OLD MAN LOGAN - A Comic Review

I'm on vacation this week, but that doesn't mean I'm not all business! SO...the rumor came down a while back that Hugh Jackman's final outing as the Wolverine would be based on Mark Millar's 2008 story arc "Old Man Logan". And then I decided to read it. And review it, because it really is quite good!

Spoilers up in hurr - they're not really big spoilers, but they're still spoilers nonetheless.

I'm not the world's biggest Mark Millar fan. He's quite talented, for sure, but fairly inconsistent, too. I dug his run on "Ultimate X-men" and I enjoyed "Kick-Ass" (and "Kick-Ass 2", though not so much "Hit-Girl" and "Kick-Ass 3") "Wanted" was weird and not really my cup of tea, and "Secret Service" was just plain awful. But he also wrote "Civil War", which is a truly amazing mini-series. Inconsistencies aside, when Millar is on, damn...he is on. So when I realized Millar had re-teamed with Steve McNiven, the artist on "Civil War", to bring us the story of a dystopian future starring a nearly unrecognizable Wolverine, I was on-freakin'-board.

To start, Millar creates a truly desperate image of the world. Imagine a future where the supervillains teamed up to finally, completely destroy almost every superhero in the world, and seize control. America is cut into quadrants, each with a tyrannical villain ruling over it. Imagine fifty years later, an old farmer lives in extreme poverty, desperately struggling to make rent or face the wrath of a bunch of redneck, violent, sociopathic Hulk descendants threatening the farmer's wife and children. They promise his family terrible violence, yet this farmer could easily kill them all, if he weren't a pacifist, sworn to avoid violence at all costs. Now imagine that old farmer is Wolverine, who hasn't picked a fight, killed a man, or even popped his claws in half a century.

That is the backbone of "Old Man Logan". Wolverine has essentially been de-fanged, and is trying to lead a normal, if difficult, life in peace and quiet with his young family. When he finds himself a month behind on rent, he must take a job with an old friend (spoiler alert - it's HAWKEYE!) to travel across the wasteland that America has become, or risk the lives of his entire family.

There are really two stories wrapped in one here. The first really begins when Logan and a now-blind Hawkeye ride across the country, they come across various towns and people in need of a hero, yet Logan refuses to fight, refuses to get involved, almost to the point of absurdity. The second story is the mystery of why that is. First of all, what exactly happened to all the heroes? And how was Wolverine defeated so badly that he swore to never fight again?

Both stories are good and interesting in their own right, but finding out the truth of what really happened fifty years ago is far more brutal and devastating than I can describe without ruining the story. But rest assured, "Old Man Logan is Mark Millar at the height of his talent. He is ON in this book.

Millar brings sympathy when it's due, anger when it's deserved, and an insane amount of excitement when the action breaks out. Though Logan may have sworn himself to peace, that doesn't mean everyone around him has, and the sight of a glaucoma-ridden Hawkeye still having plenty of tricks up his sleeve is certainly a ton of fun. There are plenty of twists, turns, and unexpected surprises along the way. What happened to the cities that just seemed to disappear overnight? Who's is the President? Where is Mjolnir? Why is that Ultron clone wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khakis? And just how did those redneck Hulks even come about? There's a ton of story to explore, and Millar handles it all with aplomb.

Art-wise, Steve McNiven brings a similar art to his previous work on "Civil War" to this book, creating both a cinematic and realistic feeling to the serenity of Logan's peaceful life, and the chaos that results when that serenity is broken, either by violence, or by the emergence of an unexpected villain. Logan spends nearly the entire book refusing to show his claws, and when he finally breaks his oath, McNiven spends three pages giving you an ear-to-ear grin at the unbridled badassness of it.

Millar and McNiven craft a wonderful complete story, create a horribly dystopian future, and expertly weave in awesome action, humor, and even some heart-wrenching poignancy, too. If 'Wolverine 3' decides to go this route and adapt the "Old Man Logan" story arc for their movie, it's going to have a tough time living up to the quality of this book. I really, really hope they succeed.

FINAL SCORE - 8.5/10