Old Man Logan #41 Review

Old Man Logan #41 Review

Old Man Logan #41 Review

The iconic version of Wolverine return is taking over the Marvel Universe as an entire event has been created for it. Now while the iconic Wolverine is returning it has put a major question as to what the status quo for Old Man Logan will be. That is something that Marvel has not answered yet but we are seeing signs of what may happen with Old Man Logan through Ed Brisson’s run on the series. Over time we have seen that Old Man Logan’s powers have been weakening, which happens to be happening at the same time for the iconic version of the character to return. Now what is the true endgame for Old Man Logan’s powers weakening so much? Let’s see if we get some answers with Old Man Logan #41.

Writer: Ed Brisson

Artist: Francesco Manna

Colorist: Carlos Lopez

Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: In Tokyo, Japan the owners of the Paris Bar sell Logan’s severed hand, that still has his Adamantium claws, to Kraven to pay for their restaurant to be rebuilt after Logan’s fight with the Hand.

Old Man Logan #41 Review
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In Bridgeton, New Jersey outside the Terminal City Pub, Logan is fighting Roughhouse and Bloodscream. During the fight Logan is shot by a couple tranquilizers that end up knocking him out.

Sometime later Logan wakes up to find himself inside an adamantium cage, held captive by Kraven. Kraven reveals he knows about Logan’s problems with his powers and shows that he has the hand Logan lost in his possession.

Kraven laments that he now sees that he will never be able to hunt Logan in his prime. Logan says if Kraven lets him out of the cage he’ll show Kraven how much he has left by killing him. Kraven says that out of respect he is going to give Logan a four head start and then drops him out of the plane they are in.

Logan’s cage lands in a jungle and he is set free by Kraven. When Logan looks around he is confronted by several wolves.

A little later Kraven’s plane lands in the jungle. Kraven tells his pilot that his hunt for Logan may take some time that he will give the pilot a signal when he is done to pick him up.

Kraven goes into the jungle and is able to locate all the places Logan has been to during the last four hours.

Old Man Logan #41 Review
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Elsewhere Logan tries his best to find somewhere he can stay safe while trying to figure out a way out of his current situation. His time quickly runs out with Kraven jumping out of nowhere to attack him. Logan and Kraven fight, with Kraven slicing Logan’s bone claws off during their battle.

Suddenly a dinosaur attacks both Logan and Kraven, with the former realizing that he is in the Savage Lands. End of issue.

The Good: Using Kraven to further showcase the weakening powers of Old Man Logan was a smart one. Having Kraving as the bad guy for the story gave Ed Brisson a chance to tell a more straightforward comic book story. Having a pure hero vs villain offered up a fun story to get into that was layered with some good motivation from Kraven’s part.

The best part of Old Man Logan #41 was the pacing. As with the rest of his work, Brisson does not waste any time getting right into the story. With readers knowing who Kraven is there doesn’t need to be a long explanation why Kraven would take this opportunity to go after Logan. For Kraven, knowing that Logan is becoming weaker he took this as the last opportunity to fight someone he actually sees as an equal in terms of someone to hunt. That simple set-up is all the motivation we need to have and not wasting time on that was great to see.

Old Man Logan #41 Review
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Brisson also does a good job in using past story arcs to create a sense of building momentum for this series. Little things like going back to the Paris Bar in Tokyo added a sense of importance to every little thing that Brisson is doing with Old Man Logan’s weakening powers. Seeing Kraven gain Logan’s missing hand as a reminder of this was a nice bit of mental mind tricks to further put into Logan’s head that he is not 100%. It also reminded the reader that Logan had to be careful about getting injured against Kraven since he isn’t healing like he used to.

All the set-up made what we see Logan do to keep fighting like he normally does even more interesting. While Logan knows that he has to be more careful until he figures out a way to fix his broken healing factor he can’t fight off his instincts. We see this with his fight with obscure villains Roughhouse and Bloodscream. Normally he would easily demolish Roughhouse and Bloodscream but since he is still fighting by using his instincts, which won’t cut it since he is reacting more to blows he did not used to. That fact makes you more worried about how he could actually defeat Kraven since Logan needs to adjusts the way he fights more than he has.

Francesco Manna does a very good job in making Brisson’s story stronger. Having the story set in the Savage Land fit well with Manna’s art style and Carlos Lopez’s coloring that is on the brighter side. Manna got across how dangerous the Savage Land is with surprises around every corner. The short fights Logan gets into this issue also further drove home how he is not in a good place right now with his weakening healing factor.

Old Man Logan #41 Review
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The Bad: Nothing.

Overall: Old Man Logan #41 was a solidly paced comic that waste no time in getting right into the story. With this story having Old Man Logan and Kraven colliding it was smart to get right into the fight between the two. While the set-up and conflict was straightforward Ed Brisson made sure to layer the story by using past story beats, specifically Logan’s weakening powers, to enhance the tension of the story. If your a Wolverine fan Old Man Logan #41 is a good comic to pick up as there isn’t a lot to know to get into the story being told.