Logan is the perfect coda to Hugh Jackman's seventeen-year run as the one and only Wolverine.
And were not counting this guy.
"I smell trouble!"
After playing the same superhero for a record number of years, his release from the mutant
berserker's adamantium-laced skeleton is well-deserved, as much as we hate to see him go.
Throughout Logan, even casual fans could spot elements from Wolverine's long, storied, sideburned
history both on-screen and in the comics.
But what were some of the moments that only true fans may have noticed?
Obviously, spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution.
New Mutants
In the world of Logan, mutants are no longer being born all willy-nilly into the world,
thanks to Dr. Zander Rice, played by Richard E. Grant, who has cornered the market on artificially
mutated kids, in an effort to militarize them.
More than once, Logan and Professor X refer to the fact that there are no more "new mutants,"
except for maybe the Professor's new pint-sized pen-pal, Laura Kinney.
Comic fans know that Marvel literally had a team called the "New Mutants," who were
originally a bunch of young mutants under the tutelage of Professor X.
While the other kids in the Transigen project didn't share the names with any notable comic
book New Mutants members, we did spy a Rictor in the bunch.
So, who's this kid with the dorky name?
X-Factor
Rictor is known to Marvel fans as a member of the mutant team X-Factor, which was one
of dozens of mutant teams running around since the late '80s and for years afterward.
For real, you couldn't swing a cat without knocking over a human-sized pile of mutant
comics that are, to this day, still worthless.
It was a serious mess, and part of that mess was Julio Richter.
Like his movie counterpart, Rictor was able to control vibrations or, if you want to get
technical, "seismic energy."
Not coincidentally, after joining the X-Terminators, who were good guys, despite their nefarious
name, Rictor moved in with the New Mutants, which eventually became X-Force.
It's implied that the other Transigen kids shared DNA with various mutants who wielded
ice powers, electricity powers, and … grass-growing powers.
Logan intentionally diverted from the path of known comic book names to make their new
potential super-team, but could these guys be the New Mutants?
Some X-fried version of the Runaways?
Maybe the X-Babies?
You know what — anything but the X-Babies.
Part of the plan
Logan was based — and let's use the term "based" extremely lightly — on the comic
series Old Man Logan from 2008.
The similarities, however, are kind of scarce.
Both are about an aging Wolverine on a road trip to deliver something in a world where
heroes are pretty much extinct… but that's where the parallels pretty much end.
One thing common to both, however, was the idea that mutants are not, in fact, the next
step in human evolution.
Marvel's generally maintained that their mutants are just the logical expansion of the human
race; over time, people get smarter, live longer, grow taller, and generally change
to suit their environment.
"Homo sapien superior are here.
They will be the survivors.
They… they will be the champions."
But in both Logan and Old Man Logan, it's stated that this isn't the case.
"Mutants… they're gone now."
Mutants didn't save the world, and mankind is still destroying itself.
Emma Frost makes a similar argument in the comic pages, mirroring Logan's sentiment on-screen.
Sorry, muties — you weren't the next step in human evolution after all.
But at least you still have totally wicked abs.
Way up north
We never get to find out what, if anything, happens when the band of kids reaches Canada,
but we can assume it's probably good news.
Someone is there waiting for them… but who?
Canada doesn't keep a lot of regular Marvel heroes, but it is where the Weapon Plus program
was originally run, so maybe there are some mutant experts still holed up in the Great
White North.
Aside from that, Canada's pretty much only got Alpha Flight, which is like the Avengers,
but way more polite and a little more Sasquatch-y — and they don't really have a history of
harboring runaways.
If we're following Old Man Logan rules, Emma Frost provided the only mutant safe haven
in America, so maybe the White Queen is providing the same kind of sanctuary.
Either way, that's one hell of a cliffhanger.
Weapon X-24
Marvel Comics' "Weapon Plus" program is responsible for a whole ton of super-powered heroes and
villains, including Deadpool, Captain America, the confusing Fantomex, the gross Skinless
Man, and a truly weird pathogenic religion called "Allgod" that we can't even start to explain.
It also created X-23, aka Laura Kinney, aka Wolverine's girl clone, aka Girlverine.
The list of weirdos coming out of the program goes on and on … but it's never included
an X-24.
It stops just short of there.
So, when a younger, faster, sexier Wolverine-lookalike with the name X-24 pops up and starts beating
up Logan, it's a surprise to comic fans everywhere…
…unless they're familiar with Albert, Logan's cyborg copy who first appeared in Wolverine
#37, who was also created by Donald Pierce and the Reavers.
Of course, it was 1991 and Marvel was cranking out dispensable heroes and villains left and right.
We're looking at you, Bloodscream.
And Random.
And Spiral.
And so we'll forgive you if you forgot about Wolverine's doppel-bot.
Caliban Redux
The X-movies are a bit lousy with continuity problems but, to be absolutely fair, so are
the X-Men comics.
Perhaps the most glaring weirdness in Logan is the fact that Caliban, played awesomely
by Stephen Merchant, is not the same Caliban as in X-Men Apocalypse.
Granted, Caliban is a C-level mutant who's lucky he was thrown a movie bone at all — let
alone two.
But the only way anyone can accept the X-Movie franchise's countless continuity questions
is to just assume that each movie peels off into a slightly different timeline than the last.
That way, dead characters are magically still alive, no one ages consistently, and a different
actor can just hop into another one's spot.
Fake Comics
The X-verse — or whatever the comic nerds are calling it — concedes that their heroes
have outlandish comic books written about them.
In the world of the X-Men, the team really existed, and they really had cool adventures,
but they weren't as cool as the printed page implies.
"We've got ourselves an X-Men fan.
Maybe a quarter of it happened, and not like this."
True fans can tell that the comics Logan is holding aren't aren't genuine X-Men comics,
but reasonably constructed props.
Sure, they were drawn by legit Marvel artists, but both the covers and interior art were
made just for Logan.
It's pretty much the best anti-Easter egg fans could've asked for.
The statue of Liberty
Over the course of Logan, we're given a few reference points to big events seen and unseen.
The biggest unseen event was obviously whatever Professor X accidentally set loose in Westchester,
but it's a reference to the Statue of Liberty that brings the whole saga to a fitting close.
Back in the very first X-Men movie, before epic movie-verses were even a thing, everything
culminated on Liberty Island.
So, even if we have a whole cast of characters who can't decide what happened, who they are,
or if they're actually dead or not … we'll always have the purity of that first X-Men
movie, and that big ol' battle on New York's largest lady.
And, of course, the X-Men franchise's biggest sin.
"Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?
The same thing that happens to everything else."
We forgive you, X-Men.
Finally.
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