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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unforgiven Meets Wanted, November 5, 2009
This review is from: Wolverine: Old Man Logan (Hardcover)
Mark Millar is a writer I very much enjoy, but he often seems to have trouble sticking endings. That has changed in this story as, from start to stop, it's massively well paced, enormously twisting, and ultimately satisfying. Bringing the sensibility of Clint Eastwood's magnum opus Unforgiven to the plot of the comic Wanted (which Millar also wrote), Wolverine treks across a land where almost every superhero has been killed and America divided amongst the remaining villains. Steve McNiven, teaming up with Millar again after Civil War, brings his A-game in every single panel, be it the ultra-violent battles or the gut-wrenching emotional moments, the Marvel universe has rarely looked so well drawn. I found myself reading it again the moment I finished it and catching all sorts of background references and hints, so it reads well the second, and I'm sure third, time. Absolute highest recommendation.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
rusty snikt, November 7, 2009
This review is from: Wolverine: Old Man Logan (Hardcover)
Much to like - but also a few things to make you go "Wait... what?" - in the eight-issue arc WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN. There's no doubt at all that Wolverine is one of the most overexposed characters out there, having been affiliated with a boatload of teams (Weapon X, Alpha Flight, Dept. H., the X-Men, X-Force, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, and soon probably the New Brighton Archeological Society, the Yancy Street Gang and the PTA). But, admittedly, there's something so very cool about the guy and that vicious thing that he's the best at doing. I don't know that OLD MAN LOGAN is the best Wolverine story ever told. I certainly don't believe that it's the most relevant. But it's certainly one of the most fun and wild and memorable.
Set roughly fifty years in the future, and to spoiler readers of Marvel comic books, the bad guys finally win the whole shebang. The story begins with "Nobody knows what happened on the night the heroes fell." and one of the things which bug me about this arc is that writer Mark Millar never does give us the score on just what went down with the cataclysmic fighty fight between the Marvel heroes and villains. We don't get the juicy details, even though we learn that, finally, finally, the bad guys got wise and realized that, together, they outnumber the good guys by a ratio of huge. Some of the most brilliant villain heavy hitters got together and coordinated simultaneous strikes on the Marvel heroes and pretty much eradicated them from the face of the planet. Fifty years ago.
Something truly horrific happened to Wolverine, and it scarred him so badly that he turned pacifist. Decades later, grizzled and white-haired, he's a struggling farmer trying to support his family, and nowadays he prefers to be called Logan. He's still tormented and so committed is he to not popping his claws that, when he can't make rent, he voluntarily takes a vicious beating from his landlords, who happen to be the rat-crazy, deformed grandchildren of Bruce Banner. Yeah, Logan's dirt poor farm lies in Hulkland (what used to be California). If you thought Mr. Furley was a horrible landlord...
Desperate for rent money, Logan reluctantly leaves his family and signs on for a sprawling cross-country trek with his old and now blind friend Hawkeye on a mysterious courier mission. So what we get for most of these issues is this hybrid of gritty buddy adventure and dystopian travelogue. Issue #66 presents us with a map of America as currently carved up among the supervillains. We note that the most significant demesnes fall to Hulkland, the Kingdom of The Kingpin, Doom's Lair, and The President's Quarter - and, right away, I started wondering who is this President. It turns out, whoever he is, he was the one who masterminded the heroes' downfall fifty years ago. It's also interesting that the villains only cared about ruling the good ol' U.S.A. and didn't give an eff about taking over the rest of the world.
WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN collects issues #66-72 of the ongoing WOLVERINE comic book, as well as the one-shot WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN GIANT-SIZE (but not really "giant-size" in terms of length of story). Mark Millar's post-apocalyptic vision is fueled by his usual outrageous, over-the-top brand of storytelling. But there's also this palpable sense of desolation, an elegiac tone, that surfaces as Logan and Hawkeye travel from wasteland to wasteland and witness the devastating fallout to what happened five decades ago. Decayed structures and bones of the fallen dot the landscape. Superheroes are become extinct. Even Spider-Man's granddaughter is wicked.
It's weird but this story arc is both a rapid read... and a slow read. It reads quick because Millar holds back on the dialogue and allows artist Steve McNiven to take over the narrative, and McNiven's art is really exceptional here, maybe the best I've seen of his stuff. It's cinematic and there are many, many iconic images of our growly Canuck. I'm guessing that his art is the reason for the horrendous scheduling delays, but after marveling at the finished product I tend to want to give him a pass. But, like with LEGION OF THREE WORLDS, OLD MAN LOGAN reads better as a collected trade. There's also the pace of the story, which at times is leisurely. Logan and Hawkeye end up meeting all sorts of baddies, but Logan is stubborn in his vow to stay non-violent, so the action initially isn't what we'd call blistering.
We don't expect Logan to stay a peace-loving gent, and so the anticipation builds to that inevitable time when he unleashes his inner snikt. Which he does in the last few issues - and when Wolverine loses it, he really, really loses it. Millar's slow burn approach then switches up to visceral scenes of slaughter, and oh that poor eviscerated cow. Lots of gratuitous and brutal maiming and blood-letting, but so much fun and, frankly, it's what we expect from a Wolverine story.
Two more things which bothered me. First, I wasn't too impressed when I learned the identity of the mysterious President, this guy not having much of a history with Wolverine and, so, ergo, not so much with the resonance. A more telling thing for me is that I can't quite buy into the big reveal of what happened to Wolverine 50 years ago, that tragic event which made him turn away from violence. Wolvie is the best at what he does, but I don't think even he's that good.
Despite all that, I think that OLD MAN LOGAN is slated for classic status, maybe right up there with Millar's "Enemy of the State" and Barry Windsor-Smith's "Weapon X" storylines. I'm reminded of the "Days of Future Past" X-Men story, not because OLD MAN LOGAN is as classic but because this is yet another possible future arc towards which the 616 Universe can veer. As of right now, OLD MAN LOGAN's is considered an alternate timeline. Still, if you're hankering for a peek at what becomes of this Logan, you should check out Millar's recent run on FANTASTIC FOUR, paying particular attention to the Nu-Earth/New Defenders/Death of the Invisible Woman arc (Fantastic Four: World's Greatest, Vol. 1), and also the Fantastic Force TPB (Fantastic Four) mini-series. Irregardless, I'm betting we haven't seen the last of OLD MAN LOGAN's world. And that's a good thing.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Fairly Solid Alternate Future Story, November 7, 2009
This review is from: Wolverine: Old Man Logan (Hardcover)
Mark Millar crafts a solid alternate future story in Wolverine: Old Man Logan. It's also a road movie in comic book format, with Logan and other-old-man Hawkeye traveling across a post-superhero-apocalyptic America. The back story in which the Marvel Universe's villains finally get organized and, as a result, take over the world, doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny, but it will do as an excuse to tell a dark future Wolverine story that isn't a Days of Future Past spin-off.
I am completely unfamiliar with artist Steve McNiven, but the book looked great. He brought a very gritty, line-heavy style that definitely fit the grimdark mood of the piece.
The book's only major failing, in my mind, was the portrayal of the Hulk, which didn't seem to fit into any of the various characterizations of the Hulk and/or Bruce Banner over the years. Alternate future stories aren't necessarily the most approachable as stand-alones because a level of familiarity with the status quo is often necessary to enjoy the juxtapositions that set the alternate future apart. Wolverine: Old Man Logan largely avoids this trap, but the odd portrayal of the Hulk left me wondering if I haven't missed something in his ongoing saga that would have helped me understand Old Man Logan's portrayal.
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