2. Raise The Emotional Stakes Because The Physical Ones Are Tired
Okay, lets be honest: Wolverine, with his constant drinking, smoking and moody irritability may be far more relatable than Superman, but he might as well be Superman in the sense that hes essentially unkillable, and as 70-plus years of Superman shows us its really really difficult to write good stories about characters that are essentially unkillable. Although we all know that characters like James Bond or Batman will never die, the joy of watching action films is placing the hero in situations where hes at least faced with the risk that he could die. The possibility of death makes for the greatest stakes of all (as Eastwood taught us in Unforgiven, you take away all hes got and all hes ever gonna have), so what do you do with someone with unbreakable bones and whos always just around the corner from spontaneously healing and regenerating himself anyway? The mini-series resolved this by having Wolverine fight for internal, emotional stakes. An emotional Wolverine may sound like weak cheese to the kind of fanboy who doesnt want Logan to ever veer more than 4 panels away from slice and dice, but thats exactly what made the mini-series work so well, and its an element thats absolutely necessary to appeal to a general audience. Judging from the trailers, Mangolds aware of this as well, since theres a clip that suggests that Wolverine may lose his powers and be able to die, but thats too easy and implausible unless you believe a truly powerless Wolverine is going to make it alive to the credits. Hopefully, the film will instead follow Claremonts example and have his struggle be an entirely internal one with Logan struggling with the concept of what kind of person he really wants to be. Granted this sounds much more touchy-feely than its execution in the comic, and would be much harder to do on film, but theres no question that the mini-series emotional hook was the end of issue 3 where Wolverine achieves a moment of personal clarity. Taking stock of his surroundings after yet another fight, he notices hes wrecked the beauty and order of a Zen garden and engages in the kind of insightful self-reflection I never thought Id see in a Wolverine comic book. He actually thinks to himself, Peace? Perhaps thats the answer and theres a powerful moment where you get the sense that Wolverine might actually try to resolve a situation with something other than his claws. Unfortunately, its not a feeling that lasts very long (theres still one whole issue to go after all) but you nonetheless get the feeling that you just saw Logan yes, Virginia, miracles do happen
grow as a character. It works because its not only different from the Logan wed come to know, but its also an honest moment that was slowly built towards in the preceding issues, finally springing forth from his troubled realization that hes forever been a kind of agent of chaos and the push-pull relationship he has with the two females in the book. These two females brings me to the comics last great idea which The Wolverine filmmakers, with any luck, have brought to the table.