Logan enters freelance intelligence work. Hoping to earn "some quick and easy bucks," "see the world," and "make a name for [him]self," Logan contacts his friend Chang (Logan: Path of the Warlord), who arranges for Landau, Luckman, and Lake (Wolverine #98) to find work for Logan and handle his business affairs, in exchange for Logan's occasional services. Among Logan's assets during this period is a bank account in Edinburgh, Scotland (Wolverine #79), which LL&L maintains until recent years.

Operating mostly out of Ottawa (Marvel Comics Presents #51) and Calgary (Uncanny X-Men #120), Logan establishes a base of freelance clients that includes a number of government operations, including Canadian Intelligence (Classic X-Men #26), for whom he does "odd jobs," little realizing that he will one day work full time for that agency.

He develops a reputation (Captain America Annual #8) as "one of the most dangerous free agents ever to rise through the ranks of the intelligence agencies." Another government employer is an agency known only as "Central" (Classic X-Men #25); this may be the American CIA, for which Logan will also later work full-time. Logan will continue to perform occasional "dirty work" for Central even after joining the X-Men, long after his freelance days are over. During this phase of his career, Logan often uses a pair of blades as weapons, as he did early in his life.

In Calgary, Logan often works with a woman named Cracklin' Rosa (Uncanny X-Men #120, 123; Classic X-Men #26), with whom he becomes romantically involved. Rosa is a business owner, proprietor of the Hotel St. Cecil, and Logan becomes her partner in various business enterprises. Like Logan himself, Rosa never realizes that Logan has superhuman powers during these years, although she recognizes that he can recover quickly from physical abuse, and had a high tolerance for alcohol. Thus, Logan would pretend to be drunk, hold arm-wrestling contests with other patrons of the bar, and Rosa would split the proceeds.

Logan will later recall himself as "a wild kid" during these years. Logan's involvement with Cracklin' Rosa, although never serious, leaves a lasting impression upon him, perhaps because she is, as far as is known, the first woman who has not been killed as a result of his affections toward her. "I'd work closely with other people before," he once said, "but not usually to the point of teamwork."

Few details of Logan's freelance years are known. It may be presumed that he again encounters Nick Fury during these years, forging a friendship that continues to this day. Another close friend of Logan's during this period is a woman known only as Charlemagne (Spider Man Vs. Wolverine #1), with whom he works in various intelligence operations. At some point in their friendship, the two become lovers, and Logan will later consider Charlemagne one of his best friends. Like Logan, Charlemagne ages little if at all over the ensuing decades.

One account indicates that Logan again takes up the role of Montra Warrior of the Kage Ryu' at some point during these years, again defeating a Kyoto Sohei opponent. (Wolverine/Shi: Dark Night of Judgment)

At one point during this period, Logan spends a year in Brazil (Wolverine: Black Rio), where he works as a bouncer at the Devil's Grill, owned by Antonio Vargas. In Brazil, Logan apparently continues his freelance activities, with his bar employment as a cover, and he becomes known as "the Man of Harsh Business."

It may also be during this period that Logan is active in Mexico (Uncanny X-Men #242), where he frequents what he categorizes as the "rowdiest cantina on the gulf of California."

It is possibly at this time that Logan encounters the Nazi geneticist Arnim Zola, who is known to have operated in Central America following World War II and who will later claim that Logan has "long been a nasty thorn in [his] side." (Wolverine #97)

During these years, Logan also returns to Madripoor on occasion, where Chang maintains a Landau, Luckman, and Lake office in Lowtown (Wolverine #97); unknown to Logan, Landau, Luckman, and Lake has by now entered the field of interdimensional research, a field that will one day provide the backbone of their business transactions.

On one occasion, Logan accepts an assignment directly for Landau, Luckman, and Lake to arrange transportation and security for Dr. Carling (Logan: Path of the Warlord), a scientist who has discovered a method of interdimensional travel, and his daughter, Rose. Unknown to Logan, Carling is the scientist responsible for bringing his enemy Kimora into the Earth dimension. Kimora kidnaps the Carlings in an effort to learn the method by which he may establish large-scale transportation between the Earth dimension and his own. When Logan intervenes, Kimora, deriding his opponent as "a beast in a man's clothing," defeats him in battle and is only prevented from killing him when Chang apparently decapitates Kimora, who in reality manages to return to his own dimension. Shaken by Chang's apparent act of cold-blooded murder and haunted by Kimora's words, Logan ends his freelance operations.

He eventually returns to Japan, where, more interested in self-control and inner peace than in martial arts, he seeks instruction from an unnamed sensei in Jasmine Falls, under whose tutelage he spends the next five years or more. His sparring partner and friend during these years is another student, Miyagi. In Jasmine Falls, Logan strives to gain control of his violent nature but never quite succeeds; nevertheless, he attains a level of tranquility that has eluded him for years, and he seems prepared to remain in Japan indefinitely.

