Logan: Love and Legacy

This is a masterful finale

Recently, Deadpool & Wolverine was released in theaters. I’ve heard great things about it, and I really want to check it out, but I don’t exactly know when I’ll get a chance to watch it. I might discuss it here once I see it.

Until then, I thought this would be a great opportunity to discuss the last time I witnessed the talented Hugh Jackman play Wolverine, a character he has defined and will be remembered for in much the same way as Robert Downey Jr. with Iron Man and Christopher Reeve with Superman: the 2017 film Logan. This is going to be more reflective and meditative, as I grapple with different ideas the film brings up for me. It’s not going to be a review. In that regard, I’ll just say that I think Logan is a masterpiece, that it’s skillfully directed, acted, and written, and that there’s not a single thing about it which falls short, in my view.

Before diving into my reflections on the film specifically, let’s talk about Marvel superheroes in general, including Wolverine. I’ve watched television documentaries about the history of major United States superhero comics, which have covered the two big publishers: DC and Marvel. I’ve heard, several times, probably in these documentaries and elsewhere, that DC heroes tend to be aspirational ideals. Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash are all virtuous. (Batman is a notable exception to this pattern.) In contrast, Marvel heroes are more relatable, more down-to-Earth. Part of this relatability comes from the fact that many of them are trying to make up for shortcomings, failures, and other tragedies. As my brother so aptly put it one day, they’re all looking for some damn redemption. Here’s a cursory look: Spider-Man wants redemption for what he believes is his fault over the death of a loved one, Iron Man wants to atone for his years of weapons manufacturing and distribution, and Black Widow is making up for the years during which she worked for villainous forces.

There are many tortured protagonists in the world of Marvel, and I think one of the most haunted is Logan, also known as Wolverine. His backstory involves brutal and painful scientific procedures that coated his skeleton in adamantium, an indestructible metal. The people who hurt him had intended to make him a living weapon. Much of his story has been a journey to define who he is, apart from where he has come from.

The film Logan (directed by James Mangold, screenplay by Scott Frank & Mangold and Michael Green, story by Mangold), if I remember correctly, takes place in its own alternate timeline. It serves as a hypothetical final story for the titular character. In this way, it falls within a long tradition of comic book stories in which writers and artists imagine what a final tale for a character would involve; notable examples include Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore, Curt Swan, George Pérez, & Kurt Schaffenberger, and Daredevil: End of Days by Brian Michael Bendis, David W. Mack, Klaus Janson, Bill Sienkiewicz, & Alex Maleev. Stories in this tradition draw from the hero’s well-known backstory to reach a particular end.

As a final film for Wolverine, what was Logan most interested in? Thinking about the film now, the themes that pop out to me the most are love and legacy, both of which are linked in the film.

In many ways, Logan is a story about a man learning to open his heart to love again after enduring unfathomable losses. Wolverine is a member of the superhero team the X-Men, a group of individuals born with special powers who strive to use their abilities for good under the guidance of Professor Charles Xavier. Many X-Men stories emphasize the importance of found family; most of the members of the team have been abandoned or ostracized by their biological families. They find family in one another, instead. The tragedy of Logan is that Logan experienced what a family is like, only for that family to be ripped away from him. When the film begins, the only surviving X-Men besides Logan are Caliban (Stephen Merchant) and Charles (Patrick Stewart). Everyone else is dead, having perished in a catastrophe that the film repeatedly hints at. 

The three survivors aren’t living; they’re just getting by. Charles is ailing, Caliban keeps watch for danger, and Logan spends his days working as a driver, earning enough money to one day buy a boat so that they can all live the rest of their days on the water. His plans are upended when he’s sought out for a dangerous job that promises to pay well; he is asked by a nurse, Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez) to take her and a young girl, Laura (Dafne Keen) to safety. Before he can begin the job, Gabriela is killed, and Laura stows away in Logan’s car. After barely escaping from Gabriela’s killers, Logan watches a video she has left behind to understand the truth of what is happening. Gabriela worked for a shadowy organization that was creating mutants in labs based on acquired DNA samples. Many of the mutants are children, and the organization wants to kill them all because it no longer needs them. Laura was made from Logan’s DNA; in this way, she is like his daughter. 

