If you haven't heard, Wolverine is starring in another solo movie in March 2017. Simply titled Logan, this new movie will see Hugh Jackman unleash his claws for the final time. And between the title and the fact that the movie features an older, grizzled version of the popular X-Man, all signs point to Logan adapting Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's popular comic book storyline Old Man Logan. This wouldn't be the first time the X-Men films draw heavily from the comic book source material.
But what makes Old Man Logan so special, and how might it influence the third Wolverine movie? Here are six story elements we hope to see adapted in Logan.
In recent years, studios have begun showing us just how much potential there is with the superhero genre. There have been superhero political thrillers (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), superhero sci-fi adventures (Guardians of the Galaxy) and raunchy superhero comedies (Deadpool). With Logan, Fox now has the chance to deliver the first superhero Western. Well, the first one worth watching, anyway (sorry, Jonah Hex). Old Man Logan is very much a Western, with sweeping shots of the sun-baked vistas and Wolverine being cut from the same cloth as John Wayne or Clint Eastwood's cowboy heroes. The comic is actually very similar to Eastwood's 1992 classic Unforgiven, right down to the fact that the story revolves around Logan reluctantly carrying out a mission and leaving his family to tend to the farm in his absence.
Wolverine is one of the most violent heroes in comics. His berserker rages are the stuff of legend. What makes Old Man Logan unique is the fact that this version of Logan is anything but violent. For reasons that aren't explained until well into the story, Logan has taken a vow of nonviolence. He refuses to pop his claws for any reason, even when members of the Hulk gang threaten his family. The idea of a pacifist Wolverine can bring a whole new level of danger and challenges to the new movie. We've seen Logan stab and slash his way through his enemies for the better part of two decades now. But what happens when he can't rely on his claws? And what would compel this centuries-old warrior to give up violence forever? Those are questions well worth exploring in the film.
Another big change with Old Man Logan involves the fact that Wolverine is a family man. Having long since left the superhero lifestyle behind, Logan now tends to a farm in a remote part of the country. He has an ordinary, human wife and two children to look after, which adds a greater weight and urgency to his quest. The poster for Logan suggests that the movie will revolve in some way around the bond between the aging Wolverine and a young child. The question is whether this child is Logan's flesh-and-blood or someone he encounters during the course of his journey. With X-Men: Apocalypse teasing the debut of Wolverine's female clone, X-23, perhaps Logan will offer a different take on the relationship between father and child.
The plot in Old Man Logan mainly revolves around a cross-country road trip. A blind, elderly Hawkeye shows up at Logan's California farm and asks the former X-Man to serve as his bodyguard as he delivers an important package to New York City. Despite his refusal to kill, the cash-strapped Logan reluctantly agrees to accompany Hawkeye. That road trip structure allows the comic to explore vast sections of the US as it exists in the post-apocalyptic Old Man Logan universe, giving the story a sense of scope and weirdness we'd love to see replicated on the big screen. Granted, there's no chance of Hawkeye himself appearing in the movie given that he's locked up with Marvel Studios. But all signs point to Professor Xavier filling Hawkeye's role in this movie. As crucial as the bond between Logan and Chuck has been in these movies, we're eager to see one, final look at their relationship.
The reason the marvel Universe is such a hellish wasteland in Old Man Logan is that the story unfolds decades after Marvel's villains staged a massive uprising. Finally realizing that working together was the only way to defeat the Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men, the villains banded together and killed nearly every major hero in the world. By the time the comic begins, America is ruled by the surviving villains. Logan and his family live in the Hulklands, which is controlled by Bruce Banner and his inbred, hillbilly children. New York is controlled by Red Skull, who wears the costume of the fallen Captain America as a trophy. Again, the movie can't exactly replicate the comic given that Fox doesn't have the rights to those characters. But even if Logan sticks just to X-Men villains, we'd love to see a Mad Max-style, post-apocalyptic America ruled by characters like Magneto, Apocalypse and Juggernaut.
Logan is only the second X-Men movie to feature an R-rating. We have little doubt the film will make full use of that rating by delivering a heavy dose of violent, blood-soaked action. But the scope of the action needs to be bigger. Old Man Logan featured everything from a Venom-controlled Tyrannosaurus Rex to Wolverine donning Iron Man's armor to battle Red Skull. Of course, the movie can't legally replicate those exact scenes, but it should still show a similar sense of wild imagination. At the same time, we don't want Logan to showcase violence just for the sake of violence. There's a good reason why Logan sheathes his claws forever in the comic. It's a story about a man haunted by the demons of his past and struggling to prove that he can still lead a normal life. Logan resorting to violence and killing should be treated as a tragedy, not an excuse for a little mindless spectacle. With this being Hugh Jackman's last hurrah, we want a movie that can really explore the tragedy of the character and the many losses he's suffered over the course of his life.
Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
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