Comic Info
Comic Name: Wolverine (Volume 2)/Wolverine: Old Man Logan Giant-Size
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Steve McNiven
# of Issues: 8
Release Date: 2010
Wolverine (2) #71
Reprints Wolverine (2) #66-72 and Wolverine: Old Man Logan Giant-Size #1 (August 2008-November 2009). The world has fallen apart. The United States which was once under the protection of heroes has fallen to villains. On a small farm, Logan raises his family and tends to the land under the control of the Hulks. When Logan’s money is late and he is given an offer by Hawkeye to make-up the lost revenue with a cross-country trip, Logan has no option but to agree…and the Wolverine might still be inside of him.
Written by Mark Millar, Wolverine: Old Man Logan is a Marvel comics X-Men spin-off series. Following Wolverine: Get Mystique, the series created a stand-alone story with art by Steve McNiven.
When I first heard about Old Man Logan, I kind of wrote it off. It felt like it was just a rip-off of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven and other post-apocalyptic genre books and movies…it felt gimmicky. Finally reading Wolverine: Old Man Logan, I found I rather enjoyed the series as a stand-alone.
The framework of the story really is along the lines of Unforgiven (early “dream movies” of X-Men often cast a slightly younger Clint Eastwood as Wolverine). Wolverine has given up. He’s no longer a killer, but it is a question if he is a killer inside that never can change or if he is this “new man”. Through the course of the story, Logan finds himself pushed and prodded until he’s forced to revert to his old self…he isn’t quite as healthy or invincible, but he is still dangerous.
Wolverine (2) #72
The only slight problem with the series is that Millar and McNiven create such a great landscape for the story, that it feels largely unexplored. It feels obvious that this is the set-up for bigger stories about this world, but since nothing was concrete when Old Man Logan was released, it feels incomplete in parts. I wanted to know more about Hawkeye, the Hulks, and everything…but I also have “parallel world drain” with so many parallel worlds set-up in the Marvel Universe like M2, the Ultimate Universe, 2099, etc. I don’t know that I need or can follow another alternate reality series.
Wolverine: Old Man Logan has a 1980s gritty darkness to it and has thematic feels to The Dark Knight Returns (I kind of wish they had not used Hawkeye since Green Arrow was such a part of The Dark Knight storyline). Like a Mad Max movie, you kind of don’t know what to expect next…and anything can happen. Though I have a fatigue on alternate reality stories, Old Man Logan is one of the better more recent outings of a comic book. I wish I hadn’t slept on the series as long as I did. Wolverine: Old Man Logan was followed by Dark Wolverine: The Prince but Old Man Logan returned in Wolverine: Old Man Logan Volume 0: Warzones!
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