I had already planned to see Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey as soon as possible, so the fact that selected theaters are now showing a brand new one Marvel's Wolverine trailer before it feels like a very nice bonus. At first I assumed this was simply PlayStation attaching one of its biggest upcoming games to one of the biggest movies of the year, which would have made enough sense in itself. After watching the trailer for “Ain't No Hero”. Marvel's WolverineBut I honestly don't think Sony could have found a better movie to put it in front of.
The entire trailer is built around Logan refusing to see himself as a hero, even though he's clearly being drawn into another fight where people need him. Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is centered around one of the most famous heroes in storytelling, but Odysseus has never exactly been the pure, noble type who always does the right thing. Anyone who sees both Marvel's Wolverine and The Odyssey in the same theater basically get two different stories about violent, wounded warriors who continue to survive, even when their own choices are part of the reason they suffer.
Marvel's Wolverine and The Odyssey share the same hero problem
The new one Marvel's Wolverine The trailer doesn't spend much time pretending that Logan is just another version of Spider-Man. There's no light talk about responsibility or any sense that he enjoys being the person everyone turns to when things go wrong. Instead, he looks exhausted, angry, covered in blood, and about three seconds from losing whatever patience he had left.
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Logan says he's “no hero,” and the trailer spends the rest of its runtime making that sound completely believable. He tears through enemies with the kind of violence that would make Peter Parker stop mid-fight and tell everyone to calm down, while the scars covering his body make it clear that his healing factor has never protected him from anything. Insomniac has described the game as a brutal, action-packed single-player adventure, and this trailer makes it look as personal as it is violent.
Anyone who sees both Marvel's Wolverine and The Odyssey in the same theater basically get two different stories about violent, wounded warriors who continue to survive, even when their own choices are part of the reason they suffer.
Odysseus is obviously a very different character, but I've always found him interesting for many of the same reasons. He is smart, brave, resilient and capable of surviving situations that would kill almost anyone else, which is why he has been remembered as a hero for thousands of years. But he is also proud, selfish, violent and responsible for more than a few of the disasters he then has to escape.
Honestly, Odysseus would be a much less interesting character if he was simply a great warrior trying to get home. His journey lasts as long as it does because he can't always resist proving how smart he is, getting the last word, or making whatever choice satisfies him in the moment. He survives monsters, gods, war and the sea, but surviving himself is often the harder part.
Logan has his own version of that problem, as his anger helps him survive while threatening to make every fight worse than it needed to be. Wolverine can heal from almost any wound, but the anger and guilt behind all that evil continues to follow him wherever he goes. Like Odysseus, he is often most impressive and most difficult to admire at exactly the same time.
Have seen the trailer before The Odyssey makes both men look like part of the same very old tradition. Heroes weren't always expected to be kind, polished, or easy to admire, and they certainly didn't have to give a speech of hope before every battle. Sometimes the hero was simply the deeply flawed person who could do what no one else could and then live with it at all costs.
PlayStation found the right audience for Marvel's Wolverine
The location of Marvel's WolverineThe new trailer also tells me that PlayStation knows exactly what kind of game it's trying to sell. Sony didn't save this trailer for a family-friendly animated Marvel movie filled with parents and kids who already recognize the claws. Rather, it put an M-rated Wolverine game ahead of a 172-minute Christopher Nolan epic shot entirely with IMAX film cameras and built around war, loss, survival, and a deeply flawed protagonist.
Logan says he's “no hero,” and the trailer spends the rest of its runtime making that sound completely believable.
I mean, that audience makes a lot more sense for this version of Wolverine. People who show up for The Odyssey are already prepared to go through a huge, serious story about a warrior who carries the consequences of war over an almost impossible journey home. A trailer about another battle-scarred protagonist who can't escape his past won't exactly feel out of place.
It also reaches beyond the mainstream superhero audience. Marvel's Wolverine will obviously attract comic book fans and people who loved Insomniac's Spider-Man game, but this trailer looks designed to convince everyone else that it's not just Spider-Man with sharper weapons. The violence, tone, and focus on Logan's past sell a cinematic single-player game that happens to star a Marvel character, rather than expecting the Marvel name to do everything.
The Odyssey is also the kind of movie that people still make an event of seeing. Nolan's film runs 172 minutes and was shot entirely with IMAX film cameras, so audiences buy tickets because they want scale, spectacle and a story worth experiencing on the biggest screen possible. PlayStation clearly wants to Marvel's Wolverine to carry some of the same energy.
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Image via Sony -
Image via Sony -
The simplest explanation is of course that The Odyssey is one of the biggest films of the year and Sony wanted to get the trailer in front of as many people as possible. I doubt anyone at PlayStation wrote a long argument about the similarities between Logan and Odysseus before booking the placement. Yet marketing can be obvious and accidentally perfect at the same time.
Marvel's Wolverine will obviously attract comic book fans and people who loved Insomniac's Spider-Man game, but this trailer looks designed to convince everyone else that it's not just Spider-Man with sharper weapons.
Anyone who gets this trailer before The Odyssey will hear Logan reject the idea that he's a hero, and then spend nearly three hours watching one of storytelling's greatest heroes make that word incredibly complicated. One fights with adamantium claws and the other survives with a sword, a bow and an almost dangerous amount of confidence, but neither man fits the pure version of heroism that audiences are used to seeing. Marvel's Wolverine could have played before almost any blockbuster this year, but Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is the one that makes its entire message land even harder.
- Released
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September 15, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases
- Publisher
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Sony Interactive Entertainment
