Wolverine vs Black Panther: Why I Think This Fight Is Closer Than You Think

Wolverine's the best he is at what he does with his adamantium claws and insane healing factor, but Black Panther is one of the best fighters in Marvel who can definitely give Logan a hard time. The King of Wakanda has a whole bunch of vibranium weapons perfectly suited to countering adamantium, and after breaking this one down, I think this fight is way closer than you might think.

Wolverine's Healing Factor and Adamantium Skeleton Make Him Nearly Impossible to Kill

James Logan Howlett was born in the 1800s and has lived a lot of life as a soldier, a samurai, an outlaw, and a living weapon formed by Weapon X, before settling in as a hero with the X-Men and the Avengers. His mutant powers give him superhuman strength and speed comparable in a lot of ways to Captain America, and he's overpowered and thrown around Spider-Man, Saber-Tooth and even Colossus, tearing through metal and picking up hundreds of pounds or a few tons with relative ease.

He's also surprisingly fast, routinely moving quicker than opponents can keep up with, including Spider-Man, who is caught off guard by his speed and reflexes. But Wolverine doesn't always need that speed because he can simply take an attack and heal from it. Sometimes he likes to take a few hits at the start of a fight just to get the blood flowing.

His skeleton being covered entirely in adamantium means he literally cannot be cut or torn apart, and it boosts his durability massively. He's been kicked clean around the world, taken punches from Hulk and Thor, survived his heart being destroyed multiple times, healed from literal disintegration, and survived nuclear bombs several times over. His adamantium claws can pierce Hulk, Thor, Thanos and Gladiator, and he's skilled enough to casually defeat master martial artists and hold his own or even beat the likes of Captain America, Black Panther, Iron Fist and Shang-Chi. In his Berserker rage he becomes even more powerful, compressing days of nonstop fighting into a few minutes.

Black Panther's King of the Dead Powers Give T'Challa Centuries of Combat Knowledge

T'Challa is ruler, warrior, scientist and champion all at once, and the heart-shaped herb already pushes him into super soldier range. Beyond that, the panther goddess Bast chose him as King of the Dead, giving him access to the knowledge, skill and strength of every Black Panther who came before him, essentially thousands of lifetimes of combat experience and tactical knowledge.

Physically, he's shattered metal with his bare hands, tossed multi-ton boulders, taken down charging five-ton rhinos, and gone toe to toe with Captain America and Wolverine, often overpowering them. In his King of the Dead state he's injured Hulk-level beings, beaten Black Order general Black Dwarf, and landed a blow strong enough to make the Hulk bleed.

Even without his suit, he's gone days in battle against Killmonger, who is strong enough to one-shot an elephant. With the vibranium Panther Habit on, bullets bounce off, blades snap, and attacks from Storm, a Phoenix-possessed Namor, and Galactus's heralds can't put him down, with the suit absorbing and redirecting force. He's mastered every martial art on Earth plus secret Wakandan techniques, beating Captain America, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Wolverine, and a Super Skrull that had absorbed every martial artist's skills including his own. His arsenal includes anti-metal claws, the spear of Bashenga, the Ebony Blade and another mythical weapon he has wielded, energy daggers, teleporters and power gauntlets, plus the ability to commune with or summon the spirits of Wakanda's past kings.

Strength Comparison: Wolverine and Black Panther Are Closer Than Expected

Wolverine has thrown motorcycles hard enough to break backs, swung around the three-ton Dragon Man by his tail, thrown the 425-pound Omega Red through prison bars, broken steel restraints, and overpowered Sabertooth, with his adamantium skeleton adding extra force to every punch. Black Panther has torn through metal, ripped open airplane hatches, thrown Deadpool hard enough to crater a wall, wrestled down a five-ton rhino, stopped an elephant's charge, and slapped around Namor.

"Strength, honestly, it's probably so close to where I'm not sure there's enough of a difference to really matter," but I'd give Panther the slight edge here.

