Logan from the year 2017 is considered one of the best movies in the Marvel universe. Fox gave the beloved hero Wolverine a well-deserved farewell with a truly great film. Logan is based on a well-known comic, but the original story is quite different.
Attention: The following article contains spoilers from the comic series Wolverine: Old Man Logan.
What is Logan about? In 2017, Logan by James Mangold was released. The film is quite different from classic superhero movies. Wolverine is an old man in a post-apocalyptic setting, caring for the sick Charles Xavier. Suddenly, he finds a young mutant whom he wants to take care of.
Logan was an emotional farewell letter to Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman. The template for the film was the comic series Wolverine: Old Man Logan by Mark Miller and Steve McNiven from 2008. Here, too, it’s about an old Wolverine, but that’s where the similarities almost end.
Wolverine: Old Man Logan is more brutal, tragic, and much more absurd than the film, and the comic could probably never have been truly adapted.
Logan is a broken man who just wants his peace
What is Wolverine: Old Man Logan? The 2017 film is based only on the X-Men universe of 20th Century Fox, but only a few well-known mutants appear. In the comic, the story is more extensive throughout the Marvel universe.
The Earth is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and there are really no true heroes left. The USA is divided into zones and ruled by villains. Logan lives with his family on a farm in the territory of the Hulk Gang, a group of hulks from an incestuous family. To pay the rent, he takes a job from the blind Hawkeye and embarks on a journey through the destroyed states.
However, during this journey, Logan refuses to use his iconic claws, and one sees the villain-infested land full of dangers. This Marvel futuristic vision is as ruthless as it is absurd. Among them are the following things:
- Red Skull wears Captain America’s old outfit and calls himself the president
- Venom’s host is a gigantic T-Rex
- Hawkeye’s daughter wants to kill him and become a supervillain boss
Wolverine’s family is killed by the Hulk Gang, and Wolverine awakens his claws once again to take revenge on Bruce Banner and his family. This is also depicted quite explicitly in the comic.
Wolverine’s tragic past
Why did Wolverine stop using his claws? In the 2017 film, a doctor caused the majority of mutants to die due to poisoned food and drinks. The remaining mutants died because Charles Xavier released his powers uncontrollably during a seizure.
In the original comic, something different happened. One day, dozens of villains attacked the home of the X-Men. Wolverine was apparently the only one there and killed all the attacking villains in a brutal fight. But this was just a deception. Wolverine was tricked by Mysterio and killed all his friends and allies.
After that, Wolverine wandered through the world and never fought again as the known hero until he found his family, and the events of the comic occurred.
What happens at the end of the comic? After Logan took revenge on the Hulk Gang, he wandered through the dark world with a baby named Bruce Banner Jr. He strongly resembles lonely Western heroes without a home.
Too absurd for the cinema?
Why does the original story differ so much from the film? It can’t be said 100%, but there are certainly some assumptions to be made. On the one hand, the rights issue is a plausible argument. At the time, Fox only had the rights to certain characters, and Marvel would hardly have allowed characters like the Hulk to be depicted as in the comic.
Another argument is the story itself. In the comic, a mix of many characters and styles fits well, but it’s much harder to portray such a thing in a film. Aspects like an incestuous Hulk Gang, a Venom T-Rex, or a ruined world full of insane supervillains do not fit into a classic superhero movie.
Nevertheless, it’s worth taking a look at the comic for X-Men fans and fans of the films, as it offers interesting world-building and a lot of action for fans of adult stories. We have presented other Wolverine variants here: The 7 strangest variants of Wolverine that we probably will never see in the MCU
