and I am invested in the X-Men universe (the comics and movies). I've been a fan since I was a kid. Three boxes of comics in my house give me my vintage cred. So when the first movie came out in 2000 or 2001, I liked it...flaws and all. Some of the subsequent movies have been good, while others not so much.

I liked Logan for several of the reasons that you mentioned. But what stood out to me more then anything was that it had a very different vibe/feeling that was akin to reading the stand alone Wolverine comic. His stand alone comics didn't have the same feeling as the standard X-Men comics. It had a darker, grittier, or otherwise feral underlining emotional structure. That's what the movie Logan also communicated.

See, as a fan of the comics, I enjoyed and appreciated the different underlining emotional structure that the different comics portrayed. The differences allowed for more creative storytelling and artistic portrayal. Don't get me wrong, I love me some continuity, but sometimes you gotta give it a rest and just tell a stand alone story.

~Jeordam