How Logan marries the western genre of the 1960s with the superhero genre of today
**This was originally an essay I wrote for a college film theory class in 2017. I just discovered it on my hard drive and thought I’d share**
Concluding the narrative of the famed comic book character Wolverine, director James Mangold combines the archetypal call to action of superhero fiction with the nomadic quest often found in a western. But to truly elevate the work, he takes the fictitious powers of a superhuman and explores how this reluctant hero grapples with questions of power, morality and responsibility in a gritty backdrop that is reminiscent of a neo-western.
Before exploring how Logan redefines superhero fiction, we must first understand exactly what that is and how it can even be considered a genre.
According to Peter Coogan, the genre is defined by its featuring of an individual, or group of individuals, afforded with extraordinary abilities that they use to achieve a pro-social or selfless mission. “His fight against evil must fit in with the existing, professed mores of society and must not be intended to benefit or further his own agenda,” he states. In this regard, films of this genre must explore a greater theme of a society and have a protagonist that works to improve it using their capabilities. Often these films will feature recurrent action sequences displaying these capabilities as well as a distinguishable antagonist in a fight of absolute good versus absolute evil.
So is this really or genre, a subgenre of action or science fiction, or simply a character archetype?
Arguably, based on Coogan’s definition and other observations, superhero fiction has become a unique genre, particularly in recent years. Exploring a character afforded with scientifically impossible physical or mental capabilities sets these films apart from typical works of action. Additionally thematic questions of the responsibilities of such power and the risk of using them to better society are explored in most films of the genre. While it often may feature elements of the genres listed above, it also has a distinguishable set of tropes and narrative cues that are unique to films within it.
The western, on the other hand, is more well-established as a traditional film genre. As the title suggests, it must take place in the American West depict struggles of living on such a frontier. It will commonly feature three dominant motifs; a rebellious hero, frequent depictions of the vast and desolate landscape, and a climactic battle sequence between the waging parties. However, to better understand how Logan utilizes the genre not only to redefine superhero fiction, but improve it, the subgenre of the revisionist western but be defined specifically. Tracing its roots back to the late 1960’s as a part of the American New Wave movement, the revisionist western took elements from the traditional genre but placed them into a darker, more realistic setting where protagonists served as anti-heroes defined by their moral ambiguity. In this context, there was a lacking of absolute good; morality was served as a spectrum and the defined heroes often resembled elements of their antagonistic counterparts.
This goes against the values as depicted by more classical films in the genre such as Red River and The Searchers, both starring John Wayne who was known for depicting character’s with clear-cut morality, as well as most contemporary superhero films, as will be discussed more later on. Rather the subgenre is arguably best defined by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid which featured as two outlaws as it’s protagonists as well as the more recent neo-western No Country for Old Men.
It can be argued than that the character of Wolverine would serve as the perfect harbinger for such a hybrid of genres. In his comic depictions, dating back to 1974, as well as the more recent film series, this character has always been seen as the ultimate embodiment of the anti-hero and so it would make sense for him to serve as protagonist in a film attempting to serve as revisionist superheroism.
So how then does Logan work to combine these two genres? The initial premise plays out like a traditional superhero film. An individual with the extraordinary abilities of complete physical invulnerability and retractable bone claws is forced into protecting a young girl who possesses some of his DNA, ultimately at the expense of his own life; a selfless act indeed. Additionally, the common tropes of that individual attempting to hide their abilities, and the public fearing him or her for them, serves as conflicts for Logan, who has been attempting to escape persecution for his powers since the previous film.
But from here the film displays very few recurrent motifs from the genre and acts almost entirely as a Western. It attempts to minimize the use of his powers by stating that, with age, he is losing his abilities and the very reasons for his power, adamantium steel in his skeleton, are beginning to poison him; a brutally ironic play on the strengths of the superhuman. This is likely done with the intention of ensuring that Logan does not fall into the traditional traps of its genre by focusing heavily on graphics-induced action sequences that hinder character development and focus more on the simplicity of how such abilities affect the individual’s psyche. Having built a more realistic superhuman, Logan then employs several of the major tropes for the western genre.
The plot of the story puts him on a nomadic quest through the desolate American West, requiring him to travel from Mexico to North Dakota, to get the young girl, Laura, to a purported safe haven for their kind. Finally, the film builds to a climactic battle sequence where Logan must fight to protect Laura and several others from the employees of an evil biotechnology corporation that created them. The film furthers this hybrid into the subgenre by effectively acting as a critique to superhero fiction itself through the employment of these revisionist western motifs.
The defining trait of the revisionist western is moral ambiguity as a reflection of the truths of society; that there is no good in the absolute and often a hero resembles a villain in many ways.
This theme is depicted throughout the film and is central to Logan’s character, he is not necessarily good even though he does the right thing; being emblemized in the climax to an almost ironic degree.
The antagonist throughout the film had been the security director of the corporation named Donald Pierce. However, it was revealed earlier that the corporation had not only developed children with similar abilities to Logan and his former team but had also grown a complete clone of Logan himself. In the climax, the only large-scale fight scene in the film and one that is a radical departure from other superhero battles, Logan does not battle Pierce but rather is forced to fight the clone of himself. This was an arguably perfect statement of moral ambiguity. The notion that protagonists reflect their antagonists was taken to an entirely new and far more literal level. In this regard, it can be argued that Logan had been fighting himself. His own demons of right and wrong, had been serving as a constant conflict throughout the film and in this moment he finally had to answer for his actions to the most important person, himself.
To this end, Logan is significantly darker in its departure from the genre. This was the early intention of Mangold in an effort to diverge from the previous films in the series; featuring more explicit violence and adult language.
Logan aimed to be a work of realism; to present a world where the grittiness of modern society is put at the forefront in contrast to the pristine and futuristic worlds often seen in the X-Men franchise.
In a keen intertextual example of revisionism, Logan actually receives a Marvel comic book, establishing that they exist in this world. Upon viewing it he states, “You do know they’re all bullshit, right? Maybe a quarter of it happened, and not like this. In the real world, people die, and no self-promoting asshole in a fucking leotard can stop this.” The ultimate message of such a film is that there is no absolute good in the world; movies allow us to escape from reality by conveying a positive outlook on society, one where the heroes come out unscathed and victorious. But in reality, this is of course far from the truth.
What sets Logan apart is his struggle. It resonates with the audience because it reflects truth; often the heroes lose.
There may be victory but it is not absolute, and it comes at great loss. Logan brought Laura to safety but lost everything that mattered to him and made the ultimate sacrifice of giving up his own life to protect her. Its realistic and its selfless. Logan is not necessarily good but he is not bad either, he is willing to fight and kill without much remorse but will always protect those he loves above all else. This is how the film serves as a departure from the superhero genre, it features an individual afforded with such extraordinary abilities but rather than focusing on extravagant battle sequences, it chooses to prioritize a character driven narrative that promotes greater subtlety and lends itself to the moral ambiguity of a western. Through this, Logan transcends superhero fiction and is arguably the finest film to emerge from the genre.