WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for X-Factor #8 by Leah Williams, David Baldeón, Israel Silva, VC’s Joe Caramagna, and Tom Muller, available now.
What mutants like Wolverine can and can’t survive is often subject to change. The capabilities of Logan’s healing factor and those of others like him tend to change drastically over time; in one story they might be more durable than a regular person but still quite vulnerable to injury and death, while in another they’re shown recovering from wounds that would instantly kill a normal person. X-Factor‘s portrayal of Daken, Logan’s son, is somewhere in the middle.
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Daken often winds up taking on the most dangerous tasks for his new team, knowing that he is most likely to survive them, but X-Factor #8 shows that one simple but brutal method of attack, decapitation, will still kill him.
In recent issues, X-Factor has been battling the Morrigan, a death goddess that possessed fellow Krakoan and former X-Factor member Siryn. In X-Factor #8, the Morrigan-possessed Siryn attacks the Boneyard, X-Factor’s headquarters. She quickly kills Northstar, Prestige, Aurora, and Polaris. Having just awakened from a nightmare of his last traumatic battle with the Morrigan, Daken stays behind to hold her off so Eye-Boy and Prodigy can escape with the information they need. He battles the Morrigan valiantly but she cuts off his head, killing him. Thankfully, he and the rest of the team would soon be brought back to life via the Krakoan Resurrection Protocols, after which Eye-Boy and Prodigy filled them in on their missing memories.
ust because Daken is apparently vulnerable to decapitation doesn’t necessarily mean that his father or others with powers similar to theirs are. A key distinction between Daken and Logan’s healing factors is that the former’s is controlled by conscious thought while the latter is automatic, which underscores why Daken cannot heal from decapitation.
While it is assumed that one of the few ways to kill Logan would be to cut off his head, there are some who believe that even after doing so one would need to keep his severed head a considerable distance away from his body, or it might be able to reconnect and heal. There are also other healers with regenerative powers even greater than Logan’s who might be able to easily survive decapitation. X-23, for example, has been shown to heal faster than Logan on occasion, possibly due to her having less adamantium in her skeleton. Both Logan and Daken have also been shown to be vulnerable to drowning, with Logan once drowning his son in a puddle of water.
Although he was resurrected, Daken’s encounters with the Morrigan have definitely been traumatic for him but he gets some amount of payback by the end of the issue. After everyone is resurrected X-Factor heads back to the Boneyard to clear their home of the Morrigan and her zombie forces. Daken battles a large bug-like creature under the Morrigan’s control, buying time for Prestige and Polaris to incapacitate the Morrigan herself.
The end of the issue suggests that Daken will have additional opportunities for revenge, as the team’s battle with the Morrigan isn’t truly over yet. Although Siryn is back in control of herself she begs X-Factor to help her and tells Polaris “she’s already trying to come back. I can feel her.” Polaris assures her friend they won’t let the Morrigan hurt her anymore and Northstar asks what bargain she struck with the evil being. X-Factor definitely still has a tough fight ahead of them but it can be assumed that they’ll win somehow, which will surely bring Daken some satisfaction.
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