Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!
Have you been keeping up with our X-Men: Age of Revelation coverage? So far, we’ve spoken to Jed MacKay, Erica Schultz, David Marquez, and Tom Brevoort. I have to say, as somebody who’s conducted over 300 X-Men Monday interviews with countless creators, events like this are an amazing opportunity to talk to even more of them for the first time. That’s the case with this edition as, despite writing 13 issues of the current Wolverine series, writer Saladin Ahmed hasn’t stopped by X-Men Monday — until now!
Read on for Saladin’s thoughts on his Wolverine run, as well as The Last Wolverine, a very different kind of Wolverine story coming our way in the Age of Revelation.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Welcome to X-Men Monday, Saladin! As this is your first time stopping by the column, could you share your first X-Men eXperience with us?
Saladin Ahmed: Well, I’m old as dirt, so the first time I came across the X-Men was in fourth grade when a buddy loaned me God Loves, Man Kills. I don’t know how many times I reread that book. The rest was sort of history.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Before we talk about The Last Wolverine, we have to discuss your Wolverine run a bit. Over the course of 13 issues, we’ve seen our hero mentor Leonard the Wendigo, battle some of his greatest enemies while uncovering the mystery of the Adamantine, reunite with his dearly departed mother (sort of), and most recently, become Don Logan. When you have a character as versatile as Wolverine, how do you narrow in on which stories you want to explore with him?
Saladin: Well, it helps that I’ve been thinking about Logan and his world for decades! That as a runty kid, I literally used to make up stories with a Wolverine action figure in hand. So the stories I’ve told so far have tried to combine everything I thought was cool about the character then — an unstoppably kickass short guy defending his people by any means necessary — with everything I’ve learned since about being a writer and a person. As I’ve gotten older, of course, I’ve come to meditate more on aging, pain, trauma, and healing — and Logan is the perfect character to explore these things.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Speaking of some of those plots, X-Fan Ben says your Wolverine run seems to pull a lot from 2000s Wolverine runs that writers haven’t referenced much in a while (Romulus and Elizabeth Howlett, for example). What about this era of Wolverine comics speaks to you? Or is this just a coincidence?
Saladin: It’s more that I’m a writer who will always dig into underused history for a character. We hadn’t seen Cyber in a long ass time, for example, so we threw him into the first issue. Romulus had also sat on the shelf too long. But Elizabeth was a much more personal thing. I lost my own mother when I was a young kid as well, and it’s such a deeply formative thing; it kind of astonished me that people hadn’t touched much on how it had affected Logan. So we built a story around that pain of growing up motherless, which is a very particular sort of pain. And the question of how that story might continue is an open one — because those feelings never quite resolve, even for a tough guy like Logan.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: As we segue to The Last Wolverine, what made you want to introduce and explore a heroic Wendigo in your initial Wolverine arc?
Saladin: As soon as I took the job writing Wolverine, I knew I was going to have a Wendigo story. The design is just so cool! But again, I’m always thinking about the human angle with this stuff. The curse of the Wendigo hits someone as a punishment for cannibalism, but when you think about the situations that drive people to cannibalism for survival, it’s usually a very sad story. Leonard kind of started to grow out of that. Plus, it’s just cool having a Wendigo who can talk.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: What can you share about the Wonderful Wolverine, whom we meet X years later in The Last Wolverine? “Wonderful” is certainly a new adjective for Wolverine.
Saladin: It certainly is! An alternate title might be ‘Friendly Neighborhood Wolverine’ — essentially, the idea is that Leonard, a teenager afflicted with the Wendigo curse in our main Wolverine timeline, has come to control it in young adulthood and has become a hero patterned on his idol: Wolverine. But he has a ridiculously sunny view of Logan, the guy who rescued him from the woods and saved him from being a monster. He looks at Logan like he’s Spider-Man. And so when he goes to imitate him as a new Wolverine, he’s a much sunnier version. HE’S HAVING FUN WITH IT.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: And what about the Logan of the Age of Revelation? It looks like he’ll appear across a few series during the event, but X-Fan Snikt Bub wonders if we can expect to learn how he may have changed over X years in The Last Wolverine?
Saladin: Yes, this is a main focus of the book, and folks looking for their regular Logan fix will still get it here — he’s just… changed.
AIPT: X-Fan Concerned Civilian noticed Vindicator on the cover of The Last Wolverine #2 and asks if we can expect to see any other Alpha Flight members in your story. They’re always welcome in Concerned Civilian’s book (or your book).
Saladin: Don’t wanna spoil too much here, but Heather is really the focus. Turning her into an older, harder, Sarah Connor-type Vindicator was awesome fun, and Edgar Salazar’s design is killer.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Speaking of Edgar, he’s certainly no stranger to drawing Logan. What can readers expect from the visuals in this series?
Saladin: Edgar’s pages are incredible. It’s the perfect blend of Y2K EXTREME vibes in modern Marvel storytelling. You guys are gonna dig it!
AIPT: Finally, as a writer, what creative opportunities does an event like Age of Revelation offer in terms of exploring Logan and his supporting cast as characters?
Saladin: I’m generally not someone who loves dwelling in the bleakest timelines — enough of that in real life, after all — but this one was really fun because we were given pretty broad license to go crazy in depicting the new order of things in the Age of Revelation, but folks will have to just read to see what we did with that license!
AIPT: Sounds like a plan, Saladin. But on that note — thanks for stopping by X-Men Monday!
X-Fans, The Last Wolverine #1 goes on sale October 22, 2024. Keep scrolling for an eXclusive look at a few of artist Edgar Salazar and color artist Carlos Lopez’s pages, courtesy of our friends at Marvel.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
But wait, there’s more! Here’s an unreleased variant cover to The Last Wolverine #1 by artist Puppeteer Lee.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
And one more from artist Rickie Yagawa!
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Next X-Men Monday – September 22, 2025
In the next edition of X-Men Monday, writer Justina Ireland makes her X-Men Monday debut to discuss her upcoming X-Men: Age of Revelation tie-in series, Cloak or Dagger!
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Until next time, X-Fans, stay eXceptional!
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