As the MCU Phase Three comes to a close, “Wolverine: The Long Night” is giving audiences brand new ways to think about and experience superhero stories.
Marvel is on the verge of one of the biggest weekends in its history. With the release of “Avengers: Infinity War,” one film will bring together a laundry list of superheroes in one convenient place. Barring some miraculous surprise cameo, one character who won’t be a part of that team-up is Wolverine, the X-Men stalwart. But while he might be taking a break in the film world post-”Logan,” the character is alive and well in the world of podcasts.
“Wolverine: The Long Night,” the newest venture from Marvel and Stitcher, is a 10-part audio drama released in podcast form. Not only is the story the first of its kind for Marvel in this hyper-evolving podcast world, it’s wholly unique within the superhero world the way it uses its larger-than-life title character.
Rather than filter the story’s murder mystery through Logan’s eyes, “Wolverine: The Long Night” takes its perspective cues from a handful of law enforcement officials in the sleepy fictional locale of Burns, Alaska. Between the local cop, Sheriff Ridge (Scott Adsit), and a pair of out-of-town agents called in to investigate a series of grisly (and potentially, grizzly) murders, that unexpected focus makes Wolverine an in-story myth the way no other star-driven movie or TV show could. For writer Benjamin Percy, no stranger to the comics world, that was one of the biggest appeals of the project.
“Wolverine has a history of violence. He’s trying to escape that but is unable to, because he is the ultimate weapon. And you don’t leave a weapon like that lying around to rust,” Percy told IndieWire. “He’s been in the spotlight for so long. We’ve all read the comics and we’ve all seen the films and I wanted to make him into something mystifying once more. I wanted to relegate him to the shadows. I wanted him to feel like a threat. He’s been put forward as a team player so often that I think we’ve forgotten about the fact that he’s a true loner. I guess this was my attempt to re-mystify Logan.”
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Source: Indiewire