Wolverine has gone from a third wheel in a battle against the Hulk and Wendigo and became one of the most popular superheroes of all time. Over the years, Wolverine fans have gotten multiple series and one-shots, all of them telling the story of the best there is at what he does. Wolverine has changed a lot over the decades, triumphing over the odds to become an amazing hero. Over the years, Wolverine has lost a lot of what made him who he is, and in 2014, Marvel decided that it was time for Wolverine to lose it all, killing the character off in Death of Wolverine #1-4. This led to the greatest Wolverine series of the 21st century — Old Man Logan.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Old Man Logan is one of the best versions of Wolverine, introduced in the “Old Man Logan”, which ran in Wolverine (Vol. 3) #66-72 and Wolverine: Giant-Size Old Man Logan. The story introduced a grizzled older version of the ol’Canucklehead, one of the last survivors of the Age of Marvels, on a world where the villains won. “Old Man Logan” became a favorite of fans, and with the Logan of Earth-616 dead, Marvel decided to give this popular version of the hero his own ongoing. What we got was 50 issues of what is easily the best Wolverine series of the 21st century.
Old Man Logan Was Peak Marvel
Looking back at Death of Wolverine and what came after, it was plain to see that Marvel was nervous about being without a Logan. They gave the mantle of Wolverine to his daughter, Laura, but Wolverine was never looked at as a mantle before. Wolverine solo comics sold very well, and Marvel wasn’t sure if those fans would follow the mantle to Laura or just stop reading. So, we got Old Man Logan, which began as a 2015 Secret Wars tie-in miniseries that followed Logan traveling through God Emperor Doom’s Battleworld and ending with him showing up on the present-day 616 Earth. This led to the Old Man Logan ongoing series.
The book kicked off with a 24-issue run from Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino, with Filipe Andrade and Eric Nguyen as fill-in artists. Lemire and Sorrentino were (and still are) one of the best writer/artist teams in the comic industry, and they worked together brilliantly to tell the story of Logan trying to come to terms with the demons of his past, all while getting used to a life where he hadn’t killed his friends. It had everything you could want from a Wolverine comic — great guest stars like Puck, Captain America, Hawkeye II, Miles Morales, and the X-Men, classic Wolverine villains like Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers, and compelling, emotional stories that were the best Wolverine stories of the ’10s.
After Lemire left, writer Ed Brisson would finish out the series, working with Mike Deodato, Ibrahim Roberson, Juan Ferreyra, Dalibor Tjalic, and other fill-in artists. The last 26 issues of the series followed Logan as he got back to being the kind of superhero he used to be, battling the Maestro, a cool Japan-based story that brought back a classic Wolverine character, helping protect the X-Men and making friends with Glob Herman, tackling the Kingpin and Bullseye to protect a reporter, taking on Kraven the Hunter, and various other adventures. While not as emotionally resonant as Lemire’s issues, Brisson’s time on the book gave readers some of the most exciting Wolverine stories of the decade, before ending it all with Dead Man Logan, a twelve-issue maxiseries with Mike Henderson.
There are a lot of really great Wolverine series in the 21st century, and some fantastic runs from creators like Greg Rucka, Mark Millar, Jason Aaron, Paul Cornell, and Benjamin Percy in the last 25 years. However, Old Man Logan clears them all. The book recaptured the feel of the ’90s Wolverine run from Larry Hama, giving readers action-packed storytelling that also dug deep into who Logan was. It was such an amazing series, but it never gets the credit it deserves. Marvel didn’t exactly push it (or any X-Men book) in the mid-2010s, so it was a hidden gem for hardcore Wolverine fans, and it didn’t disappoint in the slightest.
Old Man Logan Never Got the Credit It Deserved
Let’s call a spade a spade — the only reason we got an Old Man Logan series was because Marvel wasn’t sure that Laura would sell well as Wolverine. While that presents its own mess of problems with Marvel and their performative liberalism, it’s honestly great that we did, because Old Man Logan is one of the best Marvel series of the 2010s. It felt like an old-school Marvel comic in the best possible way, following its main character through various adventures that built him as a character in a way that many Marvel series don’t even try to do anymore.
Old Man Logan is a perfect example of an underrated gem, a diamond in the rough that gave Wolverine fans something very special. It’s a series that has been all but forgotten by the fandom, but it’s better than the vast majority of series that Marvel has put out since it ended. Old Man Logan is the perfect book for fans who want to try a Wolverine book but don’t know where to start, a comic that will take readers on a ride that will astound them.
What do you think about Old Man Logan? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
Most Viewed
-
Image courtesy of Focus Features.
