett protein within Wolverine is characterized similarly to the protein within the axolotls, called “Amblox.”
However, it clearly shows that it definitely takes sometimes for the axolotl to heal when it takes a second for Wolverine to heal.
How does that work? Howlett protein is everywhere in Wolverine’s body and to answer the question, it is all about an activity of Howlett within his cell. “Wolverine has a significantly elevated amount of Howlett per cell than the axolotl by a factor of 100,” but that does not explain the reason why the rate of Wolverine’s regeneration is rapid. Therefore, the students set up a simulation of observing “the rate of product formation by Howlett” compares to the rate of product formation by Amblox. As a result, it expressly demonstrates that Howlett protein has a greater rate of healing Wolverine rather than the axolotl’s protein.
Besides Howlett, there is another key protein that contributes to the regeneration; it is called, “Lin28a.” As an American digital media company, Inverse stated that “In embryonic cells where the protein is fully activated, Lin28a becomes more and more dormant as the organism ages.” This could possibly apply to one of the reasons of how does Wolverine’s regeneration works. It further explained that there is a simulation when the researchers changed a mouse genetically by injecting the substance to keep the mouse produces the Lin28a protein. It turns out that it is working. When the mouse got cut off one of its toes, it grew back with a fast speed back to a normal toe.
Conclusion
As stated, Wolverine is one of the incredible characters in the Marvel history. His phenomenal power, regeneration, clearly surprises all the Marvel supporters; however, there is a lack of explanation of how it is actually working. It is very complex to comprehend expressly about Wolverine’s power since it is all going down to the system of his protein within the cell. The explanation of all the introduced proteins including Amblox and Lin28a are existing in this real world.
Furthermore, it seems realistic that human can be healed close to the speed of Wolverine’s regeneration by following the procedure of injecting the Lin28a protein. However, this is not reasonable since researchers, or us do not know what are the consequences. Not only the Lin28a injection seems to be unrealistic, but also the Howlett protein. After all, Howlett protein is literally a fictional protein which the author characterized it similarly to the Amblox. But for most of the parts from the explanation, it still could be possible and durable with our modernized technology and knowledge that we can have the power of regeneration as Wolverine.
Works Cited
Forbes, Forbes Magazine, www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2016/02/29/deadpool-science/&refURL=&referrer=.
“8 Regenerative Animals Changing the Face of Medicine.” DermeffaceFX7 Info, 18 Feb. 2016, www.dermeffacefx7.com/info/8-regenerative-animals-changing-the-face-of-medicine/.
Cronin, Brian. “What Was the First Marvel Comic Book?” CBR, 3 Apr. 2018, www.cbr.com/marvel-comics-first-comic/.
Dvorsky, George. “A Remarkably Detailed Fake Study of Wolverine’s Regeneration Abilities.” io9, io9.Gizmodo.com, 24 Sept. 2013, io9.gizmodo.com/a-remarkably-detailed-fake-study-of-wolverine-s-regener-1377381586.
Gilbert, Scott F. “Regeneration.” Developmental Biology. 6th Edition., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Jan. 1970, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9971/.
Goss, Richard Johnson. “Regeneration.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 Aug. 2016, www.britannica.com/science/regeneration-biology.
Holmes, Adam. “The Truth About Wolverine’s Healing Factor In Logan.” CINEMABLEND, CINEMABLEND, 26 May 2017, www.cinemablend.com/news/1575799/the-truth-about-wolverines-healing-factor-in-logan.’
Sloat, Sarah. “Humans, Too, Possess the Regenerative Abilities of X-23 and Wolverine.” Inverse, www.inverse.com/article/26640-logan-laura-x23-wolverine-regenerative-power-healing.
“Top Marvel Heroes.” Marvel.com: The Official Site, marvel.com/characters/list/994/top_marvel_heroes.
“Wolverine.” Characters | Marvel.com, marvel.com/characters/66/wolverine.
http://www.scq.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/HOWLETT-PAPER-09182013.pdf