with Laura and Xavier. Pierce is a genius engineer
who builds and designs those enhanced prosthetics
for his team. He’s also security head for the
genetic-engineering corporation that grew out of
the Alkali Lake experiments which, long ago, gave
Wolverine his metal skeleton. The same company
employs Richard E. Grant’s Dr Zander Rice,
whom comic fans will recognise as the son of a
man Wolverine murdered during his escape from
the Weapon X programme. Mangold describes
Rice as a “believer” in his own research rather
than someone driven by a grudge. Even the bad
guys here have their feet on more realistic ground.
But setting that tone required moving
away from the previousilms, in what is likely
to be the most controversial element ofLogan’s
story (“I see him as Logan,” says Jackman
of his mutant alter-ego. “His job — which he
doesn’t want — is Wolverine”). In a time of
interconnected ilm universes and multi-ilm
world-building, this largely jettisons wider
X-continuity. “Simon Kinberg came in on a
couple of the story meetings and we did talk
about it, but Jim rightly never got hung up on it,”
says Jackman. Rather than focus on that tangled
chronology, in fact, this is a world in which the
X-Men comics — and perhaps even movies —
exist. It’s X-Men comics that convince Laura
this grumpy old wreck is the hero she needs, and
so Logan’s own mythology is thrust in his face.
“Dealing with your own legend is very much
a part of life for most heroes, even in Westerns,”explains Mangold, who played with the
notion previously in3.10 To Yuma. “So as
Scott Frank and I were working on the script,
it occurred to us, what would it be like to live
with this notoriety? What if the reality is less
sparkling? That it very much with what we
were trying to do in style. How could we give
ourselves permission to change not only the
aesthetic — because the aesthetic is too easy
— but how could we get inside?”
Linking to the comics in this meta fashion
allows the creators ofLoganto make bone-deep
changes. If this is the real-life version of the
shinier, previousX-Menilms — which were, in
Jackman’s words, “propaganda” — it doesn’t
have to match them.This is mutant reality.
❯