Biggest Questions We Still Have After Watching Logan

Unlike previous X-Men movies (and MCU movies, for that matter), Logan features a small cast and a simple plot. Despite how simple the filmmakers tried to keep everything, however, there are still more than a few things that don't make sense about Logan's final adventure. If you'd like to know more about the film's most burning unanswered questions, keep reading. However, beware: there are intense spoilers throughout this entire article, and not even an amazing healing factor can un-spoil a movie once you know everything:

Perhaps the biggest question fans have asked ever Logan's credits started rolling, is what was going on with his healing factor. Logan's deteriorating healing ability is central to his increased vulnerability in the film (he initially struggles to take out some simple gang members, for instance), and it serves as the main explanation for why the character dies from his wounds at the end. So what was happening to it?

Some fans are quick to point to adamantium poisoning, which Logan himself hints towards. However, the Logan of the comics has a healing factor that's always fighting this poisoning off—it's not like it's a sudden, new development. One likely explanation is that it's simply old age, but that brings its own set of questions. For one thing, Logan's been old forever — dude was born before the Civil War, after all. Moreso, the healing factor is Logan's mutant power, and it doesn't seem common for mutant powers to simply go away with old age. In fact, Professor X's abilities are as powerful (and dangerous) as ever at the ripe age of 90.

Moreover, this movie takes place just a few years after the horrific alternate future seen in Days of Future Past, and the Wolverine of that future certainly seemed like a healthy mutant who had no trouble fighting. Thus, fans are left to speculate as to what happened with Logan's healing factor, and whether he might eventually crawl right out of his own grave, alive and well.

This is a very minor point, but it's impossible to stop thinking about, once you notice it. Logan's day job is working for an Uber-like company, and he delivers clients from Point A to Point B. At one point, Laura's nurse and guardian, Gabriela, tries to recruit Logan as a driver, and he tells her she should call a taxi instead. Now, services like Uber and Lyft — which are famously designed to disrupt the traditional taxi industry — posed significant threats to the taxi industry in the years leading up to when Logan came out in 2017. The movie is set twelve years after that, and that dystopian future shows that both mutants and tigers (according to Pierce) are extinct.

So, how the hell is the taxi industry still around? Especially in a world that has embraced technology so openly, militant cyborg soldiers like the Reavers are no big deal? But taxis still exist (as do phonebooths, if Deadpool's any indication). Seems not legit.

When Pierce has his second run-in with Logan, he's quick to show off his cybernetic hand. Pierce tells Logan that the famous mutant isn't the only one that has been "enhanced," and this is later illustrated by scenes that show many other Reavers with cybernetic hands.

This is actually weird on several levels, especially for fans of the X-Men comic books. For one thing, the Reavers of the comics have much more extensive cybernetic enhancements that are designed to make them better fighters. For instance, some of them have tank treads instead of legs, allowing them great speed and maneuverability. Others have have infrared scanners and built-in guns. In fact, the Pierce of the comics has replaced his entire body with cybernetic parts except for his head, making him virtually impossible to kill. Compared to all of these badass combat enhancements from the comics, the onscreen Reavers simply have ... robot hands. Which seem like, at best, a good way to make traditional weapons harder to fire. But when your goal is to be a weapon of war, "at best" is rarely good enough.

One question that the more scientifically-minded viewers had when Logan ended was what exactly Xavier was suffering from. Characters hazard guesses as to what it might be, but nothing seems definitive, except that it's some form of brain disease that's deteriorating Xavier's mind — which Pierce says has been classified as a "weapon of mass destruction."

If nothing else, it would be good to know what Xavier's brain was suffering from, in case any villains want to weaponize it after his death. That may sound absurd but, in the world of Marvel comics, Red Skull has actually grafted part of dead Xavier's brain to his own, in order to give himself mind control powers. Knowing exactly what was eating at Xavier's mind might explain whether such a plan would be feasible for future villains that Laura and the other new mutants will face.

Speaking of the other new mutants, one glaring question involves why they weren't also being chased down by the Reavers. Sure, it's possible some of them were having their own epic, offscreen adventures. But if we use Laura as a reference point, she had the help of a nurse, the most powerful psychic on the planet, and an almost 200-year-old assassin with a healing factor. It took all their combined efforts to get her to the rendezvous in North Dakota but, as near as we can tell, all the other mutants simply made it up there on their own. So, while Laura was undeniably a valuable target, so weren't the others — it seems like the Reavers could have used their time more productively by hunting down literally anyone and everyone else who escaped, instead of sinking soldier after soldier into retrieving the one young mutant being guarded by a berserker.