Durability Isn't Close: Wolverine's Healing Factor Wins

Panther is very tough, fighting Killmonger for thirteen hours and taking Hulk attacks outside his armor, and his vibranium suit can stop bullets, absorb kinetic energy and even release it back at an opponent. But Wolverine's durability is, in my words, "stupidly overpowered." His healing factor lets him survive being shot, stabbed, blown up, smashed around by Hulk and Thor, having his heart ripped out, and multiple nuclear bombs, on top of an adamantium skeleton that's basically impossible to break.

Can Black Panther hurt Wolverine? Yeah, that won't necessarily be that difficult. But keeping him down, that's the hard part.

Speed and Agility Favor Black Panther

Wolverine is definitely fast, having dodged gunfire, reacted to Cyclops's optic blasts, and kept up with Spider-Man, who has commented on his speed. But T'Challa is consistently portrayed as insanely fast, dodging gunfire, lasers and sonic attacks, catching Daredevil's baton, avoiding Captain America's shield, and even catching Wolverine completely off guard in a past fight, with Logan reacting, "Whoa, fast."

Speed and agility go to Black Panther, and it doesn't help that Wolverine doesn't mind taking hits rather than avoiding them, which means Panther is going to land his shots while staying fast enough to dodge Wolverine's.

Skill: Black Panther Exploited a Flaw in Wolverine's Fighting Style

This category is really close because Wolverine gets massively underrated. He spent over a century as a soldier, spy, assassin and samurai, trained in multiple martial arts, and has fought Captain America, Iron Fist, Shang-Chi and Sabertooth, arguably making him a top ten fighter in Marvel. The problem is he doesn't always use that skill, often choosing to just swing his claws because he knows he can win that way, which causes him to get rusty against elite fighters.

Black Panther is that elite fighter, having trained his whole life to master every fighting style known to man plus secret Wakandan techniques, beating Captain America, Winter Soldier, Daredevil, Punisher and Elektra simultaneously, Iron Fist, and clowning on Sabertooth, who consistently beats Wolverine. In a past fight between the two, Panther noticed Logan's flaw of taking hits he didn't need to take and immediately exploited it, though there's a huge asterisk that Wolverine didn't have his healing factor in that fight, so it doesn't count as a clean win. Still, how quickly Panther figured him out matters. Wolverine has more experience, but the better fighter is Black Panther.

Weapons: Black Panther's Arsenal Gives Him More Ways to Win

Wolverine's approach is simple: his adamantium claws have cut Hulk, Thor and Gladiator, proving there aren't many things in Marvel he can't slice through, and Panther's vibranium suit isn't perfect against them either since it can still be cut along the grain. One clean swipe from Logan can end the fight quickly.

But Black Panther has a lot more to work with, including vibranium armor, energy daggers, kinetic attacks, energy shields, kimoyo technology, a built-in teleporter, and anti-metal claws that attack the molecular bonds of other metals rather than trying to overpower adamantium outright, a type of vibranium tech that's been shown cutting adamantium before. His energy daggers phased through Ultron's adamantium exterior in a past fight to attack what was underneath, which I think is probably the smartest way to fight Wolverine: don't try to break the skeleton, just work around it.

Panther doesn't need to kill Wolverine to win. He can knock him out, incapacitate him, attack his nervous system, or restrain him. He's beaten the entire Fantastic Four before, beaten the Thing, sliced up the Hulk with his weapons, and developed his own shadow fighting style as King of the Dead that lets him push through fatal injuries until his suit heals him. He's even coated his teeth in vibranium once, during the Battle for the Phoenix, specifically to block an attack from Wolverine's claws.

Final Verdict: Black Panther Wins

Wolverine wants one type of fight: get close, make it ugly, trade damage, outlast, and eventually land the claws, and if Black Panther fights him that way, Logan wins. But there's no reason T'Challa would do that. He's faster, more agile, the more skilled and disciplined fighter, one of the smartest people on the planet, and he's carrying an arsenal that gives him ways to hurt Wolverine without ever standing there trading punches. It's close, very close, but at the end of the day, I'm going with Black Panther.

Who do you think actually wins this one?