I can see it now in it's Terry Gilliam-inspired animated glory:

Joe Quesada: What'cha doin'?

Mark Millar: Making a Wolverine story.

Joe Quesada: Making a Wolverine story?!  BRILLIANT!!!! So, how does it work?

Mark Millar: You know how Logan is our Clint Eastwood?

Joe Quesada: YES!

Mark Millar: And you know how Eastwood's most acclaimed movie is Unforgiven?

Joe Quesada: YES!

Mark Millar: Well, I've decided to make Unforgiven with Wolverine!

Joe Quesada: Unforgiven with Wolverine?!?!  BRILLIANT!!!!!!!  What else you got?

Mark Millar: You know the manly yet forced and cliche swear phrase "Kick-A$$"?

Joe Quesada: YES!

Mark Millar: I've written a whole ongoing series with it as the title!

Joe Quesada: Brilliant!

Mark Millar: Brilliant!

*clink!*

Is there any room on the "Mark Millar rubs me the wrong way" bandwagon?  Because I think I want to jump aboard.  There's a lot of his work I really like (Ultimates, Red Son, Marvel Knights Spider-Man) and then there's a lot of his work I really don't like (Civil War, Wanted).  As such, you have a situation where I must check out just about everything he does to see if it turns out to be grand with the knowledge that there's about a 50/50 chance I'm going to be annoyed.  On top of that, as everyone says, he always subtitles his books with "This is the greatest thing ever made!" or something like that.  As such, Mark Millar rubs me the wrong way.

That being said, "Unforgiven with Wolverine" is such an appropriate idea for the the old Canucklehead, it's surprising it hasn't been done before.  Sure, you have Wolverine: The End... but we won't speak of that.  It's a novel idea with just a few kinks in it. The plot so far is that super-villains took over the country and Logan's become a pacifist farmer in Sacramento (my folks live 45 minutes away) who hasn't shown his claws in decades.  As such, his landlords, the Hulk's hillbilly (redneck is a better term, it's the Central Valley after all) grandchildren demand double rent for skipping out on the rent this time month.  After taking a beating, a blind Hawkeye shows up (get it?  because he's Hawkeye!  and now he's... nevermind) and employs Logan to on a delivery trip as his point man (Hawkeye drives and Logan tells him where to drive so they don't die.  From the map at the end, you can see Logan's going into the territories of the Kingpin and Doom, so there's that to expect.  Overall, this looks like an interesting story starting.

McNiven's art is as top-notch as always, even if the poor guy hasn't really fallen into a book where the quality of the writing has matched his art since his Marvel Knights 4 run.  His rich detail works wonders here in the haggard look of Logan's face and the richness of the desolation of the post-apocalyptic western lands.  Hopefully, Millar will be bringing his A-game to the proceedings to match McNiven's contributions.  And hopefully, the book will be on time.  That'd be nice.

Overall, it's a good start to the arc.  It's a little wonky in concerns to Logan's age showing (the guy's going to live to be 300 or so, right?) and the ridiculousness of his landlords (could the Hulk gang be anymore of stereotypical rednecks?) but so far it's looking good.  The depiction of Logan as no longer acting in violence yet still holding that brutality under the surface is a nice spin on the character.  The little touches like his son being named Scott and the fact that Logan's ride for the trip is the Spider-Mobile are nice.  I'm certainly interested enough to read the next issue.

But if I see a walkling shapeshifting pile of crap or a Thor clone, I swear I'm gonna...