I am a sucker for time travel stories. Maybe it has something to do with the immutable march of time we all must inevitably face, or maybe it’s just fun to dwell in the realm of “what if?”
While Old Man Logan is set in the present day Marvel universe, this version of Logan has been around for a very long time. How long is never quite specified. He wakes up one day naked in the streets of New York, not able to remember who or where he is. Par for the course for my favorite Canadian super hero. After a run-in with the police that escalates very quickly, Logan rediscovers his healing powers which triggers some powerful memories.
We see a flash forward of the world destroyed by a villain uprising (a flashback for Logan because time travel), where Logan is a simple farmer and a family man. He has kids. He has a tractor that needs fixing. The absolute last thing he wants is to stir up trouble. We don’t know what, but obviously some really bad stuff has gone down in this timeline to make him give up the fight. Of course, trying to live a quiet life and Logan have never gone hand-in-hand, and things quickly go south for him.
Logan getting back his memories is very bad news for the present day incarnations of the villains he’s been interacting with in the future/his past (again, time travel). He knows who the key players are going to be in the uprising and this is his chance to stop them. We are shown things are going to get crazy in issue two.
Old Man Logan #1 is a good kickoff. I haven’t been keeping up on all the craziness going on in Marvel comics with the new Secret Wars and all the reboots (outside of listening to others discuss it on podcasts), but it does it’s job as a good jumping on point. It got it’s hooks in me and I look forward to seeing where they take the character. The art by Andrea Sorrentino has a dark sketchiness to it that really fit the story Jeff Lemire is telling here.
I would definitely recommend giving this one a try if you are a fan of the old Canucklehead. Or maybe if you just like Looper style time travel stories.