Originally Posted by
Ambaryerno
Killing him off wasn't a bad idea, but how they HANDLED it was incredibly poorly executed.
1) First, it ran up against Bendis' interminable Will of Charles Xavier. Logan turned up in the beginning, and when he died halfway through he just...stopped appearing. Then when the timeline reset at the end they didn't even bother with him. This was the most egregious case, but IIRC, other books he was appearing in he just up and vanished, making me wonder whether his death was a late, spur-of-the-moment decision that didn't give other writers time to adequately prepare for it.
2) Second was the handling of Laura as his successor, which had numerous problems.
The biggest was that Marvel utterly failed to properly develop their relationship prior to his death. Sticking her in ANXM rather than one of the JGS-based books where she could have regular interactions with Logan while she recovered from Avengers Arena. This could have helped flesh out why she chose to honor him this way (and to those who argued Logan wouldn't have wanted her to do it, so what? It was her choice to make, not his).
However this only got exacerbated with the aftermath, specifically Wolverines. We really only had one issue that foreshadowed her decision to take up the cowl, when Fantomelle gave her one of the costumes she stole as a "Thank You" for saving her life. Otherwise the series really did nothing to lay the groundwork her choice. Unfortunately Secret Wars got in the way, and the series ended suddenly, hamfistedly, and with the entire cast afflicted by a sudden case of Terminal Stupid so Mystique could screw them over (I'd argue her virtual non-presence in Secret Wars was itself a contributing factor). We never got to SEE the moment she decided to do it. She just turned up as Wolverine, and that was a glaring omission.
That just leads to how Marvel actually USED her as Wolverine. Which is...not really much at all. As Wolverine Laura SHOULD have been the one on the flagship book, rather than banished to Hopeless' glorified and badly-written shipping fic. She never got to really BE Wolverine; Old Man Logan got the flagship and the prominent roles in crossovers and events. She was never truly allowed to establish herself, and that just further fed into the idea that she was a placeholder. Had Marvel let her completely own the role, not just in name but in PRESENCE, it would have given her legacy role much more impact.
3) Third is the excessive glut of Wolverines that appeared in the aftermath of Secret Wars. Laura, Daken, and a Heroic Sabretooth already existed. Bringing Old Man Logan in was fine...at least until the writers began treating him like the prime Wolverine, basically stealing Laura's thunder and undermining their own premise of her as Logan's successor. It started to strain a bit with the Sisters, but with 3PAR not lasting her debut issue, and Zelda's death before the end of the first arc, having Gabby and Bellona at least offered something of a different take (especially with Bellona not even having a healing factor or claws). But then they decided to bring JIMMY on board, as well. Even worse, they just dropped all Logan Prime's baggage on HIM, and writers handled him like Logan only blonder. Jimmy was Wolverine Critical Mass, and that combined with all the other related characters has pushed things too far.
Looking back, I'd have had Marvel make a choice between adding OML, Gabby, or Jimmy. All of them together were just too much (personally I'd have gone with Gabby, as OML and Jimmy are much more redundant with OG Logan's return, seeing as both are pretty much written exactly the same, anyway). Laura would have been fully and exclusively Wolverine. She would have been on the flagship book, and would have filled Logan's role by being one of the leading X-Men in events. Daken and Sabretooth could continue as normal; Daken as his usual wildcard self, Creed trying to live up to Logan's example but ultimately regressing back into his pre-inverted state.
4) Finally is their handling of his return.
The pointless "Post Credit Scenes"
Two one-shots
FOUR "Hunt For" miniseries
And now we have the "Return Of" miniseries
The milking of his return is positively shameless, and even now that he's "back" it's still going to be almost a year before he's BACK.