Some things have changed...
After finding himself in the mainstream Marvel Universe, and finding that his past has not come to fruition, Logan is left to his own devices. He appears in both Extraordinary X-Men and his own Old Man Logan ongoing, both written by Jeff Lemire. Old Man Logan featured art by Lemire's previous Green Arrow collaborator, and returning Old Man Logan artist Andrea Sorrentino.
After Lemire left the title, Ed Brisson replaced him as writer with a rotation of artists. It was later announced that the series would end, and Logan's adventures would continue and conclude in the Dead Man Logan series.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: The Maestro plays on this to ensure the loyalty of the Hulk Gang, reminding them that their "Pappy Banner" was a violent, abusive monster who raped his daughters and would beat them savagely to keep them in line, as well as being a general incompetent leader. He initially recruited the Hulk Gang by presenting himself as a benevolent, caring and gentle father figure instead.
- Of course, the Maestro is a hypocrite, as he is just as willing to beat — or even kill — the Hulk Clan, who are his alternate timeline offspring, for upsetting him, and it's revealed that his plan to create a "Gamma Earth" would have involved killing the Hulk Gang by making them unwittingly act as suicide bombers. Why? Because he finds the Hulk Gang embarrassing for their inbreeding-induced deformities and inferior intelligence.
- To be fair, they were Hulks so it wasn't IMPOSSIBLE that could survive the detonation..
- Of course, the Maestro is a hypocrite, as he is just as willing to beat — or even kill — the Hulk Clan, who are his alternate timeline offspring, for upsetting him, and it's revealed that his plan to create a "Gamma Earth" would have involved killing the Hulk Gang by making them unwittingly act as suicide bombers. Why? Because he finds the Hulk Gang embarrassing for their inbreeding-induced deformities and inferior intelligence.
- A Friend in Need: In the Days of Anger storyline, Logan is doing a pretty good job at wiping out the Hulk Gang who escaped to Earth-616, unfortunately he's in over his head trying to deal with their plot to nuke the world. Logan started his investigation solo but really needs help, so Hawkeye (Clint Barton) tags along to back him up. It almost costed Hawkeye his life when the Maestro attacked him.
- After the End: As bad as the Villain Uprising was, they doubled-down. The villains had already won and were just clearing out superheroes, when someone had the bright idea of dropping multiple nukes around the world to finish off the heroes. This totally devastated the world ecology and there's no hope as the Bad Future world is dying even further.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Storm implies she still has feelings for Logan, but he doesn't seem to feel the same. In his timeline, which is basically the same as regular Logan's until a bit after Civil War, he and Storm were never a couple.
- Anti-Hero: Logan, to incredible degrees. He kills a no-name villain for something he didn't even do, and outright admits that the guy wouldn't have amounted to anything if the villains never rose up.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In the "Last Ronin" storyline, the Master (who's just a young boy) transforms into a skyscraper-sized tentacled, shapeless abomination when he's freaked out long enough.
- Back from the Dead: The Scarlet Samurai turns out to be a resurrected (616!)Mariko Yashida.
- Bad Boss: Kenji, the man in charge of the Madripoor scientists attempting to make more Regenix from the few samples they have left. He dismisses one subordinate's perfectly reasonable explanation for why they are having so little success as "excuses", and when one scientist accidentally causes a sample to explode (reducing his hand to a burnt cinder), Kenji brutally kicks him to death. All of this makes it very satisfying when Gorgon arrives and kills him.
- Badass in Distress: Lady Deathstrike, in the Last Ronin arc.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Cambria, one of Banner's daughters, has a Heel–Face Turn. It started because once when she ran away from home, Logan let her take one of his valuable pigs for food.
- Bittersweet Ending: Logan finally dies but he lives long enough to be at his farm and the grave of his family. Danielle Cage becomes the new Thor and with Bruce Banner Jr, they intend to restore the world, which will be an easier task as all the old A-list villains are dead or in danger from the actions of Logan, Hawkeye and Peter Quill. Viv Vision has survived with her team of rebels and they've deposed Dr. Doom, though Doom has escaped. Kate Bishop has also survived her adventure with Clint and her community is thriving. A new Guardians of Galaxy team has been built by Peter Quill to punish any surviving Church of Universal Truth members.
- Bluff the Impostor: When Logan shows up at a diner he freqents in issue #25, he notices that the staff is different. He asks the waitress where Lexi is, and is told she had the day off. Logan then grabs her by the wrist, saying "Ain't no Lexi ever worked here."
- Can't Take Anything with You: Wolverine, who was at Battleworld, suddenly wakes up in the restored 616 universe... completely naked.
- Child Prodigy: The next time Logan sees Bruce Banner Jr, he's seven years old and ravenously reading any advanced physics books he can find.
