Jessi and I dragged our exhausted bodies into Aardwolf Brewing Company on Sunday night and collapsed against the bar. “Whoa, what happened to you guys?” one of the bartenders asked us as he took our drink orders. We looked up from the depths of despair and said in a unison beleaguered groan, “We just saw Logan.”
Though we both grew up watching the 1990s X-Men cartoons, and we’ve both seen every X-Men movie since the first one 17 years ago, Jessi and I had different opinions on Logan. Jessi felt that it wasn’t true to the characters, but I felt like it offered an interesting commentary on aging, death, and depression. It’s definitely not upbeat. In fact, be prepared to be sad. It’s the kind of sad where you feel like you’ve learned something deep and important about humanity, but it’s still… well, really sad. I guess what I’m saying here is that Logan is a great Lent movie. Anyway, after a discussion with a friend recently about toxic masculinity, I started to reconsider Logan, and now I think there may be something even deeper going on here.
Logan (a.k.a. Wolverine) has long been an icon of machismo— a complete devil-may-care badass who smokes cigars, revels in bar fights, and can never be told what to do. Were it not for his tragic backstory involving memory loss and fits of berserker rage, he would be a caricature of all that our society considers manly, but he brings considerable depth to the table. After all, they’ve been building movies around him quite successfully for seventeen years. Logan shows this character at his absolute lowest though.
— MAJOR SPOILERS IN NEXT 6 PARAGRAPHS —
The film opens with an exhausted and morally beaten Logan defending his limo against would-be thieves. In a moment of desperation, he pops out his iconic metal claws to defend himself, but one of the claws jams in the socket and extends only halfway. (If you don’t understand the symbolism here, go find the nearest 14-year-old boy, and he’ll gleefully explain it.) In the next scenes, we learn that the weakened Logan is caring for an embittered Professor Xavier with the help of the domestic Caliban. Logan is also taking numerous medications and drinking heavily to dull his pain since his body has been slowly shutting down.
In the midst of this, a preteen girl shows up on their doorstep. She doesn’t speak a word for the first half of the film, and when she finally does talk, the majority of her dialogue is in Spanish. We discover that she was created in Mexico using Logan’s DNA and is already a capable fighter, so there is an instant unease for Logan. This young girl embodies so many of the traits that previously made Logan special, many of which our culture sees as traditionally masculine— aggression, physical prowess, chronic nonchalance, etc. The humorous moments in the film come from Logan trying to cope with her presence, and a throwaway line about female lions from Professor X hints at the reason for Logan’s bewilderment: this young girl, Laura (or “X-23”), may have even more potential as a fighter than Logan did in his prime.
From here, things get interesting. Logan, the Professor, and the young Laura are chased across America by a crew of all-male, predominantly-white, gun-toting, cybernetically-enhanced mercenaries led by the swaggering Southern cyborg, Donald Pierce. Pierce isn’t the true villain though, and neither is the shadowy scientist behind Laura’s creation. The true villain winds up being Logan himself, or rather, Logan in his prime. You see, in addition to the other forces chasing them, one of their pursuers is a perfect genetic copy of Wolverine, and unlike the weathered protagonist, this Logan knows only unrestrained violence and aggression. He’s the male dark side incarnate, bereft of any compassion, responsibility, or nurturing instinct whatsoever. He’s utterly primal, and Logan’s response to him is a mixture of terror and envy.
Throughout their journey, Logan continually butts up against his previous masculine glory, not just in the clone deemed “X-24,” but in more subtle ways as well. Laura reads comic books that show the formerly adventurous Logan with the X-Men, prompting Logan to warn her, “It was never like that; people died.” Logan grants the Professor a little more grace as they recall their past adventures. Still, Logan is very aware at this point that his hyper-masculine badass bravado has led him nowhere, and yet, he paradoxically misses it. He will struggle with this the whole journey— sometimes fleeing the primal X-24, sometimes desperately facing off against his former self with Laura’s help, and in a particularly complex scene, having his hair cut by a group of mutant children to once again resemble his former self, who they see as a hero.
At the film’s climax, Logan injects himself with a serum that restores him to his former glory so that he can finally square off against his primal self on equal footing. In a scene that could be straight out of 2003’s X2, a rejuvenated Logan slashes his way through bad guys once more to protect a group of mutant children and teens (including Laura) as they flee their pursuers. Just when it seems like he’s regained his old hyper-masculine self, the serum wears off, and he is once again the worn-down, gray-haired Logan we’ve journeyed with throughout the film. You see, that kind of glory is fleeting. If you define yourself by physical prowess alone, you will inevitably fail, and so Logan once again faces off against the young, aggressive X-24 unprepared for the fight. It’s an intentional disappointment for the viewer, a harsh truth about age: the past catches up to you.
It is ultimately Laura, the young girl imbued with Logan’s powers, who saves the day and proves to be the movie’s true hero. She maintains hope in dire situations. She kills the bad guy with the bullet that was meant for Logan. And she will be the one to lead the mutant children across the border into safety. The tension in the movie arises from Logan’s almost needing to get out of the way so that this Mexican preteen girl can take down the idealized version of Logan’s past. And Logan ultimately sacrifices himself, pinned to a tree by his primal humanity (yes, really), and is buried not under a cross, but an “x,” signifying that Laura at last understands him as he really was.
— SPOILERS END HERE —
All of this leaves some big questions for reflection, and so much of this movie’s depth comes from the lens with which you view it:
If we view this movie through the lens of masculinity, Logan is forced to redefine what he sees as virtue. The over-the-top bravado with which he once carried himself has proved fruitless, and now he must find a new way with which to see the world. The young Laura (who, again, is a preteen girl illegally crossing the border from Mexico) forces this deconstruction that much further by challenging how Logan understands bravery and heroism. Maybe they aren’t just male traits. Maybe it’s time for Logan to step aside and let Laura do her thing (as if Logan could really stop her anyway).
On the theology front, Logan is a reminder that all of us are impermanent. Immortality doesn’t come from mutant healing factors and anti-aging serums; it comes from something else— something beyond all of us. The film makes a strong argument for the importance of legacy, but even this passes away with time (as part of the film’s rare humor stems from comic books that have portrayed Logan inaccurately). The film deals heavily with disappointment and loss, even inflicting disappointment on the viewer through the intentional absence of many standard lighthearted comic book movie tropes. And yet, there’s still hope for something beyond Logan, a deeper spirituality that transcends the film’s characters and setting. But this glimmer of hope only makes sense when you start from the uncomfortable reminder of our mortality, a reminder which we observe every year at the beginning of Lent:
You are dust, and to dust you will return.
