Marvel Various

The Wolverine Goes to Hell omnibus focuses specifically on Jason Aaron's opening Wolverine storyline — the arc where a mysterious enemy sends Logan's soul to Hell while his body is possessed and turned against everyone he loves. It's an audacious premise that Aaron executes with total conviction, using the separation of body and soul as a way to examine the two sides of Wolverine's nature simultaneously: the berserker and the man. The Hell sequences have a texture and mythology that previous Wolverine runs hadn't bothered to develop.

Taylor brought genuine warmth to a character whose origin was defined by trauma, made the Clone Saga subplot (Laura's younger clone Gabby) into one of the most beloved supporting character introductions in recent Marvel history, and delivered a run that works on its own terms without requiring knowledge of Wolverine's wider mythology.

X-23 is the most fully realized Wolverine spin-off character ever created — Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost conceived her as a female clone of Wolverine weaponized from birth, used as an assassin by the Weapon X program offshoot known as the Facility, and their work establishing her origin in the animated series was adapted into the comics in one of the medium's most harrowing backstory sequences. The first omnibus covers her origin and early missions, establishing the psychological damage that Tom Taylor would later translate into Marvel's best all-ages superhero series.

Mark Millar's Wolverine run is built around two back-to-back storylines — Enemy of the State and Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. — that function as a single complete narrative: Wolverine is captured, brainwashed by HYDRA and the Hand, used as a weapon against every Marvel hero he knows, then deprogrammed and turned loose to hunt down everyone responsible. The premise is engineered for maximum action spectacle and John Romita Jr. delivers one of the defining artistic performances of his career — the two-year run moved faster and hit harder than anything Wolverine-related published in years.