The new gameplay trailer for Marvel’s Wolverine really illustrates how different it is to take control of the iconic X-Man compared to Insomniac’s Spider-Man games. Whereas Peter Parker and Miles Morales leap and dive around their environment, constantly avoiding damage, Logan simply charges into the fray, absorbing bullets, blades, and all manner of injuries while merely shrugging them off. That’s the advantage that comes from having a mutant healing factor.The game is drawing new attention to what is easily Wolverine’s most useful superpower. But it also reminds us that there are limits to that healing factor. If he takes enough damage, Wolverine can (and will) shuffle off this mortal coil. So how does it work? How powerful is Wolverine’s healing ability? What are his most impressive examples of cheating death in the comics? Here’s everything you need to know.The Rules of Wolverine’s Healing FactorIn Marvel’s Wolverine, we can see that bullets are more of an annoyance to Logan than a real deterrent. He’s able to absorb quite a bit of damage and keep clawing his way through enemies. Somehow, even his costume regenerates alongside his body. But there are limits to that particular superpower. Insomniac’s Mike Daly explains it this way: “When all of Logan's body energy is dedicated to fighting in combat, his healing factor is relatively slow, passively. And our Logan, if he takes enough damage, his healing factor is overloaded, his heart can stop, and that ends his healing. He will die.”That’s pretty much right in line with the comics and other media. Logan’s healing factor is impressive, to be sure, but it’s not foolproof, nor is it a “get out of death free” card. It takes time to kick in, and it can be overwhelmed if Wolverine takes enough damage all at once.For example, the villain Gorgon once established that it’s possible for a skilled enough swordsman to kill Wolverine with a single strike. In their first encounter, Gorgon stabbed Wolverine through the heart, killing him before his healing factor was able to kick in. That death didn’t stick, obviously (Logan was immediately resurrected as a mind-controlled assassin for The Hand), but it illustrates that Logan can die under the right circumstances.That being said, the depiction of Wolverine’s healing factor has evolved over time, with the comics tending to amplify its effects more and more. Whereas Wolverine used to require recovery time when dealing with serious injuries, he typically heals back to 100% health within seconds nowadays. Nor does there seem to be any limit to how much flesh he’s able to regenerate. His body never seems to run out of the raw materials needed to heal.And despite the fact that he can be killed if the attacker is quick and focused, Logan has recovered from some pretty severe, seemingly fatal injuries. Let’s take some time to explore the most impressive examples of Wolverine cheating death.Regenerating From a Drop of Blood To this day, Wolverine’s single most impressive feat of regeneration was chronicled in the pages of 1987’s X-Men Annual #11. In that story, the X-Men battle a villain called The Horde over possession of a powerful artifact called the Crystal of Ultimate Vision. The Horde ends up impaling and killing Wolverine. However, a drop of Logan’s blood touches the crystal, causing his entire body to regenerate from that small DNA sample.The resurrected Wolverine reawakens with the power of a god. However, he immediately recognizes that he doesn’t deserve such power and destroys the crystal, restoring himself to normal in the process.Technically, this example of Logan’s healing has a giant asterisk, as his healing factor was greatly boosted by being in contact with a mystical artifact. Still, how many other Marvel characters can say they regenerated from a drop of blood?Wolverine Loses His Adamantium1993’s “Fatal Attractions” crossover chronicles one of the bloodiest confrontations between the X-Men and Magneto to date, culminating in a battle between Magneto and Wolverine that was bound to happen sooner or later. Fed up with his pesky adversary, Magneto uses his powers to rip the adamantium from Wolverine’s bones.This remains one of the most gruesome injuries Logan has ever suffered. We can’t imagine how much it hurts to have 100 pounds of metal ripped off your bones and pulled through your flesh. The ordeal proved serious enough that Logan nearly died, and even in the aftermath, his healing factor was so overwhelmed it basically shorted out for months. Logan did eventually recover, though it would be some time before Apocalypse finally gave him a new adamantium skeleton. In the meantime, it was established that his healing factor actually functions better