I Prefer The Wolverine to Logan
Warning: this will have spoilers for the movies The Wolverine, Logan, as well as the comics of writers Chris Claremont, Larry Hama and Mark Millar
We’re about a month away from the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, and I couldn’t be more excited. The Deadpool movies have been a blast, and of course the chance to see Hugh Jackman back as Wolverine (and in a proper costume straight from the comics) is the biggest draw. The movie has taken great pains, however, to clarify that this Wolverine is NOT the same one who met his end in the movie Logan. This is because a large amount of people consider that film to be the ultimate Wolverine movie, and its somber end for the character to be perfect.
And here I am, thinking: “I don’t mind, since I actually prefer The Wolverine to Logan.”
And this is usually where people either stare at me in shock, or start arguing with me that somehow I’m wrong in what I prefer. Keep in mind that I have never said that Logan is a bad movie. It’s actually a great movie and I’d understand if it’s your favorite superhero movie of all time. I just have a preference for its predecessor, and that prompts rather extreme responses. I’ve heard so many dumb arguments that are basically not real points to address my reasoning, like how Logan is supposedly better due to its more mature rating and/or violence, or how The Wolverine ends with a final battle against a giant CG robot. Both of these repeated arguments hinge on the idea that somehow a superficial maturity, along with an embarrassment for a superhero movie leaning into the fantasy side, are actual factors. This also falls apart when you realize that The Wolverine does have an extended unrated cut, which admittedly doesn’t really change the story but does improve it by having an extended sequence of Wolverine fighting ninjas in creatively violent ways.
Ultimately, my reasonings come down to three major points, all of which are influenced by my long history of being a fan of Wolverine since I was a kid in the late 80s (predating the classic 90s cartoon). Again, none of this is to say that Logan is a bad movie. It’s like saying I prefer chocolate ice cream to mint chocolate chip: a personal preference. And I hope this can help you see my point of view, and look at both movies in comparison with new eyes.
Similar Themes, Different Conclusions
The Wolverine follows our favorite rapid-healing, claw-swinging mutant hero in the aftermath of X-Men: The Last Stand, living in isolation and in mourning for having taken Jean Grey’s (Famke Janssen) life. He’s drawn back out and to Japan when an old acquaintance whose life he saved during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki is dying. Logan finds himself drawn into a web of intrigue around Mariko Yashida(Tao Okamoto), the granddaughter of his friend, as different factions like the Yakuza and ninja close in on her. In the process, his healing is negated and he’s now vulnerable to death.
Logan is set in a darker future, where no new mutants have been born in 25 years, and Logan’s healing factor is failing as he’s finally aging. He’s in hiding while taking care of an elderly Professor X (Patrick Stewart) whose powers have become so dangerous due to dementia that he has telepathic seizures can kill people around him (heavily implying he killed the X-Men). When they meet a young mutant named Laura (Dafne Keen) who is a clone/daughter of Logan, the three travel across America in an attempt help get her away from the people who made her.
Both movies present us with a Wolverine full of regret for past failures, no longer calling himself Wolverine or even believing he’s the same hero he once was, who’s now more vulnerable to being killed, dealing with figures of his past who are connected to that guilt (Jean in the former, Xavier in the later) and meet a new character who slowly start reawaken the hero in him (Mariko and Laura). Both films feature villains who are consequences of his past actions, and a final battle with a foe who is symbolic of Wolverine’s life and influence on the world (Silver Samurai and the Logan clone X-24). It makes sense there are this many thematic similarities, since James Mangold directed both and both films are very much his take on the character.
What makes them really different is the conclusion each reaches. Logan is a more somber, somewhat depressing story about Wolverine’s final adventure, with him essentially in so much physical and emotional pain that he’s waiting to die, with its big emotional upswing coming from him finally finding something worth dying for: saving his newfound daughter and her friends. Meanwhile, The Wolverine takes the opposite approach. It shows us a Wolverine so filled with guilt and self-loathing at his past, to the point he hates himself for killing Jean despite him needing to do it in order to save lives, that he has withdrawn from the world. The loss of his healing powers opens him up to the idea that he could finally find a peaceful death. But his newfound love for Mariko (who I must stress as a longtime fan has always been the much better love interest for the character) helps him come back, finding not a reason to die but one to live again, so much so that he risks death to get his powers back to rescue her and declare when asked what kind of monster he is that he is “The Wolverine.”
I can understand and enjoy the catharsis that can come from a story like Logan, in finding a peaceful love in death after a hard and sad life. But I always find stories about finding reasons to get back up and keep living, keep being the best that you can be, to be more emotionally fulfilling.
A Better Adaption of Better Source Material
Both films draw from major comic storylines starring Wolverine. The Wolverine is based mainly on the iconic 1982 mini-series written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Frank Miller (with a little additional influence from Larry Hama’s time as the main writer for the character’s solo series through the late 80s and 90s). Meanwhile, Logan takes inspiration from the “Old Man Logan” storyline by writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven.
The 1982 mini-series is pretty much the definitive Wolverine story, taking what most people initially thought of as just a violent little claw maniac and giving him the depth and characterization that would make him one of the most popular superheroes of all time. The Wolverine borrows a lot from this, from its setting in Japan, the love interest of Mariko and the supporting character of Yukio (played by Rila Fukushima), to using its main villain of Shingen Yashida (played by the ever amazing Hiroyuki Sanada) as one of the main villains. It also touches on the idea that Wolverine is akin to a masterless samurai, a warrior with a deep spiritual self and honor alongside the savage rage. Many of the themes I mentioned earlier, like finding a reason and cause to live for, were explored here. It also has influence from Larry Hama, particularly exploring what Wolverine is like when he no longer has a healing factor to rely on (as in the comics for a time he lost it after overloading it to survive Magneto ripping all the metal from his bones), as well as the use of Silver Samurai as the other main villain.
