In ‘Uncanny X-Men’ (1982) #162, Wolverine is on the run, locked in a struggle to survive for the next stage of human evolution. Wolverine figures out he is on an alien planet as he is being hunted by an alien species called the Brood. It is unclear what their purpose is, only that Wolverine has to survive and to fight, or else face death. In the evolution of different life-forms, is the evolutionary struggle to survive.

Wolverine fights the hunters. As Wolverine is engaged in battle against the Brood, the ground gives way and he falls into a web. Wolverine loses consciousness. Wolverine awakens as the scavengers come to investigate their catch. It is a canon of evolution that predators prey on their prey for survival. Wolverine fights and awakens his berserker rage. Wolverine manages to escape as the scavengers feed on the wounded among them.

Through his escapade, Wolverine experiences flashbacks and a dream. The first one is after a plant blasts him with hallucinogenic pollen. He starts dreaming of being in Japan riding horses with his love, Mariko Yashida. The dream ends when a Brood disintegrates Mariko with a ray.

In the first flashback, Wolverine and the X-Men are on a compliment and farewell party on Lilandra’s ship, the empress of the Shi’ar Empire. The party is actually a trap by Deathbird. The X-Men are taken to the throneworld of the Shi’ar. To congratulate them, each X-Man is given a gift. At Wolverine’s turn, he realizes the doll is actually the Brood Queen granting them the gift. The X-Men are children of the atom, gifted by evolution with uncanny preternatural gifts.

In the second flashback, Wolverine remembers his escapade last night and trying to save Kitty Pryde. Before leaving the palace, Wolverine witnesses a Queen egg hatching within Fang, transforming him into a Brood. He realizes the X-Men have been implanted by the Brood Queen with Brood embryos. That is the gift that the alien species granted to the X-Men: a metamorphosis into an alien species. The struggle to survive is engaged for the survival of homo superior, the next stage in human evolution.

Wolverine awakens from the flashback and forces a Brood to give him a ride to the palace, hopping on it. On the way, he gets ambushed by Brood hunters and soon kills them. At the end of the fight, the Brood embryo hatches. Wolverine fights back with his healing factor killing the embryo illustrating the fact of evolution that only the strong survive. Wolverine awakens at sunrise with the side-effects of the embryo hatch on his body. He heads for the palace. Wolverine vows to kill the X-Men if they have been infected by the Brood embryos.