without the adamantium, as it no longer has to constantly filter the toxic metal out of his bloodstream. That plot point comes into play now and again, as whenever Logan’s healing factor goes on the fritz, he needs to find some way of compensating for the blood poisoning. Wolverine Gets Blown Up2006’s Civil War crossover is instigated when the supervillain Nitro (who’s basically a human bomb) detonates himself near a school and kills dozens of innocent civilians. That disaster sparks a massive debate over the need for the Superhuman Registration Act.In the pages of his own series, however, Wolverine has little patience for philosophical debate. He sets out on a quest to kill Nitro. He quickly learns how powerful his target is when Nitro detonates again and Logan is vaporized down to his metal bones. Yet, shockingly, enough flesh remains that Logan is able to regenerate and keep on hunting Nitro.This may be Wolverine’s most impressive act of regeneration that isn’t assisted by an outside force. It also sparked some debate of its own, with some readers questioning whether Marvel was starting to go a little overboard in its depiction of Wolverine’s powers. Surviving the Pit2007’s Wolverine #56 features a story called “The Man in the Pit,” where Logan is captured and imprisoned in a deep pit. A man named Wendell Rayfield is hired to sit above and spend all day firing a machine gun into the pit. Basically, it’s an experiment to test just how long Logan’s healing factor can hold out against an endless barrage of bullets.Ultimately, Wendell isn’t able to kill Wolverine. No matter how many thousands of bullets are fired into his body, Logan continues to regenerate. Again, his healing factor doesn’t seem to be limited by the need for raw material to construct flesh. We can only assume that Logan is like the Hulk and his body converts energy into matter.How Slowly Does Wolverine Age?In addition to allowing him to shrug off the most grievous of wounds, Wolverine’s healing factor has another big advantage. It significantly slows his aging. From his earliest appearances, Wolverine was depicted as a man much older than he appears. Marvel eventually established that he was born way back in 19th-century Canada, making him 150-ish years old. But how much does the healing factor slow his aging? Is Wolverine effectively immortal, or are there limits here, too? In this case, it really depends on which story you consult. There are a lot of X-Men comics that reveal potential alternate futures for mutantkind, and none of them are very consistent on the question of Wolverine’s aging.The most iconic of these is easily 1981’s Uncanny X-Men: Days of Future Past, which takes place a few decades into the future. Here, Wolverine is depicted as being noticeably older than his contemporary self, with his hair graying at the temples. It suggests that Logan will eventually die of old age. Similarly, 2003’s Wolverine: The End is set decades into the future and shows Wolverine’s body beginning to fail from old age. On the other hand, some alternate future stories argue that Wolverine basically doesn’t age at all. 2004’s New X-Men: Here Comes Tomorrow is set more than 100 years into the future, and Wolverine looks as spry as ever. 2019’s Powers of X looks even further ahead, revealing a world 1000 years in the future where Wolverine himself seemingly hasn’t aged a day. Again, the comics are very inconsistent in this regard.That inconsistency has also spread to the X-Men movies. 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past is based on the comic of the same name. As with the source material, it shows a futuristic Wolverine who’s graying at the temples a few decades after the classic X-Men trilogy. That carries over into 2017’s Logan, where Hugh Jackman’s hero is clearly feeling the weight of his years.But then you have 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, where Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson recruits a new version of Jackman’s Logan. Despite being of similar age to the Wolverine from Logan, this Wolverine isn’t suffering from the same malfunctioning healing factor and physical breakdown as his counterpart.The real answer here is that Wolverine only ages as much as a given story needs. Sometimes it’s useful for storytellers to depict him as a grizzled, graying shadow of his former self, while in other cases it’s better to keep Logan in his physical prime. And as Deadpool & Wolverine showed, not even death is enough to keep Wolverine out of the spotlight. For more, check out every character featured in the Marvel’s Wolverine trailer and see everything announced at State of Play.Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.