Old Man Logan #2 Review

Old Man Logan #2 Review Image

Old Man Logan #1 knocked it out of the park. Brian Bendis and Andrea Sorrentino set up the premise of Old Man Logan beautifully. Now it is time to see if that momentum created by the first issue can be carried over now that Logan has climbed over the Battleworld wall. Let’s find out with Old Man Logan #2.

Creative Team

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: Andrea Sorrentino

Colorist: Marcelo Majolo

Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 10 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 8.5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: Logan finally makes it to the top of the wall and sees a cityscape in the distance. Before he can climb down the other side he is met by one of the Thors. Thor tells Logan what he has done is forbidden. Logan says that Thor looks like a half dead man, which earns him a lightning bolt that fries his body from Thor.

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Logan’s burnt body falls to the other side of the wall. Thor goes down to look for Logan but only finds wild animals. As Thor flies away a naked Logan appears.

While trying to get rehydrated at a nearby pond Logan is attacked by a tiger. Logan quickly kills the tiger only to come face to face with the Age of Apocalypse version of Sabretooth, who has some soldiers as his back-up. Apocalypse soldiers open fire on Logan, who can barely defend himself.

A lightning bold suddenly strikes down and takes out all of Sabretooth’s soldiers. Logan looks up to see who it is. At first he thinks it’s Thor coming back to finish him off but it turns out to be Storm and the X-Men. Logan passes out from all the pain he has endured before he can say a word to the Age of Apocalypse version of the X-Men.

Sometime later Logan wakes up in a Japanese-styled house where he finds a picture of one of the first X-Men teams he was a part of hanging on the wall. A young Emma Frost walks into the house, who tells Logan that they are actually in his mind. Emma brings up the fact that she found it difficult to find a happy memory in Logan’s mind. As soon as Emma brings up Logan’s deceased family Logan threatens to kill her if she doesn’t return him to the real world. Emma is not intimidated by Logan’s threats.

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Instead Emma brings up the fact that she does not know who this Logan really is because if she is their Logan than he has created the most elaborate 50 year character history she has ever seen. Logan orders Emma to get him back to reality and Emma finally decides to oblige his request.

Logan wakes up to see a confused X-Men group talking amongst themselves about how they already have a Logan. Magneto believes that this Logan was made to infiltrate their ranks. Logan is confused by the entire situation but before he can get any answers a bomb destroys part of the build Logan and the X-Men are in.

Sabertooth, Mr. Sinister and Abyss appear and immediately attack the X-Men. Believing him to be a traitor, Magneto throws Logan out the building.

While getting up from Magneto’s attack Logan is still trying to piece together what exactly is going on. Before he can think of his situation any further Logan is confronted by Apocalypse. End of issue.

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The Good: The story of Old Man Logan #2 is something that cannot be taken by just reading the comic. Old Man Logan #2 is one of those comics that is at its best when the artwork takes over and tells the story through the atmosphere of its setting and reactions from the characters. It is that artwork that carries the sometimes average dialogue and makes it greater.

With so many of the Secret Wars tie-in titles dealing with their world’s problem it is nice to have a comic that goes in another direction. Brian Bendis smartly chose to use the Battleworld setting as way to explore how other characters would act in other parts of the Marvel Multiverse. And no character fits this lost wanderer role better than Old Man Logan. He is character that was made to fit this type of story given the fact that he has literally been to the end and back while continuing to survive every trial.

It’s that wandering samurai role that really makes everything that happens in Old Man Logan #2 standout. The whole samurai aspect of Logan’s character is nicely highlighted by the fact that the only happy memory that AoA Emma Frost could find is his time in Japan. The fact that Logan felt some sort of comfort walking around the house for a hot second before Emma appeared was a good way to give him some character development without making it seem obvious.

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Adding to the whole wandering samurai aspect of Logan’s character in this series is the fact that Bendis treats him as a wild card in the Age of Apocalypse world. Seeing how the AoA X-Men quickly grew distrusting of Logan showed how his choice to climb the wall changes everything. Now instead of continuing to plan out their next attack the AoA X-Men are forced to fight to survive against Apocalypse Horseman thanks to Logan’s appearance. This opens up plenty of possibilities for Logan’s presence to affect the stories of other Secret Wars tie-ins that makes them all less predictable.

The other x-factor in this story that will prove to help push the story forward is the relationship Logan will share with the Thor Corps. Logan is clearly ruffling Doom’s feathers as he is disturbing the natural order of that Doom created with Battleworld. Since Logan can’t be easily killed through the Thors typical methods, as shown with how he survived the lightning attack by this issue’s Thor, I wonder how future interactions will go down.

With all that said, the majority of the success for Old Man Logan #2 lies in Andrea Sorrentino phenomenal artwork. Sorrentino does such a great job with how he lays out each panel that you can easily tell what is going on in the story through the artwork. The emotion he is able to draw in every characters’ facial expression enhanced the drama of what was going around Logan. The minimal color pallet that is used throughout the issue helped make everything that Sorrentino drew standout even further.

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The Bad: The one knock I have against Old Man Logan #2 is that the story was not as fleshed out as the first issue. Where the first issue was able to flesh out the entire world of Old Man Logan and tell a complete story Old Man Logan #2 only went halfway with its story. There were so many more possibilities that I would’ve liked to have been explored by Bendis.

Part of what made the story feel like it didn’t use the full potential is that we got a repeat scene between Logan and Emma Frost. With how much emotion Bendis was able to pack in Logan’s final interaction with his world’s Emma this scene felt unnecessary. The time spent between these two could have been better applied to give Logan more time with the AoA X-Men since it felt way to short before going to hell.

Overall: All you need to know about Old Man Logan #2 is that it is a must buy merely to have the beautiful artwork from Andrea Sorrentino in your hands to look over for the rest of time. This is just a fantastic looking comic book with Sorrentino ability to tell a complete story through his artwork a sight to see. It’s in that beautiful artwork that the story is propelled to be better than it may have been otherwise. With how Brian Bendis is presenting Logan as a wild card within Battleworld I am even more excited to see what comes next in this series.