The following contains spoilers for Old Man Logan #38 by Ed Brisson, Dalibor Talajic and Carlos Lopez, on sale now. 


Two years ago, Marvel Comic brought an older version of Wolverine from another timeline into the main Marvel Universe following the events of Secret Wars. Old Man Logan's arrival and inclusion into the larger X-Men narrative and overall Marvel U while his younger counterpart was dead was a solid storytelling move, unlikely not a coincidence that it happened to capitalize on the release of the then-upcoming 2017 film Logan.

But now that the film has come and gone, and the younger Logan is making his way back into the Marvel U, the Oldest There Is has become a big elephant in the room. He's had his fair share of adventures in his solo comic, and members of his family have come to accept him as their own. He's even come to learn to live in the moment rather than worrying about the dark future that could eventually befall him. But he was always living on borrowed time, and now something has to be done about him.

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That "something" looks to be in the works over in Old Man Logan's titular solo comic. This month's issue is the culmination of the "Moving Target" storyline, where Logan has had a rough go in recent issues. Not only is his healing factor mysteriously degenerating, the only thing that saved him from death by the Hand was a prototype drug that'll come to have negative effects on his body. Worse, he's become blind in one eye and his eardrum's become ruptured.

While it's not 100% the same, his current plight is strikingly similar to Hugh Jackman's final performance as the character. Yes, that Logan may have had a limp instead of a bad eye, but his healing factor was also failing, and no medicine could keep him from eventually expiring.

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For comics' Old Man Logan, the most sensible thing for him to do would be to get looked at by one of his many scientist allies in the Marvel Universe. However, he's currently busy being targeted by infamous assassin Bullseye, who has been hired by Wilson Fisk to kill the mutant and his journalist friend Sarah Dewey, and take a flash drive containing "sensitive" information. Logan doesn't know what's on it, but enough people have been killed or hurt for the drive, so he thinks it can put Fisk away and put an end to his mayoral run. (Of course, Logan can't make this happen, because someone else will wind up doing that, and way more effectively.) Bullseye manages to get the drive and flee to Kingpin, but it doesn't take long for Logan to find him and give Bullseye a much needed elbow to the face and subsequent pummeling.

The flash drive turns out to contain something more valuable than any criminal activity Fisk could participate in: photos of him and his wife Vanessa before her death. While he's a mobster and criminal, Fisk is also a mane who misses his wife, even after he was forced to kill her following her pair of resurrections -- once in 2013's Savage Wolverine, and last year in Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy. The Kingpin was offended that someone stole from him to begin with, but he mainly wanted the drive because it's the only thing he has left of the woman he loved.

In its own weird way, Fisk and Logan aren't that different. They've both had to come face to face with a loved one that has died, or will. In the early issues of Old Man Logan, our hero found himself in Canada, face to face with the younger version of the woman who would eventually become his wife. Fisk talks about just wanting to remember his wife, and it's not hard to think that this strikes a tone with the old man.

Logan ends the issue letting Fisk go and swearing he'll bring the Kingpin in one day, but that may not come to pass. Not only is Fisk's life currently hanging by a thread after the events of Daredevil #600, there's good reason to believe Logan simply won't be around much longer. Next issue will see him figuring out just what it is that's causing his healing factor to deteriorate, and then he's duking it out with Kraven in the Savage Land. If Kraven doesn't kill him, something has to take him off the board. Marvel appears poised to get rid of the original time displaced X-Men starting in August, and it's likely that Logan will make his own exit as well.

Of course, there's always a chance that Old Man Logan may continue exist when his younger self fully steps into the spotlight, but it just doesn't seem likely. His is the type of story destined to end in a bittersweet fashion. Sending him back to his own time probably isn't an option, so it seems much more likely for his death to come either in battle or surrounded by his loved ones. Whatever happens, the Old Man's time, like his healing power, is most certainly running out.