9

As we saw here, here and here (among others), Wolverine has regeneration powers that are somewhat impressive.

Here a quote from Thaddeus Howze's answer

As long as there is a single cell (I suppose it needs a nucleus and cellular data to engage his supercharged cellular mitosis) return from being nearly obliterated.
...
Returning from such a state can temporarily erase his memory but those memories return to him over time.

How could his memory return to him? His memories must be stored somewhere, but could it be stored in a single cell???

So, where does his consciousness reside during this time?

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    Likely Wolverine's mutant gene allows for some form of genetic memory. But, as I have very little experience with the character in general and none with the greater lore established in the comics, hopefully someone else will have something canon to answer this with. – Xantec Apr 5 '12 at 18:29
  • Good luck with a canon answer. I have spent years hunting. But I eagerly await the first response. – Thaddeus Howze♦ Apr 5 '12 at 18:31
11

Since souls definitively exist in the Marvel Universe (There have been many stories where characters exist for a very long time without any physical form before reinhabiting a body - see Adam Warlock in the Infinity Gaunlet line where Puck and Drax leave the soul gem and jump into a recently deceased persons body) I'm not sure that there needs to be answer provided to account for Wolverine specifically. There have also been story lines where characters have a death experience, leave their body, and then return upon being healed, so for Wolverine, this would just be a frequent occurrence.

Regarding the Adam Warlock example above, it can be read about here. Here's the relevant quote: Warlock made plans to thwart the Titan once more. Warlock projected the Souls of himself, Pip, and Gamora into three recently deceased humans. His powers reshaped their shattered bodies into new, more powerful versions of their old bodies.

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    For those of us that are interested, but don't read the comics, can you give a specific example (perhaps with a link)? – Izkata Apr 6 '12 at 2:53
  • But have there been such examples for characters who do not come from a supernatural, mythical or magical background? All of X-Men's (except for Storm) powers have scientific origins. – HNL Apr 6 '12 at 3:51
  • @HNL Adam Warlock is an artificially created human who was born in a cocoon at a scientific complex called The Beehive. The goal of his creators, the Enclave, was to create and subsequently exploit the perfect human. More on Marvel.com: marvel.com/universe/Warlock,_Adam#ixzz1rEGHxPNN – gymbrall Apr 6 '12 at 3:54
  • @gymbrall got it! – HNL Apr 6 '12 at 3:56
  • @HNL I'm also sure that there are other examples. For instance, Death is a character in the Marvel universe and tends to souls after death. In the Secret Wars series, you can see Mephisto tormenting some of these souls. While the Marvel universe certainly exploits science at will, it also uses the spiritual side of things pretty indiscriminately. – gymbrall Apr 6 '12 at 3:58
2

I would go with the theory of genetic memory, which has some scientific basis. With genetic memory all of wolverine's cells would carry the genes necessary to rebuild his current memory. This would of require that his genes would be constantly changing, or evolving to put it another way. This would place Wolverine as the ever evolving mutant. The x-men equivalent of the most highly evolved, and arguably the best, predator in the world - the shark. Darwin has evolving genetics, so why can't all mutants share a small number of common core genes that when mixed, on the surface make them seem diverse. It may not be canon but it is the most believable. Request Marvel make it Canon. Has anyone read the science of the x-men book to see if it explains it in there?

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