Dead Man Logan, Vol. 1: Sins of the Father
Written by Ed Brisson
Art by Mike Henderson
Comic Book | Superheroes
Published by Marvel Comics
Released June 25th, 2019
Goodreads | Amazon
Rating: 
Dead Man Logan is a follow-up series to the much more popular Old Man Logan series. When we encounter Logan (Wolverine) for the first time in this collection, we learn that he’s dying due to the adamantium in his body slowly poisoning him. Before he dies, however, he’s out on a mission to kill the supervillains responsible for taking over the world in his own universe.
Let’s back up a little, in case you haven’t read or aren’t familiar with the Old Man Logan series. In that series, we follow Logan (Wolverine/James Howlett) in one of Marvel’s alternate universes, this one called Earth-807128. (Marvel’s normal timeline is Earth-616.) In all the ways that count, Earth-807128’s Logan is identical to the Wolverine that we’re all familiar with: the adamantium skeleton, the claws (snikt!), and the incredible healing factor.
For a review and more information about Old Man Logan, read my review of the first collection of issues. Essentially, however, Logan lives in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the supervillains of the world have united and won. The United States has been divided up between the Hulk Clan, Kingpin, Doom, and Red Skull. Logan and his family live on a small farm in Hulkland, where he tries to lead a normal life while blaming himself for the death of the X-Men.
That’s essentially all you need to know to go into Dead Man Logan.
One of the biggest things that bugged me about Dead Man Logan is that the art, which is done well by artist Mike Henderson, isn’t dark enough for the story. It’s too colorful and cartoony for a story about Logan’s illness and his mission to prevent a terrible war before it has a chance to occur.
While the plot itself was an interesting concept, the execution of it was a bit lacking of substance. For one thing, it was incredibly predictable. There were only one or two moments in the entire collection that I wasn’t expecting, and that made it rather boring to read. Also, why did writer Ed Brisson turn Hawkeye into a huge douchebag? I hate the direction they’ve taken with Hawkeye’s character over the past few years, and the insults to him in this series is obnoxious. There are a ton of jokes along the lines of no one knowing who Hawkeye is, his not having any superpowers, being useless, etc. However, this isn’t exactly true, as Hawkeye was one of the earliest members of the Avengers and has done a lot of amazing and heroic things throughout Marvel’s history.
(Side note: Hawkeye is one of my boyfriend’s favorite Marvel characters, so I’ve learned a lot about his history and personality over the past two years.)
As always, I’m not going to give away spoilers, but at the end of the collection, Logan meets someone he’s only heard about, and that was probably my favorite part of the entire story.
In the end, there was too much that I didn’t enjoy in this collection for me to give it more than three stars. As I said before, the plot of the story was interesting but it’s execution was not well-down. Logan’s revenge could have taken a much more interesting track than it did in Dead Man Logan.
[…] Dead Man Logan, Vol. 1: Sins of the Father by Ed Brisson – This relatively new collection was incredibly predictable and it was frustrating how much of a douchebag they made Hawkeye into, but I guess it wasn’t terrible. […]
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