Review by C.J. Bunce
Old Man Logan is a 2017 theatrical release we previewed here at borg.com earlier this Fall. Bryan Singer treated us to a sneak peek at this version of Logan aka Wolverine in this year’s hit superhero flick X-Men: Apocalypse. If all you know about Logan is the nine films in which Hugh Jackman portrayed the on again/off again X-Men leader, then now is a great time to get caught up on the monthly comic book title that inspired the movie.
Old Man Logan is the second series to follow the exploits of Logan in a post-apocalypse setting–the first was written in the eight-issue Wolverine: Old Man Logan story arc collected here, and the second was published in 2015, collected here. The current series, now on Issue #14, is available in three trade editions, with Issue #15 due out in comic book stores by year end.
Old Man Logan may be the best work yet from well-known writer Jeff Lemire, artist Andrea Sorrentino, and color artist Marcelo Maiolo. Lemire is known for his work on books from Animal Man to Green Arrow, and currently he also pens All-New Hawkeye, Extraordinary X-Men, and Moon Knight. Lemire tells a tale of a distant future, one overrun by villains and a world without Wolverine to protect it, Logan is a farmer with a wife and kids, whose life is destroyed when the Hulk Gang kills his family. But the twist is Logan finds himself back in future’s past, able to change the timeline and destroy all of those who one day will ruin his life. This Logan is an Old West wanderer and drifter, who makes Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name pale in comparison. This is Marvel’s answer to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns at last, a series gritty and dark and full of the kind of what-ifs readers are clamoring for.
Issues 1 through 4 have already been reprinted in Old Man Logan: Berserker, available here, revealing the bleak future Logan lived through, and his surprise as he returns to a world far different from the one he lived through once before: Hulk is a different man, Hawkeye is a woman, and he must decide whether to join this new X-Men team led by Storm. Readers will quickly see the vivid and stylized world created by Sorrentino and Maiolo as an off-kilter blend of the familiar and the strange. We can empathize with Logan as we’re shown a world that might have been or that might be.
Issues 5 though 8 are reprinted in Old Man Logan: Bordertown, available here. Sorrentino and Maiolo give us a look reminiscent of Jock’s work on Green Arrow: Year One. Logan takes a break from the X-Men to visit a small Canadian town where he can try to ensure that the best parts of his future are maintained. But the worst enemies he plans to eliminate know his weaknesses and plan to bring destruction on the town and its people. Did Logan create the very problem he hoped to avoid? A surprise segment features a visit from Logan’s classic love interest Jean Grey, who tries to help Logan get adjusted to a new timeline of events on the eve of Logan’s end of the world. If you liked the time travel of X-Men: Days of Future Past, you’ll fit right in with Lemire’s displaced Logan.
Collecting Old Man Logan Issues 9-13, Old Man Logan: The Last Ronin, available in January 2017 and for pre-order at Amazon.com now here, finds Logan escaping to Japan to continue to try to prevent the villain uprising. Logan is forced to work with an enemy he thought he’d successfully dispatched once before, as Lemire takes us back to the circumstances that brought Logan together with his future wife and his decisions and actions that got her killed. He must confront a mystic from his future, who may also be the only one that can prevent him from saving the future. Or is there another way?
Old Man Logan’s next chapter, beginning with this month’s Issue #14, brings in a new artistic team: Filipe Andrade and Jordie Bellaire, who take Logan into the supernatural realm is he takes on the world of monsters beginning with a confrontation with Dracula himself. Issue #14 is available at your local comic book store now.
Fans of Hugh Jackman’s take on Logan will hear the same voice in this grizzeled and even more put-upon version of the character, and fans of the Marvel Universe who are tired of the publisher’s most popular Avengers and X-Men monthlies, but prefer the types of stories found in the pages of last year’s Hawkeye and Black Widow will enjoy this character and story. Lemire, Sorrentino, and Maiolo’s Old Man Logan is among the best series of 2016.
