Logan has been revealed to be the official title of Wolverine 3 and it’s teaser poster has been released.
Does this image hint to potential details?
I knew I recognized the imagery of the Logan poster from somewhere, and it seems to be an indirect homage to David Cronenberg’s criminal underworld flick Eastern Promises.
The Viggo Mortensen character in Eastern Promises lives in a hyper-violent noir world the Russian mafia in London and could be an excellent source to pull from for Logan. I’d imagine that Logan is still tangling with unsavoury people and drawing attention from criminals.
One of the more brutal scenes in the film is the bathhouse sequence, where Viggo fights off a couple of hit-men, while naked and unarmed. Mangold is a student of well crafted movies, so I wouldn’t put it past him to pull from sources like this, since he did the same for The Wolverine.
So beyond a connection to a great modern noir film, why choose Eastern Promises?
It could be hinting towards one of Wolverine’s greatest unused foes, namely Omega Red. While he’s been a pawn of the Yakuza and the Soviet Union (going back to Logan’s Weapon X days), he’s also been a crime lord within the Russian mafia. He’s also one of the only villains to kick the living shit out of Logan and could make for a compelling nemesis.
The code-name for the film is Juarez, which some believe might see the involvement with the Mexican cartels. The Russian mob has worked with the cartels in real life and these two groups could easily replace the gangs seen in the future landscape of Old Man Logan comics.
I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if cartel or mafia members are behind Logan’s shot-up cars that have been spotted on set.
We also think Mangold might have teased Red in The Wolverine, as the tiny robots that suppressed his healing factor had tentacles very similar to the ones used by Omega Red, which he uses to drain the life-force from his victims to keep himself alive.
Here’s a closer look at one of those robots from The Wolverine
I could see this technology weaponized for someone like Omega Red and possibly landing permeant damage to Wolverine’s healing factor. Mangold revealed that in the film Logan’s healing factor is diminished and he’s in constant pain, using booze to deal with it. Perhaps, he tangoed with Red and lost big time losing some of his abilities in the process.
You might be saying, I thought Bryan Singer confirmed the villain is Mister Sinister?
James has flat-out denied that Mister Sinister is a villain in Logan.
It’s likely Mangold is on the up-and-up concerning Sinister not being in his film. Keep in mind, the commentary for X-Men: Apocalypse was more than likely recorded even before Logan started filming and Bryan could be been sending out a red-haring to fans, just to mess with them. I’d personally take Mangold’s word for the moment.
It might be another Wolverine villain directly connected to both Weapon X and Omega Red, that just happens to work for Sinister’s Essex Corp.
All we do know is that Richard E. Grant is playing a scientist and Boyd Holbrook is head of security, both are seemingly playing villains in the film.
Grant could just as easily be playing Dr. Abraham Cornelius, the person who is responsible for giving Logan his unbreakable skeleton at Weapon X. He could even be the person shown at the clean-up.
Dr. Cornelius also gets involved when Omega Red is unleashed upon Wolverine, after releasing him from a cryogenic deep sleep.
The good doctor also features in the more recent Death of Wolverine comics, some are suggesting a bunch of the gaps left in the Old Man Logan story (due to Marvel Studios copyright) could be filled by those comics.
Having Cornelius working for Essex Corp. could be how that button scene actually connects to Logan. Laura Kinney aka X-23 could also be a product of Cornelius’ work to recreate Weapon X.
Again, Sinister is a major unused X-Men villain and I don’t really see being used as a main villain, when he has stronger ties to Cable and Deadpool than he does Wolverine. He could be pulling strings behind the scenes, but I doubt he’ll actually go head-to-head with Wolverine due to likely hood a majority of these characters will be killed by the end of it.
I could see Essex Corp. contracting or creating a cyborg villain like Omega Red as their muscle to handle mutants like Wolverine. Remember, The Reavers (they hate both mutants and Wolverine) were linked for the film months back and Omega being a cyborg allows him to be apart of the team, if not leading it.
Cornelius and Omega Red are also obscure enough characters they could be killed-off at the end of the film, unlike Sinister who we imagine could be the next Magneto.
Another angle is that the film could be pulling from all different comic sources, but could ultimately be it’s own thing in the end. We’ve never really seen Fox ever make faithful adaptation of the X-Men stories, I don’t think they’re about to start now. They could have also genuinely created an entirely new story and villains for it as well.
This is just speculation on our part for the moment, but it’s more than likely the imminent trailer will clear up a lot of missing pieces in this puzzle.