New Wolverine fan art from comic creator Dan Hipp makes the best case yet for Joaquin Phoenix as Logan, channeling his Inherent Vice beach-bum look in a new costume laden with Easter eggs. A vocal cadre of fans have long argued that Phoenix would be the ideal actor to give Wolverine a new spin after Hugh Jackman’s iconic portrayal, and Hipp’s art just went to the front of the line by proving that Logan only gets cooler when his look is reimagined in the style of the star’s LA neo-noir role.

Hipp is a comic artist and cartoonist, as well as the acclaimed former art director for Teen Titans GO! Recently, he’s been reimagining heroes like Spider-Man, Moon Knight, and now Wolverine in hilarious knitwear – a style also present in his official cover art for Batman #120 and The Joker 2021 Annual #1. Using the patterns of these outfits, as well as action figures and buttons, Hipp loads his images with fun references for fans to decipher.

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In the art – recently shared to Twitter by Dan Hipp – Wolverine hits the beach with a disheveled new look including shredded jeans, a novelty t-shirt, an X-Men jacket, Nike sneakers, and shades. Logan’s beat-up look and daytime neon bring to mind Larry “Doc” Sportello – the reluctant private eye from Paul Thomas Anderson’s big-screen adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel. Wolverine is standing on broken action figures of Sabretooth and Omega Red – two of his most vicious enemies – with a third figure of Street Fighter‘s Vega also included, likely as a reference to Logan’s claws. His jacket includes the X-Men’s usual insignia, but also a patterned Jean Grey on the shoulder representing his longtime obsession with the psychic hero, which is also referenced on his t-shirt, which recreates a memetic moment from X-Men: The Animated Series in which Logan lovingly caresses a picture of Jean while in full costume.

This unlucky, lovelorn LA detective look shows that fans aren’t being unreasonable when they argue Phoenix’s Doc has shades of Logan, and series like Wolverine MAX have indeed seen the X-Men’s resident brawler take to Los Angeles to solve mysteries of his own. Wolverine has always been a surprisingly versatile character comfortable all over the world, and his loner attitude has been interpreted as everything from an Inherent Vice-style PI tumbling through mystery to a samurai in training to a literal lone wolf.

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While movie fans may not get why some comic readers insist Joaquin Phoenix can and should pull off Wolverine, Dan Hipp’s awesome fan art offers up a great argument for how exciting that could be, channeling one of the actor’s most acclaimed roles for a subdued, disheveled vision of Logan that remains faithful to those stories that focus on his beer-swilling, “bub”-spouting, barroom-brawling adventures.

Source: Dan Hipp

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Robert Wood
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Robert Wood is a comics editor for Screen Rant and the author of ‘The False Elephant (and 99 Other Unreasonably Short Stories).’ He received his Master’s in English Literature from Lancaster University, and now happily spends his days applying it to Daredevil and the Hulk.

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