OLD MAN LOGAN- One of the reasons I’m just now getting around to reading this graphic novel has to do with Marvel Comic’s piss poor pricing. The individual issues of Marvel Comics I gave up reading/caring about years ago when most of them…
A/ reached $3.99 in price for less than a couple dozen pages of story and
B/filled the issues with ads that broke up the story (rather than the Independent comics way of placing ads, if any, at the back of the magazine) and
C/ did away with the letters pages/backmatter.
So generally speaking I take a wait and see approach to anything coming from this company. If the buzz/hype is positive I’ll check the book out in trade, providing even in trade format I’m not paying more than $3 per issue. The OLD MAN LOGAN hardcover at $35 retail, clocks in at nearly $4.50 per issue. I call shenanigans on that.
So I basically refused to buy the book until I could get it at a price point I was willing to pay, or rent it from the library. In this case the former scenario popped up, allowing me to purchase OLD MAN LOGAN for $14. At that price, the book is worth every penny.
Now getting beyond the politics of pricing, what did I think of the book itself? It’s AWESOME!!! I am not a Mark Millar fan, being not a fan of his previous ENEMY OF THE STATE Wolverine storyline, I find he can be a very hit and miss writer. Often sensationalism for sensationalism’s sake. but when he dials it back a bit, and stops trying to be the shock jock, and plays in a more mainstream pool, he can tell good stories.
And OLD MAN LOGAN is case in point. It is by no means anything deep, and at times goes too ludicrous, but overall he tells a big grandiose, absurd, post apocalyptic story, Superhero tale as a western of all things, and it just works. Particularly to someone like me who came up on the same stories that informs Millar’s work, his crazy quilt dystopian future hits all the right buttons to garner much ‘gosh’ and ‘oh gee’ enthusiasm. The art by Steve McNiven is rough, stocky, almost off-putting, but it serves the story.
It’s a loud boisterous unsubtle tale, that while nothing new under the sun, works because it gives us familiar characters in unfamiliar situations. Yet another variation of Star Trek’s MIRROR MIRROR or X-Men’s DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, and those variations, more often then not are enjoyable.
And OLD MAN LOGAN, flaws acknowledged is enjoyable.
And to speak on its flaws a bit, the biggest flaw with this book, is the big flaw most writers make, be it Millar or Jason Aaron, when writing Wolverine. They think character and cool translates into ever more egregious ways of showing Wolverine mutilated. All that type of ‘storytelling’ shows me is, the character of Wolverine is a piss poor soldier, that relies too much on the crutch of a healing factor.
What is cooler… a buffoon who gets shot in the face every other page, or a fast fluid killer who you can’t touch, and you don’t even know he has a healing factor, cause that’s how rarely he needs it? I’d vote for the latter. The latter seems the more formidable protagonist. A protagonist that… when on the rare occasions he does get tagged and comes back, it is a moment with real weight.
All these writers in trying to outdo each other in more, more, more, gives the character of Logan/Wolverine nowhere to go. And unfortunately Millar is as guilty of that as every writer since Claremont in trying to make the character of Wolverine into some unkillable badass, who can kill every other superhero. It’s a bit lazy, and bs.
Let’s put it in the perspective of the fictional conceit that has been setup, he’s a dude with claws, and a temper. An interesting character, a scrapper to be sure, but trying to define him as more than that, in a world of God’s and Giants doesn’t ring true (he’s a Spiderman or Daredevil level hero, not in the league of a Thor or Hulk or IronMan). When Claremont was writing him in his Miller and Paul Smith days, as a secret agent/ronin, is the Wolverine character at his best, and most relateable.
Millar’s take on the guy as someone who is by himself going to take out a room full of heroes or villains is bs. But that said, you go into the story accepting the conceit, go with the outlandish premise, just turn your higher brain functions off, and it’s an enjoyable enough romp as a standalone story.
All in all this tale of an older Wolverine in a world where the villains have won and he has hung up his claws. Is imaginative, if absurd entertainment. Grade: B+.
Heroic Times 