Why This New 'Wolverine' Photo May Be Significant

Let the feverish speculation begin: Logan director James Mangold just dropped what seems like a massive clue about the third Wolverine film. On Wednesday, Oct. 19, the director tweeted a photo of a seemingly much-aged Logan. His hair seems to have gone grey, his face is wrinkled, and his gaze is off in the distance, as if he's a man who saw too much tragedy in his many years on planet earth. So what does that mean? Does Logan just need to change up his skincare regime and start eating better? Actually, this could be evidence that Logan is based on Old Man Logan.

For the uninitiated, Wolverine: Old Man Logan was an eight-part 2008 comic book series set in a terrifying dystopian America of the future (specifically in the year 2024) where most superheroes have been killed off by a band of villains who had all teamed up, or been sufficiently scared into abandoning their duty of protecting mankind and gone into hiding. In the comic books, Logan's healing factor is no longer what it once was. This might help to explain why Logan appears to have acquired a scar in the promo — and that look of hopelessness in his eyes.

And if you're speculating that there could be even more reasons why he looks so run-down, you'd be right on the money. In the comic books Logan is battling an unnamed illness and drinking too much. It gets even more profoundly depressing when fans realize that less and less mutant births are occurring, though no explanation is given for this.

On the other hand, if you think a single image isn't evidence enough to jump to this conclusion, Mangold has given hints before. The director previously tweeted the second page of the script, which says that Logan is “older” and that “it’s clear his abilities aren’t what they once were.” This could presumably refer to both his illness, his diminished healing factor, and — spoiler — the fact that after Mysterio tricked him into murdering the other X-Men, Logan resolved to never use his claws again. I guess if he was out of practice, then presumably this would mean his capacity for violence wasn't what it used to be. And that's not all the evidence. There's also the little matter of the film poster:

According to insider information published at The Wrap, an unnamed source told them that the girl in the poster is a "young mutant." Since in the Wolverine: Old Man Logan comic books, Logan ends up mentoring a government weapon who has been crafted out of Logan's own DNA. This weapon is a young girl who has two claws instead of three, which could also provide evidence that the film will be set in the dark world in Old Man Logan.

Based on this evidence, this might be the most exciting Wolverine film yet. The stakes are higher and Logan is more vulnerable, which means the most human superhero fans will have seen in a while. And in an age of numbing special FX and endless explosions, what could be more engaging than that?

Image: 20th Century Fox