Beyond the genetic similarities and their matching powers, Laura and Logan share the fact that they come from a similar, dark place. They were made by people who didn’t consider them human, only weapons. Though he and Laura share so much, Logan keeps her at an emotional distance. For most of the film, he sees his task in helping her find safety as a duty, and nothing more. Near the film’s end, he tells Laura that most of the people he cares about end up suffering horrible fates, which is why he doesn’t want Laura to get close to him. 

Charles, however, encourages Logan to open up again. One of the most poignant moments in the film is when Logan, Charles, and Laura (Caliban is tragically captured by their pursuers, and he later dies trying to stop them from reaching Logan and Charles) come across farmer Will Munson (Eriq La Salle) and his family and stay at their home for the night. Charles says he’s Logan’s father; this isn’t incorrect, since he has very much been a father to Logan. Charles had always strived to guide and to instill strong morals and virtues in Logan, as well as in all of the X-Men.

The Munson family gives the travelers warm food and cozy beds. As he tucks Charles in for the night, Charles says, “You know Logan, this is what life looks like. A home. People who love each other. A safe place. You should take a moment and feel it.” 

This brief, beautiful peace is shattered by Logan’s worst nightmare, which forces him to confront his legacy. The Munsons and Charles are murdered by the experiment that the shadowy organization that had created Laura has developed, the reason they no longer need the children: a perfect clone of Logan. The clone looks like a younger him and is completely devoid of heart or mind. All it does is kill; all it knows is murder. This is the very thing the people who had grafted adamantium onto Logan’s bones long ago had been hoping to achieve. This is the very thing that Logan could have been.

With his family dead, Will still helps Logan temporarily overpower the clone, but aims a shotgun at Logan, who nods in acceptance. Will, before he succumbs to his own wounds, is telling Logan that everyone’s deaths are Logan’s fault. Logan agrees. 

The clone forces Logan to confront whether or not he is merely a weapon, whether or not the only thing he is good for is killing. 

This film is brutal and harrowing, but it ends on a note of radical hope, which is hope for a future that one might not live long enough to witness. The ending also illustrates Logan defining who he is.

Logan finally finds the sanctuary, where he drops off Laura. She reunites with other children who escaped from the organization, and they all plan to cross over to Canada (which, in many interpretations of Wolverine, is the country of his birth). Logan plans to leave, knowing his job is done, but he sees that the organization has found the children. With everything he has left, he rescues the children. They work together to defeat their pursuers and to kill Logan’s clone. Doing this, Logan sacrifices his life. In his final moments, he opens his heart to Laura, who sobs over him, calling him her daddy. He connects over their similar pasts and tells her that she isn’t what she has been made for. She isn’t a weapon. She can define her life, similar to how he did. His last words are, “So, this is what it feels like.” He has finally felt life again, as Charles had wanted for him.

Logan doesn’t live to see the children reach safety. His sacrifice, though, helps them secure a better future. And, the children who he has saved bury him. Laura eulogizes him, interring him with love. 

There are few more poignant visual examples of legacy, of what one leaves behind, than the burial scene in Logan. His life, marked by pain, loss, and violence, ends, but his legacy, marked by sacrifice, heroism, and love, lives on after him. As a hypothetical last Wolverine story, Logan understands that family and love are at the center of the greatest X-Men stories and concludes with hard-earned triumph. It’s a powerful film about the things people endure, the choices they make in life, and the impact their choices have. 

I don’t mind that Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman have since reprised their roles as Charles and Logan in later movies, and I don’t mind if they continue to play these characters. Again, Logan belongs in the tradition of the hypothetical ending. These characters are meant to live on, and their stories are meant to be told again and again, each time with similar or different ideas and meanings. 

This is why, even though there is a glut of superhero movies, I’m always down to watch a good one. I continue to keep my eyes open for what I might enjoy. I look forward to watching Deadpool & Wolverine, and I’m curious about what comes next.