Despite the fact that Logan’s ‘Logan’s most famous mantra.
James “Logan” Howlett aka Wolverine is known for saying, “I’m the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn’t very nice” with the implication being that the thing he’s best at is killing. Due to his mutation–heightened animalistic senses, healing factor, six retractable claws–Logan is ittedly the perfect killing machine, yet he spends most of his time on the X-Men. While the X-Men is a militant group made up of mutants, a number of its are children, and most of the missions they are sent on don’t involve killing or any other type of extreme warfare. Usually it’s just destroying some robots or beating up some misguided mutant extremists. Therefore, Logan’s reputation as a hardened killer is definitely diluted when he fights alongside the X-Men as the yellow-suited Wolverine. However, when Logan goes off on his solo-missions, he proves why he’s the ‘best there is at what he does’, and one storyline in particular finally gives him a name to match.
Wolverine’s OTHER Codename Better Highlights His Iconic Catchphrase
In Wolverine Vol. 3 #1 by Greg Rucka and Darick Robertson, Logan is laying low in a cheap apartment building in a small town when he runs into his neighbor who also happens to be a server at the local diner where he regularly eats. While Logan doesn’t pay her much mind, she has become fascinated with him given his mysteriously gruff but somehow kind demeanor. Eventually she approached him, as she was on the run from some dangerous people and she wanted to befriend someone who she thought could help her. At that point, the waitress told Logan that she’s an amateur writer, and that he became something of a character in her journals. She even reveals to Logan that she gave him a name before they formerly met, a name that was based entirely on his appearance and antisocial tendencies: Mean Man.
‘Mean Man’ may seem like a bit of a misnomer for Logan because he’s actually one of the nicest people anyone could meet, but that sentiment is only accurate for some people. Logan will treat kind people with kindness (or, at the very least, indifference), but for those who Logan deems too vile to remain living, he is the meanest creature they’d ever see. Sometimes the true underlying horror of Logan’s aforementioned mantra is lost on fans, as all they can think of is the badass nature of Wolverine going berserker-rage on a group of bad guys and cutting them all down while saving the day. But the truth is, Wolverine is killing them, and usually those people–no matter how bad they are–have no real way to defend themselves, and they’re scared out of their minds. Obviously, most of the people Wolverine puts down deserve no sympathy, but this isn’t about them. All Logan sees when he cuts them down is himself as a rage-fueled killer, an effectively immortal murderer, a truly ‘mean man’.
Logan was given his ‘Mean Man’ nickname as more of a joke by the waitress in this issue, but she was more correct about him than she knew, as this secret codename is even more perfect than ‘Wolverine’ due to the fact that it better highlights Logan’s iconic catchphrase.
