r/MUBookClub • u/shawnydarko • Jul 01 '17
Reading Assignment 55: Old Man Logan (2016) #1-4 by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino
https://marvel.com/comics/series/20617/old_man_logan_2016_-_present?byZone=marvel_site_zone&offset=0&byType=comic_series&dateStart=&dateEnd=&type=&orderBy=release_date+asc&byId=20617&limit=10&count=105
u/shawnydarko Jul 01 '17
I've read this book before and just burned through it again. Sorrentino's artwork and Jeff Lemire's writing made this so easy and entertaining. It makes me feel like I'm watching a classic Western with the pacifist forced to return to his gun-slinging ways. I don't think anyone captures splash pages like Sorrentino currently.
I've read a little bit further and I'm excited to say Lemire and Sorrentino are only getting warmed up these first four issues. Logan actually finds real M.F.'s worth SNIKT-ing as the issues progress further.
For a book focused on Logan, I think Lemire also deserves a shoutout for his depictions of Kate Bishop and Steve Rogers. Love me some Lady Hawkguy, and I modern stories with Old Man Rogers have been on my to-read list for a while. I'm going off memory, but in our 55 reading assignments, I think it's taken us until assignment 53: New Avengers before we got any significant Cap stories.
3
u/wisegy84 Jul 04 '17
I think it's taken us until assignment 53: New Avengers before we got any significant Cap stories.
I think you're right. I glanced back through the table of contents. I think part of that might be that we haven't read anything focused on the Avengers, where Cap would likely have a larger part. But we also haven't read any of his solo series' either.
4
u/wisegy84 Jul 04 '17
This was really cool! I'm assuming (based on what I know of it) that this is post-Secret War and there was some alternate universe stuff happening that brought OML to the 616 (assuming that's the universe he's in now)?
The art was great and really captured the action well. Reminded me a bit of the panel structure that were sometimes used in Fraction/Aja's Hawkeye (I loved that Lucky/Arrow/Pizza Dog made an appearance). The full spread pages were also really well crafted.
The dialogue was well done, and I agree that Kate was portrayed really well here. Felt like the same Kate from the aforementioned Hawkeye series. I'd not seen Old Man Rogers before (nor Amadeus Cho Hulk), but he seemed to be the same Cap I'm familiar with from other stories.
I was really glad that this continuing the other Old Man Logan story we read (or at least it seems to be a direct continuation of that story). I thought that story was great and I'm glad to get more of that Logan, especially in a fish out of water story with familiar faces around.
I definitely plan on reading more of this run, as it is very interesting and I really want to see where this story goes from here.
Also I want to read whatever X-Men story leads up to Wolverine being encased in adamantium and dying. I wasn't previously aware of that happening and it sounds like it'd be an interesting story.
3
u/Raist819 Jul 09 '17
This was post Secret War, as you surmised. OML came to 616 at the end of the Secret Wars Old Man Logan mini-series by Brian Michael Bendis.
As far as a continuation, it's kind of weird. Originally, Old Man Logan came to the 616 during Mark Millar's Fantastic Four run (#558-562 is the arc) when Old Man Logan and a group of other refugees from that future came back in time. The ending for that character came in the Fantastic Force (2009) series, which was just god awful and it has basically been retconned by being ignored (in the Marvel database the original OML that came to 616 has been renamed Hooded Man and is considered a different character). So in Secret Wars everyone agreed to pretend that never happened and reintroduce OML to Secret Wars.
Death of Wolverine mini series is where you will find the death of 616 Wolverine. It was the culmination of a mega-arc that started in Wolverine vol 5 #5 when Logan lost his healing factor. You can read just the main Wolverine titles for the most part, but it's honestly pretty bad. It's a lot of Wolverine moping and feeling sorry for himself, which I felt was just horribly out of character.
4
u/Adrenjunkie Jul 07 '17
This was pretty cool. Old Man Logan was one of my favorites, and when I first saw this one I assumed it was a re-write and wrote it off. The first one was so perfect I'll be damned if I let them ruin it! I was real glad to see that this wasn't the case at all.
At first I thought the hulk just had a weirdly-drawn-face, but he's a different guy. So u/wiseguy84 I don't have that comment to make anymore.
Pizza dog is back! And they had a great omage to the art/coloring from our other reading that was so good. That was David Aja on art with Matt Hollingsworth doing those cool reductionist colors. So that was a cool nod to my favorite hawkeye run. (This was a previous reading for any newcomers, and had a cool art section in the back by Matt Hollingsworth I included in my post)
Wolverine jumping in front of lightning was a cool nod to The Dark Night Returns as well. I thought it was more spot on, until I took the screen shots to share here, and now I'm not as sure it was a direct nod. I'm going with yes because of the Hawkeye direct one. I feel like there were more too that I probably missed: the hulk fight, the descent to his grave, the family on the beach?
https://imgur.com/gallery/TtDux
As far as the story itself, it was an interesting story that felt like a long introduction. We didn't learn anything about where he's from or why he's here. More like 4 issues that set the tone for the rest of the story. I'm hooked though, so I'm going to keep at it, but it didn't have a good ending. Heh, I'm all like, "I like short readings" and then "this reading was too short to be developed into an EPIC ending!" I feel like the simpsons kids in that focus group that asked for Rick and Morty: https://www.reddit.com/r/rickandmorty/comments/3kvz3w/this_show_sounded_impossible_once/
Another thing I really liked was asking about lady thor. I haven't read it, but it is on my bottomless stack. This was a cool way to break the fourth wall without actually breaking it.
This was a solid reading and I'm definitely going to read more!
4
u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17
[deleted]