Wolverine 3: Why Logan Won’t Wear His Classic Costume

As we get more and more extensive looks at Wolverine 3: Logan from its newly released green and red-band trailers, fans are starting wonder if this final chapter of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine solo movie saga will tie up some dangling threads from the franchise. And one of the biggest threads still dangling, is the issue of Wolverine’s costume.

Jackman’s Wolverine has never worn an official superhero costume that’s anything close to any of the costues he’s worn in the comics. The closest we got to seeing Wolverine in his classic threads was a in a deleted scene from the ending of The Wolverine, where Logan received his gold and brown costume as a parting gift.

Comicbook.com’s Brandon Davis has already argued Why Wolverine Will Wear His Classic Costume in Logan; now, I’m here to argue why he probably won’t.

The main reasoning for why Logan won’t suit up in a classic blue and yellow costume (or any other version) is found in Logan trailer 2’s footage. In an early meta moment, it’s revealed that in this future of 2029, the X-Men are such legends and icons that they have their own comic book series. As Logan examines Laura Kinney’s comic, he exclaims, “We got ourselves an X-Men fan… Maybe about a quarter of it happened – and not like this.”

The voiceover is synched to footage of Jackman examining a comic book page that depicts him and Rogue in a moment of peril, with Wolverine garbed in a variation of his yellow and blue costume. The way Jackman delivers that final line “not like this,” seems to indicate he may have never worn a flamboyant costume – and therefore never will in Logan.

It’s a sort of Meta-moment that speaks beyond the film to Jackman’s overall experience playing Wolverine – and what did or did not happen along the way. It’s a piece of fan debate that director James Mangold has chosen to include thematically in the story: the idea that, for the X-Men, their time as heroes was much grittier and more tragic than what these comic book fantasies depict. Given the series subtextual themes of prejudice and intolerance, that seems fitting.

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Logan hits theaters March 3, 2017.