Logan’s trying to forget his recent past by finding solace in his origin. The new promo for 20th Century Fox’s upcoming Logan reveals that Logan once tried to buy a boat for $60,000, that he spent a lot of time haplessly driving people around in a limo, and that he now goes by his given name: James Howlett.
Part of Wolverine’s long and convoluted backstory was explored in 2009’s disastrous X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The film revealed to general X-Men fans that Logan was born in 1890s Canada to wealthy landowners, plagued by sickness and unaware of his mutation until his mother was attacked and then took her own life. From there, everything goes startlingly off track and pretty much ignores X-Men comics canon as a whole, but it’s still a good jumping off point.
In the Old Man Logan comics written by Mark Millar, the X-Men series Logan is most closely based off of, Logan deals with a whole lot of shame and regret about his past. He tries his hardest to separate himself from the past, and part of that separation comes in the form of going by his given name, James Howlett.
The 'Old Man Logan' comics focus heavily on Logan's shame about his past.
The revelation that Logan is going by James while in hiding during Logan after the fall of the X-Men most likely means that he’s trying his hardest to separate himself from his recent past. In the Old Man Logan series, it’s revealed that Logan was tricked into killing all of the mutants in the X-Mansion after being made to believe by Mysterio that they were all supervillains. That, on top of decades worth of other tragedies, pushed Logan to seek solace from his recent past.
In Logan, it seems that Logan will find peace in his origins and by taking care of Professor X. Oh, and by taking care of his clone, X-23’s Laura.
Witness Logan’s shame for yourself when Logan premieres March 3.
