Was Killing off Logan a Bad Idea?

[TheCape]

We never got a story with the title "Funeral for a Bub" sadly

[The Dying Detective]

We never got a story with the title "Funeral for a Bub" sadly

This I can get behind in so many ways it's funny.

[Shadowcat99]

To me, killing off Logan was horrendous. It lead to all these Wolverines that I personally cannot stand, especially that horrid Old Man Logan. I was never Logan's biggest fan simply because he's always been overused, but killing him off to give us 20 new Wolverines who were all overused was really irritating to me.

[X-Logan]

Yes. It was a terrible idea.

[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.

[donpricetag]

While I did like the development it brought to Laura as a character, I think every time a big character gets killed off and everybody knows they'll be back sooner or later, death as a storytelling device loses more and more meaning. The inevitable return miniseries followed by a new ongoing series is so trite and predictable.

Plus in Logan's case, the proliferation of doppelgängers after his death was borderline ridiculous, a shameful attempt from Marvel to create their own Nightwing, Batgirl, etc. to Logan's Batman... let's just say it didn't really go well.

You think Marvel was trying to create their version of the Batman family? Wow. Never looked at it that way. The difference is, the Bat-family wasn't a bunch of clones. They are highly skilled combatants with different names, backgrounds and motivations. These were a bunch of near carbon-copies and an out of time older version, not counting Creed.

[The Dying Detective]

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).

Well if she really wanted to honour him Laura didn't have to wear a mantle burdened with tragedy and obey his wishes that's really how a person honours someone obeying their wishes. I don't think even Barry Allen named Wally West his successor when he died.

[donpricetag]

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.

Oh @#@$ son, that was a good post.

[SchismOfMadroces]

The only mistake was using Old Man Logan as his replacement instead of Governor-General Howlett..

[Alan2099]

Killing Wolverine and replacing him with Wolverine, Wolverine, Wolverine, Wolverine, Wolverine, Wolverine, Wolverine, and Wolverine just defeats the point of ever killing him in the first place.

Wolverine got more exposure dead than he had been getting alive. And frankly, if you want to take him out of the books because he's over expoised, killing him is the worst way to do it. Once you kill him, you have to have people react to his death and the guy knew friggin' everybody. Then being as big a name as he is, it immedialty goes to "okay, so when's he coming back?"

Trying to replace him with other Wolverine just forces characters into a role they aren't fit for and then you have their fans complaining that they've changed and Wolverine's fans complaining that they aren't the "real" Wolverine.

Also his death was kinda lame.

[Shadowcat99]

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.

BRAVO!!! You articulated what I wanted to say so much better than I ever could and I agree with every word you typed.

[DearMachine]

No. I thought Soule (as usual) did an excellent job with the Death of Wolverine in making his death feel purposeful and important. It's the closest I've come to actually caring about Wolverine, which is saying a lot given how indifferent I normally am towards him.

The X-Books definitely would have benefited from having more room to let the other characters breathe too. Unfortunately, as others have remarked, Marvel didn't trust it, and so almost immediately filled the gap with a pack (a bub?) of Wolverines. Including Wolverines whom very few people found worthwhile, such as Jimmy. So, the situation was even worse than before.

So, yeah, I'm also in the good idea, bad execution camp.

[PsychoEFrost]

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.

^THIS^ I love Laura, and I kinda like her series, but all of the above is very true.

[DurararaFTW]

I agree with completely taking Logan out of the picture for a good while, not settling on one definite replacement was a mistake. That Wolverines garbage that sold Mystique and Lady Deathstrike as Wolverine was horrendous. Bringing in AU Wolverines worse still. Making Laura the new Wolverine as a way of connecting to her now dead father figure is fine. Don't sell it as there needing to be a Wolverine as tho it causes a cosmic imbalance. There doesn't NEED to be short hairy drunk on a motorcycle driving around Canada digging up his past and there are plenty of impulsive brawlers that throw themselves into a fight amongst the X-Men already. And don't have everybody drop all their business to find Wolverine when they know he's out and about again. Wolverine should be the every-man, the grunt's perspective compared to guys like Xavier and Cyclops with big agendas.

[TheCape]

It was kind of annoying how the characters keep treating Old Man Logan as he was 616 Wolverine, except when the plot tell then otherwise.