Logan - the scars that won't heal

Written by The Curmudgeon

There’s this scene at the beginning of Logan (2017) during which the titular character wakes to a group of thugs heisting the hubcaps from his car. A fight scene ensues, but not in the way you might be used to with this character. The “Weapon X” of his youth has given way to an old man, barely capable of keeping up with his younger attackers. In a pitiful display, one of his claws gets stuck in his forearm. Soon enough, he succumbs to his berserker rage – Logan, the man, yielding to Wolverine, the beast, decimating his foes with what could only be described as animalistic efficiency.

What’s more interesting is the scene which follows. As Logan tends to his wounds, we get a glimpse of what’s going on underneath.

He slowly and laboriously pushes bullets out of his ruined flesh, revealing calloused skin and countless scars. In an instant, we understand that the enhanced healing factor which kept Logan impervious to damage has deteriorated over time. Years of violence have finally left their mark. But there’s more to it than that.

Logan’s healing factor always had more of an emotional implication. While he could easily recover from any physical blow levied at him, the heart and mind aren’t so invulnerable. Perhaps, in this sense, the healing factor could be considered metaphorical for Logan’s reluctance to acknowledge or confront his true vulnerability. His physical invincibility is a representation of his blasé attitude with which he upholds his emotional despondence in the face of a long history of suffering. That is to say, his ability to literally shrug off bullets goes hand in hand with his propensity for shrugging off trauma.

In which case, every scar hides a story – the death of a loved one, a life he had – or maybe didn’t have – to extinguish.

As his healing factor grinds to a painful crawl, we can infer that his ability to forsake his own emotions has stilted, also. While he painstakingly dons his shirt once more, an utterly stellar physical performance from Hugh Jackman makes something uncomfortably clear: this is more than just a man experiencing physical fatigue after a brawl – Logan is emotionally exhausted. Multiple lifetimes of self-neglect have taken their toll on the dilapidated super hero.

With this in mind, the character of Laura presents an interesting situation. Much like Logan, she’s got claws, a healing factor, and a beast inside her, waiting to be uncaged. Laura, like Logan, has been engineered to kill – and her healing factor is a relic of that fact. But the world hasn’t got to her in the same way it has her older, jaded counterpart. Shots of her riding the toy horse outside a petrol station let us know something very important:

She’s still a child. She’s still salvageable.

Laura has the potential to be better.

Before I proceed, however, I’m going to need to talk about the ending of the film. So, if you haven’t seen Logan yet – and I highly, highly recommend that you do – this is a friendly SPOILER WARNING.

In the climax of the movie, Logan overcomes his emotional walls, and chooses to defend Laura from the very people who moulded her for destruction. Among them is a clone of Logan, who poses the greatest threat, by far. This character is more figurative than literal. He’s a reflection not only of the mindless killing machine Logan was designed to be, but also a younger version of him with an advanced healing factor to match his total absence of emotion. Logan must literally, and figuratively, fight himself, or the negative aspects of his character.

It's only fitting that Laura is the one to finish the job. After Logan is conquered by his clone, Laura introduces said clone to the greeting end of an adamantium bullet.

As a representation of the potentiality to be better, it has to be Laura who defeats the physical embodiment of everything toxic about Logan's personality.

This is, perhaps, the only logical conclusion for such a character. Broken and impaled, Logan’s wounds are now beyond the remit of his healing factor. The fact that this moment comes hand-in-hand with the character’s acceptance of emotional vulnerability (and his self-sacrifice for someone he loves) is revealing. Towards Laura, he says: “don’t be what they made you.”

Just as he succumbs to his physical damage, he also finds solace in his emotional scar tissue.