One really tantalizing aspect of the plot is that these new mutants genuinely seem to have a plan. After their improbable meet-up at their comic book coordinates, the mutant Rictor talks to someone on the other side of the Canadian border. While it could be almost anyone, many fans are hoping he may have been speaking to Alpha Flight, a Canadian team of superheroes Wolverine once fought alongside. Not only would it be nice to see Wolverine's clone protege working alongside his old outfit, it would be nice to see these mutant kids actually catch a damn break for once.

At a few different points in the movie, Xavier berates Logan for not thinking about the future. To Xavier, this mostly means that Wolverine is no longer concerned about the fate of mutants, and is no longer interested in charting a course for his own life. Strictly speaking, this isn't true, as Wolverine is charting a course for the high seas. He's been stowing money away to buy a boat so he and Xavier can live on the ocean. This seems important, and Xavier's last words are spent talking about the damn boat. Why, though, was it important at all?

Certainly, living in the isolation of the ocean would mean Wolvie wouldn't have to worry about bumping into monsters like Pierce, and Xavier wouldn't have to worry about accidentally hurting any humans. However, the isolation brings its own peculiar set of problems. How would the two of them get the food they need to live? Unless they become really good fishermen offscreen, they will be regularly pulling over to friendly islands, and then they're back to the problem of either being recognized by humans, or hurting humans.

Also, how would they treat Xavier? If they're hundreds of miles from the medicine Xavier needs, then there's nothing to stop his mental seizures. Perhaps that was the point—that Wolverine was taking himself and Xavier to a place where Xavier can only hurt Wolverine. But given how hard it was for Wolverine to move around in the hotel during an Xavier seizure (when he had to use his claws to move along the wall), it seems very likely Logan would sink the ship during another seizure. Considering that Xavier's legs don't work, and Wolverine's entire skeleton is covered in heavy metal, it seems like buying a boat guarantees they get themselves killed out on the ocean.

One question that fans of any X-Men movie must perpetually ask themselves is, "what timeline is this?" For instance, Wolverine seems to have the katana from The Wolverine in his possession, which would hint at the events of that movie. In fact, some of the events of that movie –such as Viper sapping Wolvie's healing power — would go a long way towards explaining the plot of Logan. But The Wolverine, which was all about Wolvie recovering from the death of Jean Grey in X-Men 3, should have never happened, as Jean is seen alive in the "good" future at the end of Days of Future Past.

Speaking of those movies, it's weird that the public seems so blasé about the extermination of all mutants. While Wolverine encounters a mutant-friendly doctor, no one else expresses any mutant affection or concern over the deliberate destruction of a population. Thanks to the wacky changes wrought by Days of Future Past, the American public should be well aware that the X-Men have saved the entire world from Magneto, have saved the president from Magneto, and have kept Apocalypse (and, of course, Magneto) from crumbling every city in the world to dust. It seems weird that the saviors of the world could be so easily written off a few decades later, by the humans they helped time and time again.

So is Logan it's own timeline? Part of the dead Jean timeline? Is this an alternate future where Days of Future Past turned out poorly for the good guys? And how quickly before they reboot everything and just start confusing us all over again?

Logan's Uber-esque job seems like a really weird way for him to make money. As Xavier mentions, Wolverine was once a successful cage fighter — even in his deteriorated state, this seems like the kind of hustle he'd be good at. Alternately, he could be a private bodyguard—as the jerk farmer pitches to Logan later in the film, he could easily make six figures doing the same kinds of intimidation and ass-kicking he usually does for free. So why deal with drunken prom kids and random funeralgoers if you don't have to?

Now, the usual fan explanation is that Logan is trying to keep a low profile. However, being a driver that anyone can summon by name with an app on their smartphone is the polar opposite of a low profile — as Pierce illustrates, bad guys can find you easier than ever that way! Being a driver is obviously not a safe job, either, as the movie begins with Wolverine being nearly killed by a gang. So, if Logan is going to be doing dangerous work that keeps him on everyone's radar, it seems very odd that he chose such a seemingly modest, low-paying job to do so, especially since deadly-seizure-controlling medicine ain't cheap.