- Crazy-Prepared: Shingen Harada (Silver Samurai II) has over 5000 protocols to deal with the Hand. He also has multiple protocols to deal specifically with getting stabbed in the back and killed. Logan himself can count to a lesser degree, he knows he's in a different reality but he fears a similar Villain Uprising and so he's always keeping tabs on the news ready to nip it in the bud.
- Death Is Cheap: Shingen gets stabbed in the back and killed, he gets back up and walks away a few minutes later due to emergency nanites fixing him up.
- Dirty Coward: At the start of the "Dead Man Logan" storyline, the New York chapter of the Purifiers wait until all the senior X-Men are away before launching an attack on the mansion.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Logan didn't just kill Black Butcher, he first cut off the guy's arm and then it appears he mutilated Butcher's eyes as well. Why? In the future, Black Butcher smacked Logan's son and took his ball cap.
- Evil Power Vacuum: According to Annual #1, when Logan killed the Hulks he simply opened the way for other evil guys, such as the Punishers.
- Evil Will Fail: The Maestro's plan to nuke the Earth had a good chance of succeeding except villain flaws cropped up to screw him and the Hulk Gang up. Nobody knew the Maestro and the Hulk Gang were even on Earth-616, except that a bunch of Hulks murder and replace the owners of a diner that Logan likes to go to and when they see him, they blow their cover because they want revenge. The Maestro murders a few of the Hulk Gang causing one of them, Cambria, to have a Heel–Face Turn. Finally, the Maestro is arrogant and didn't realize his hacking skills are crap, so Alpha Flight from outer space were easily able to disable the nukes despite his reprogramming them.
- Eye Scream: Bullseye puts out one of Logan's eyes with a thrown card. After examination at the X-Men's science lab, they find out the organ is completely dead and nothing can be done about it.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Because Old Man Logan is set immediately after Secret Wars, but the rest of All-New All-Different is set eight months later, that Logan's attempts to hunt down Bruce Banner, Mysterio, and Red Skull in the first arc will fail was spoiled before Old Man Logan's first issue was even released. Logan is ultimately told this in issue #4 when Steve Rogers shows Logan the grave of the mainstream Wolverine and tells him that this isn't his future.
- Fish out of Water: Logan is not used to the modern world. It's less harsh than he's used to, never mind it being completely different than what he remembers.
- Gatling Good: After getting crucified and shot up by the Hulk Gang, Logan escapes and kills the Hulk carrying a minigun. Logan then takes the minigun and wipes out a crapload of Hulks.
- The Hero Dies: The Dead Man Logan series sees the Adamantium poisoning, his injuries, and the use of the Regenerix drug ultimately kill Logan.
- Honey Trap: One of the Purifiers arranges a date with Glob online, so she and her comrades can capture him and force him to help them attack the X-mansion.
- How We Got Here: The first arc of Old Man Logan sets up the stage for his encounter with the X-Men over in Extraordinary.
- Humble Goal: Frank Castle, a very old man, killed the base of "The Punishers". For desecrating his name? No. He wanted to retrieve his War Journal, that a crazy priest was using as if it was the Bible. His journal had photos of his wife and kids, that he had forgot because of his old age.
- Last Stand: We get to witness the Last Stand of Daredevil, The Punisher, She-Hulk and Hank Pym in Issue #8. Interestingly, all but She-Hulk are dispatched in a surprisingly anticlimactic fashion for this trope. note
- Literal Disarming: While defending a Canadian town from an attack by the Reavers, Logan cuts Lady Deathstrike's deadly clawed hands off.
- Master Swordsman: The second Silver Samurai (Shingen Harada) shows how good he is with a blade, he drew first blood against the Gorgon. Shingen's aunt Mariko Yashida also turns out to be a master as well, she completely trashes Gorgon with her sword.
- Mutual Kill: A dying Logan liberates a town from the Maestro. He cuts off Banner's head but all the injuries he suffered has caught up to him and he dies a few seconds after.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Logan seeks out the young Maureen of the main Marvel universe, in order to protect her from the hardships his Maureen experienced as a child. In the end he actually draws trouble to her when Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers follow him to her home in an attempt to kill him.
- Logan gets an even bigger one in Dead Man Logan, after getting rescued by the X-Men, Logan decides to go after Mysterio as the one last thing he does before he dies. So he goes to the "Bar with No Name" and beats on the local C-List Fodder to get info, turns out Miss Sinister is sitting in the sidelines and reads his mind, learning of the "Villain Uprising". She goes to Quentin Beck, who's a broken harmless man after all those years of getting beaten up by Spider-Man and Daredevil, promising to power him up. She also tells Sin, the Red Skull's daughter about details of the uprising.
- Retcon: Some very clear ones from the original story, which had the villains rise up a few years after Civil War (2006):
- In a flashback, we see Sam Wilson's Captain America uniform on display in the desert. However, the original story very specifically shows that Bucky Barnes was Captain America when the villains rose up. Red Skull even wore Bucky's Captain America costume as a sick memento after killing him.
