Old Man Logan #16

Old Man Logan #16

Written By: Jeff Lemire

Drawn by Sorrentino

We're back to Old Man Logan once again! In Old Man Logan our hero is transported from a horrific future where his family is dead and he is guilty of butchering the X-Men under the malign influence of Mysterio.

The setting is like Stephen King’s Dark Tower, not just that one of the key settings is The Wasteland, a desolate terrain in a future where the bad guys have won. The hero is the same as well, reluctant, sometimes starved and dehydrated, disoriented. Logan has journeyed from the Wasteland to somehow end up back on Earth as we know it in the Marvel Universe. This is a Logan where the wires are more exposed than ever. The claws are quick problem solvers, like they were in the aftermath of the Weapon X Program. When it’s fighting time he doesn’t talk as much, it’s like he’s decided at this late stage that death is inevitable. For everyone else.

In this issue Logan is back in the Wastelands, somehow transported back from our Earth in events he can’t recall clearly.

The art is incredible. I quit Old Man Logan for a couple of issues when they got Filipe Andrade to pencil some issues (#14-#15) but now Sorrentino is back. He gets a huge amount of emotion from his facial expressions and contrasting scenes, helped by the fact that Logan is one of the most ‘real’ superheroes, despite overexposure to the movie industry and a legion of comic books left the character vulnerable to typecasting and not being relevant any more but Old Man Logan is possibly my favourite rendition of Wolverine since Weapon X.

The colouring of the book is on par with the sketching and evolves over the course of the first 10 issues moving from harsh contrasting colours to pastel shades later on. Jeff Lemire is writing other X-Titles but this seems to be the Marvel title where everything gels just perfectly throughout.

Often switching between worlds (or planes of existence, take your pick) is hard to pull off but Old Man Logan has been doing it for over a dozen issues. The book is consistently good (as long as they don’t go changing artist again…) and I can’t recommend enough. Start with Old Man Logan Vol. 1 - Berserker, out on paperback already. This should give you a good taste. But in my opinion a good comic can only ever stand up to someone being able to get into it based on reading a random issue. If the writing and art speaks to you you’re onto a winner so maybe just grab #16, out this week.