Meanwhile, Logan only takes the barest minimum from “Old Man Logan.” Mainly, that it follows an older Wolverine in a more dystopian future. It actually is fairly funny that the movie eclipses that comic storyline by jettisoning the majority of it. And some will say that it had to, since the comic featured appearances by characters from other Marvel comics that couldn’t be used in the movie. But it goes much deeper than that. “Old Man Logan” has an elderly Logan (who hasn’t used the name Wolverine nor popped his claws since he was tricked into killing all the X-Men by Spider-Man villain Mysterio) with a wife and kids, who owes money to the Hulk’s inbred hillbilly children. No, I’m not joking. He then teams up with Hawkeye to do a transport job across the country. Every stop on their journey is basically an obnoxiously immature edgy scene featuring something you probably loved in Marvel getting perverted to make a faux mature moment. And ultimately the journey is pointless, since once the job is done, Logan returns only to find that the Hulk’s offspring killed his family, leading him to pop his claws for the first time in the story and assume the Wolverine name again. This leads to a series of grisly fights culminating in a showdown between Wolverine and Hulk that is punctuated by the Hulk justifying sexually assaulting his cousin She-Hulk to create his inbred offspring and eating Wolverine, who rips his way out.
Now, ignoring all the edgelord silliness and gruesome, cynical stupidity, notice how NONE of that is remotely recreated in Logan? Not even the part about Wolverine being tricked into killing the X-Men, leading him to never use his claws until the end. There was a way to use those main plot points without needing to worry about Disney having the rights to Hulk or Hawkeye and all that. Logan is a good movie by utterly ignoring most of this hilariously immature story. Meanwhile, The Wolverine is a good one because it uses the main plot points of its source material in new ways.
A Much More Satisfying Final Fight
One of the most frequently stated complaints about The Wolverine is that its climactic showdown sees our hero face off with the Silver Samurai, who in this film is a big CG robot (which at least finally gives us a Wolverine foe in the movies that makes him look as small as he usually does in the comics). Even when reviews or talks about it praise the rest of the movie, somehow the presence of this is enough to derail all positive talk. There are people who even go as far as to say that somehow this one thing makes The Wolverine the worst movie they’ve ever seen, which is hilarious and says more about how few movies they’ve watched.
But to me, Logan has a more unsatisfying final battle. And it all stems from the fact Logan’s final battle that costs him his life is with his clone X-24 (also played by Hugh Jackman). Now, throughout the movie, Logan, Xavier and Laura are pursued by the cyborg soldiers known as the Reavers, led by Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) under the command of Dr. Zander Rice (the always amazing Richard E. Grant). Both of these men are great villains, but they’re dispatched early in the climactic showdown, leaving only X-24 as the final threat. And while there is a symbolic beauty in Logan having to face what is essentially everything he hates and fears about himself, X-24 is pretty much a blank slate with no character. He’s more of a robot than Silver Samurai is, with no dialogue. Again, this works with the themes and tone of Logan, but it doesn’t really give a finale worthy of it, especially after the preceding sequence of Logan and Laura fighting the Reavers.
Meanwhile in The Wolverine, we have Silver Samurai, who is revealed to be Ichiro Yashida (played as a young man by Ken Yamamura and an old one by Haruhiko Yamanouchi), the man Logan saved during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and grandfather of Mariko. Some fans like to think he’s a mix of the comic version of Silver Samurai and the villain Ogun, but I see him more as influenced by the comic’s depiction of his son Shingen. And while we do get the iconic sword duel between this movie’s version of Shingen (again, played by the great Hiroyuki Sanada), all his more sinister warrior zen characteristics are in Ichiro (while Shingen kept the swordsman and crime lord parts). Throughout the film, they emphasize how Logan saving him led Yashida to create a major company that has done much good in the world, that saving him allowed Shingen and thus Mariko to be born, and allowed Yukio to find a home when he took her in. But one of the first things we see Yashida do is hesitate at committing suicide before the Nagasaki bomb alongside his fellow soldiers, and his refusal to accept death and fascination with Wolverine’s immortality are his defining motivations. And while his son is a monster for wanting to kill his own daughter so she couldn’t be named successor to the company, he’s potentially a worse monster for wanting to use her as a false figurehead to continue leading from the shadows. The Silver Samurai suit he uses to survive and try to steal Logan’s healing factor is made of adamantium, like Wolverine’s claws, driving home his twisted desire to steal everything from the mutant. In a movie about Wolverine reconnecting with being a hero, his defeat of Yashida (with the help of Mariko and Yukio) takes on an interesting symbolism of its own, as taking responsibility for the monster he’s become and ending his twisted ambitions. It may seem like a stretch, but I felt that him actually having a character, as well as his existence having long reaching consequences both good and bad for Logan, Mariko and Yukio (both of whom owe him so much for the good in their lives) just gives the battle with him more meaning for me.
And those are my reasons for preferring The Wolverine to Logan. Personally, I’m hopeful that Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t just a good sequel to the Deadpool films, but a great one for the Wolverine ones as well. Maybe we’ll say it’s the best Wolverine movie of all. At least we can all agree on one thing though:
Both The Wolverine and Logan are way better than the terrible X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
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