- Similarly contradicting the implication that the global supervillain takeover happened around the time of Civil War, Miles Morales and Kamala Khan, two characters who didn't even exist when the original Old Man Logan story was written, were seen among the victims of the superhero massacre in issue #1.
- In the original Old Man Logan story, it was implied that the Hulk Gang were permanently hulked out in compensation for not being as powerful as their father and mother. Here, they have the ability to shift between human and hulk forms at will. Also, the original Hulk Gang were presented as ugly and deformed, a result of being inbred, but here are presented as fairly normal looking, even attractive.
- The Punisher appears to have been executed by the new Kingpin. Logan later meets an aged Frank Castle who reveals that was just someone taking on his name.
- Not Quite Dead: In the mini-series Dead Man Logan, it turns out that Logan survived his battle with the Maestro and was rescued by the X-Men.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Cambria outright tells Maestro, despite acting like a kinder "father figure", he is ever bit as bad their pappy. She even goes as far to admit that Pappy was at least "honest" about type a man he was.
- Power Incontinence: In the "Dead Man Logan" arc, Speedball from Logan's timeline is introduced. His powers have been building up kinetic energy for years to the point that if he bounces again the release will be equivalent to a nuke going off. Forge keeps him contained in a padded and monitored room designed to shut off gravity, and thus any bouncing, if anything goes wrong.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
- Logan's main goal is to prevent the villain uprising. While Logan eventually works out that this isn't exactly the past he remembers, he's still set on making sure his future never comes to fruition. One of the first things on his list? Killing the Hulk, believing that it's Bruce Banner when the Hulk at the time is really Amadeus Cho. However, eventually Steve Rogers talks him out of it.
- However, he does resolve to protect Maureen, his future wife, from any crap happening to her. Oops.
- When he tried to go back to the Wastelands in order to save baby Banner Hulk, his mind jumps from one era to another where his body is, and when he finally gets into his body in the Wastelands, he finds out that he is in the times before his family was killed. He decides that he will never leave them again and destroys the magical item that keep his mind jumping from time to time. However, he is eventually pulled back.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story:
- The first arc in general. Logan sets out to kill the villains who destroyed his world, and he specifically targets Banner, Mysterio, and Red Skull. However we already know Logan is Failure Is the Only Option by other All-New All-Different books, so essentially nothing he does in the first arc matters.
- The second arc as well. Logan goes to live in the town where his future wife Maureen grew up. He knows they can never be together, but he's willing to make sure nothing bad ever happens to her... and its his presence that draws the Reavers to the town and lead to them slaughtering civilians.
- The third arc as well. In his search for baby Banner, he makes it back to the time where his family is still alive and ends up facing down the Banner Gang. Instead of popping his claws and shredding them to bits, he finds out he can't. He can't act like he does now and ultimately realizes he can't change the past.
- Shout-Out: There's a reference to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in the first issue. Logan jumps from a rooftop, with lightning striking behind him, making a silhouette of him pouncing.
- Took a Level in Badass: Averted. Not only is Logan's healing factor almost gone and he's slower and weaker, Mariko cuts off one of his hands so now that arm has a regrown hand with only bone claws.
- Trapped in Another World: While Logan is stuck in the past, it's not the past of the timeline he came from.
- Unbreakable Bones: Averted, something's up with Logan because several fights in the series cause him to mention that he broke his ribs and other bones. He also gets a hand cut off by an energized katana despite his admanantium bones. It's finally explained in issue #46 that his adamantium has reached its half-life and is chemically breaking down, losing its durability and flooding his system with deadly toxins, which are further burning it out.
- Ungrateful Townsfolk: During the "Moving Target" storyline, many citizens of New York are behind Mayor Wilson Fisk's campaign to legislate superheroes out of existence, one man calling them "masked monsters pretending to be heroes" that they live "in fear" of. This is despite the fact that it hasn't been that long since the Secret Empire storyline, where New York was trapped in the Darkforce dimension for days, and the only thing protecting the citizens from the monsters within were the heroes, who constantly risked their lives in doing so.
- Villain Respect: Kraven sees Wolverine (Logan) as the apex predator and the most dangerous animal in the world. He's avoided hunting Wolverine as he feels he wasn't ready, but Kraven sees Old Man Logan as a has-been and he wishes to Mercy Kill him to keep him from sullying the Wolverine legacy.
- We Will Meet Again: With his plan failed and Logan fighting him to a draw, the Maestro leaps away to hide in a cave, but not before telling Logan that they'll fight again one day.
- Wham Shot: The end of issue 32 reveals that the Scarlet Samurai is none other than a resurrected Mariko Yashida.
- Yo Yo Plot Point: Logan learning to accept that the world he's now in is not the same one he left behind, or his desire to prevent his future from coming to pass, has been revisited several times in the solo series (three of the five Lemire arcs focus on it), and has even cropped up in Extraordinary X-Men, All-New Wolverine, and X-Men: Gold.
