Adamantium Skeleton

2 Resources for two equally relevant effects for Wolverine is a fair trade. I'd say the +1 ATK alone is worth it, even though it only works with your basic attacks. The thing is, Wolverine is so focused on dishing out as much damage as he can as fast as possible, every bit of juice you can add brings you closer to knocking a problem off the board.

That said, there are a few drawbacks. The first is that (and I will wait for a rules clarification here) you don't get +4 health but rather health capacity. This means it's better to play it and heal while in alter ego as it won't be worthwhile if you're nearly dead to begin with. It does work great with Mean Swing since you can't always afford to take damage on Wolverine's Claws, and rather than let them go to waste for a round, you can exhaust them for a bigger ping.

All that said, it's still true that if you can deal the damage in your hand right away, the incentive to play something for the long-game is a choice you have to discern for yourself. It may also fair better in a protection deck where you anticipate taking less damage overall and therefore are more able to heal into that extra 4 HP buffer from time to time. The key is that having the buffer only matters insofar as it enables you to spend that health on combat cards, avoid defending during the villain phase, etc.. The earlier you get it down, the better. But I'd say my priority to play this is first, if it's convenient, and secondly, if I know I can't rush down the boss.

LaRoix · 2
This will affect your current hit points AND maximum hit points (RR1.6, "Gets"). Very strong for Wolverine as you can immediately turn those hit points into resources with the claws — Stretch22 · 662
That's awesome; definitely improves the heck out of the card in that case since its viable for offense or defense. — LaRoix · 2
Gambit

Gambit asks you to gamble on what’s on top of the encounter deck, as he can range from embarrassingly bad to extremely powerful. A 2/2 is where you want him to be satisfied with the value. If there are 10 cards with 2 boost icons in a 30 card encounter deck, you’re about 70% to hit one of them. Not perfect, but consider that if you miss and only get 1 boost icon, you still got some value from seeing the top of the encounter deck, and you know exactly what the next boost and/or encounter card will be to plan accordingly. In particular, that boost card will only have 0 or 1 icons, enabling a safe flip to Alter-Ego or taking an attack without wasting a block. Then there’s the upside of sometimes hitting a 3-icon card! Not the most consistent ally, but a fun one for sure who should at least pull his weight in most cases, especially when the X-Men trait is relevant.

Stretch22 · 662
Rogue

Rogue is a monster of an ally whose stats can often reach 4/4 every turn! You can always trigger her ability by targeting your identity, and in fact this should be preferred to targeting an ally (though Professor X or Nick Fury can afford to take an extra damage). Rogue is also hands down the best X-Men to carry a Protective Training, and in a deck with 3 Game Time she can go absolutely bananas. One of the most exciting cards from Nightcrawler for me and worth using many deck slots to optimize.

Stretch22 · 662
Toe to Toe

There is an alternate use case that Earth Dragon did not touch on in his review. There have been a few ally spam decks I've played where I regularly have all ally slots filled and multiple chump blockers on their last legs. In these situations, Toe to Toe has no downside. I get 5 damage, and open a slot for my next/better ally to hit the field.

First Aid

Others have all-ready outlined its main function being healing allies so instead I'll note a few of my favorite targets. On Giant Man the 2 healing can equate to 8 damage. Captain Marvel (Signature Ally) gets 4 Thwart or Damage plus 2 card-draw. Wasp gets 6 damage and Goldballs gets 8. When used on Storm (with an applicable side scheme target) this can effectively remove 8 threat.