It may also be during this period in Japan that Logan befriends Bando Suburo (Wolverine #26), a man who teaches him much about achieving spiritual peace and he found it in "The house of Brando". The Brandos could not have children so they named their nephew Weston heir to the house. Many years later the nephew would have his family killed and sell a priceless tea cup. Wolverine found the tea cup and gambled with its owner getting it back (playing poker). Wolverine would go back to the house of Brando and find the nephew (Weston) ready to commit suicide for his actions. After telling the Weston that his uncle was going to die month before he was killed, Weston attacked Wolverine. Wolverine quickly killed him. He then went to the grave of the Brando family and left the tea cup there.

Logan's studies with the sensei are interrupted by Chang, who has tracked Logan down to request his assistance in opposing Kimora (Logan: Path of the Warlord) and his efforts to conquer the Earth dimension by wresting the full secrets of interdimensional travel from the captive Carling, who eventually dies from his mistreatment.

In the intervening years, Carling has constructed a large interdimensional travel mechanism for Landau, Luckman, and Lake, which intends to use this new technology to play an important role in the "great change" and "certain strife" that some believe will soon sweep the world, apparently a reference to to the sudden outbreak of superhuman activity that will occur within less than four decades.

Chang leads Logan into Kimura's dimension, apparently Logan's first venture into such an environment, where the two, joined by Carling's half-extradimensional daughter Rose, invade Kimora's stronghold. Logan, loathe to resort to brutal force after his years of meditative training, proves adaptable in dealing with the stronghold's non-human defenders, but he only manages to defeat Kimora at the cost of releasing the animal savagery that he has spent the past few years repressing.

Returning to the Earth dimension, Chang offers both Rose and Logan employment with Landau, Luckman, and Lake. Logan declines, although he admits that he will consider the offer and rethink his way of life. Rose accepts Chang's offer, becoming an operative with Landau, Luckman, and Lake and eventually heading an office in Hong Kong, where she uses the name "Rose Wu" (Uncanny X-Men 257-259). Logan and Rose remain friends for many years after these events; a photograph taken of the two in a futuristic, alien city suggests that they shared at least one additional extradimensional experience.

Logan apparently resumes his career as a freelance agent. On one occasion, in Tehran, Iran, Logan, under unknown circumstances, incurs a debt to a man who, after achieving status as a crimelord years later, will use the name "Morrow" (Wolverine #25); Logan knows him by another name during this period, but that name has not been revealed. While at this time Logan continues to embrace the moral lessons taught to him in Japan, which he hopes to integrate into his life, "Morrow" is unimpressed, later characterizing Logan as "a murderer...so proud and arrogant in [his] principles." It will be years before "Morrow" finally calls in the favor owed to him, but over the intervening time he often tantalizes Logan with the knowledge of this debt. Logan will later note of "Morrow": "I don't like [him]. I never have. But he's a man I have to respect."

Under undisclosed circumstances, Logan suffers a severe wound (Alpha Flight #33), his most serious since Cyber's attack; it is possible that his survival of this incident is the debt that he owes "Morrow." He is treated after this injury in Canada by a Dr. Giloski (Marvel Comics Presents #52), whom Logan can count on to "keep quiet" due to Giloski's own experience in freelance espionage, and whom Logan will occasionally consult in later years. Despite his recovery from a wound that would have killed any other man, Logan still does not realize that he is a mutant. Unknown to Logan, Giloski reports the incident to an intelligence contact, and Logan's name is submitted for consideration in Team X.

In Venice, Italy Christopher Nord is trying to stop a hit by the religiously-inclined assassin, the Confessor, sent to take out a defecting KGB cartographer.

Spiraling outward from that Venice confrontation with the Confessor, Nord becomes love struck with a young woman who stayed with Nord while he was recoupering in an Italian hospital. Not listening to his gut about this girl, Nord marries Ginetta Lucia Barsalini, but she turns out to be a double agent.

Almost three years later, Nord comes to realize this when the rest of CELL SIX, his freedom fighting unit, are dead. Said Nord: "CELL SIX is DEAD. Cruz. Reinhold. O'Malley. Frank. Roxxie. All of 'em--DEAD except me. Convenient isn't it? Guess your superiors figured it best to keep me around. After all, wouldn't want to plug their precious leak to the underground."

Ginetta dares Nord to kill him, and he does. As she dies, Ginetta tells Nord that he didn't just kill her, but their unborn child. In order to shake the damage done by murdering his wife and child, North immersed himself even deeper in black ops until he caught the attention of the C.I.A.

Making him an offer, Nord agreed and moved to the United States. Once there, he changed his name to David North, and became part of the first wave of Weapon X and the resulting covert unit, Team X.