(Note: This story contains light spoilers for the plot of “Logan.”)
Much of “Logan” is spent with its characters trying to escape the Alkali Transigen corporation and their Reaver mercenaries. They decide to make their way to North Dakota, where a mutant safe harbor known as Eden supposedly awaits.
But is Eden a place found in the “X-Men” comics lore? Turns out, despite its appearance in comics in the movie, it’s a place created just for “Logan.”
In the movie, Eden is a location where mutants can supposedly be safe from persecution. “Logan” takes place in 2029, in a world where no new mutated humans have been born for more than 20 years. As a result, mutants are all but extinct. Only a few, like Logan (Hugh Jackman), Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), and Caliban (Stephen Merchant) remain.
When Laura and the other mutant children escape Alkali Transigen and the the company’s mutant cloning project, they head for some coordinates that are supposedly the North Dakota location of Eden. As Logan discovers through the course of the movie, though, Laura’s nurse Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez) discovered the location in an old “X-Men” comic.
That comic was created specifically for the movie, in fact — it’s not a real-world “X-Men” book. As Inverse reports, the filmmakers decided late in production to make the comics Laura has with her themselves. They worked hard to mimic the style of real “X-Men” comic books, but the ones made for the movie exist only in “Logan.”
“X-Men” lore is full of important locations, many of which have made their way into the series. A big one is Alkali Lake, the facility where Col. William Stryker gave Wolverine his nearly indestructible adamantium skeleton. We’ve seen it before in “X2,” but it also factors into “Logan” even though it doesn’t appear in the film. It’s referenced with Alkali Transigen, as leading to their X-23 project, for a start.
Other places, like Muir Island, haven’t come up yet, but it’s possible they will. The latest three “X-Men” movies have brought back the character Moira McTaggert, who runs the Muir Island mutant research facility in the comics. She’s a CIA agent and friend of Professor X in “X-Men: First Class” and “X-Men: Apocalypse,” so Muir Island seems like a possibility. That place also has a connection to Legion, the protagonist mutant of FX’s new show by the same name. If McTaggert and Muir Island come up in future “X-Men” movies, they might come with Legion as well.