Saying Goodbye to Old Man Logan

Writer Jeff Lemire has put the once—and future?—Wolverine through his paces in OLD MAN LOGAN issue-after-issue, and crafted quite an adventure in the process. As Lemire approaches his final arc on the book, “Past Lives,” which will see the title characters thrown through time to confront pivotal moments in Wolverine history, we spoke with the scribe to learn what new challenges await Old Man Logan.

Marvel.com: Logan has always sort of had trouble getting comfortable with who he is. He can really get down on himself at times, and we’ve seen him struggle with that. Will this arc challenge that? It seems like it has the potential either to lead him to backslide, or to finally let some of the self-judgment go.

Jeff Lemire: I agree this sort of poses the final test for Old Man Logan. He will either slip back into letting the specter of his Wastelands future rule his life and affect everything he does, or he will once and for all let it go. Obviously I don’t want to spoil how things end up!

Marvel.com: We’ve seen Old Man Logan go back in time, and confront certain aspects of his past before, but what’s coming up sounds more intense, like it will challenge some of his core beliefs. Can you tell us a little about what will make this a particularly powerful experience for Logan?

Jeff Lemire: For me, a large part of writing OLD MAN LOGAN has involved taking old Wolverine tropes and stories and then seeing those again but through the lens of Old Man Logan instead, with the different perspective he brings. The other big part of the series has had to do with the “man out of time” aspect of Logan struggling with what may or may not be his apocalyptic future. So this story really involved taking both of those things and combining them into one last big story that brings everything I have done in the series full circle.

Marvel.com: This arc will bring your run on OLD MAN LOGAN run to a close. What have you enjoyed about writing it?

Jeff Lemire: I did enjoy writing the character. I honestly don’t think I would have had much interest in writing the [classic] Wolverine, but the Old Man Logan character has a different perspective that I really enjoyed mining for story. I particularly enjoyed exploring his family in the Wastelands and expanding that story and those characters, while trying to honor what [Old Man Logan creators] Mark Millar and Steve McNiven did. And of course, I enjoyed re-teaming with [artists] Andrea Sorrentino and Marcelo Maiolo and hope to do it again soon.

Marvel.com: Do you have any hopes for what we might see in Old Man Logan in the future?

Jeff Lemire: Once I leave a character or a title, I tend to let it go. I spend a lot of time thinking about the characters as I write them, so afterwards I sort of move on. I know others will find plenty more great stories to tell with this character though.

Marvel.com: Would you like to tease anything else?

Jeff Lemire: It was unfortunate that Andrea couldn’t join me on this last arc but I enjoy working with Eric Nguyen. I have good luck working with artists named Nguyen. Very exciting to see Eric bring his unique style to all these different eras of Wolverine’s past.

“Past Lives” by Jeff Lemire and Eric Nguyen starts the end of an era for OLD MAN LOGAN with issue #21, available in April!