Wild Speculation and Secret Empire: Is Old Man Logan the real Marvel 616 Future

Bare with me, this may seem far fetched, but I am hearing rumors that Old Man Logan may be the one true future for the Marvel Universe proper. Not a what if, not an alternate dimension, but the real future.
This is hinged on a couple of things that come from within the art and cover released for Secret Empire. It is thin, but in talking to a retailer today that is kind of in the know, I figured I would run it up the flag pole, as they say.
First Up. Check out the cover:
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We have Captain America’s face turning into a red skull, or maybe, THE Red Skull. We have seen this before.
In Wolverine #72, we see the Red Skull wearing Captain America’s suit. We see it on the art pages and on the cover:

In the story, Red Skull wears Cap’s suit and is president of the United States.
We do know that the Red Skull has mind warped Cap into being a Hydra Loyal in Steve Rogers Captain America #1

Steve goes on to be asked to lead SHIELD. Seems like a pretty good gig if one has political aspirations, like being president one day.
So the theory goes that the Red Skull in Old Man Logan is in fact Steve Rogers.
It doesn’t end well for Bucky who is wearing the Cap Suit from when he took over the mantle….

But Logan ends up killing him all the same.
So that is one clue based on the cover, but now let’s look at the creative team.
Written by NICK SPENCER
Art by STEVE MCNIVEN
Cover by MARK BROOKS
Art is done on Secret Empire by Steve McNiven, who worked on the Old Mn Logan run of Wolverine. Now McNiven is a popular Marvel artist. But can it be more than a coincidence that McNiven is doing the art on a book that could end up being the prequel to Old Man Logan? Nick Spencer did the story on Steve Rogers Captain America #1, and got some heat for turning Cap into a facist. Could the end game be Cap Kills Red Skull and takes over the mantle?
 
Needless to say, the other thing I keep hearing is Marvel is rebooting. That is no surprise. Fans have been luke warm to all the changes for change sake, and Marvel has finally heard them. This book will lead up to the reboot of the Marvel Universe, and potentially, the future that is Old Man Logan.
 
 
 

24 thoughts on “Wild Speculation and Secret Empire: Is Old Man Logan the real Marvel 616 Future”

  3. Now I’m upset. No more Marvel ongoing stories for me. I will keep getting minis as they don’t really have anything to do with the main stories. But another reboot? Man that’s getting old.

  4. Marvel can have my re-boot straight up their arse! (I am in a particular fiery mood this morning, lack of sleep…)
    Interesting theory anyway, is #72 the one to get then if one doesn’t already have it?

  5. Comics would be boring if they always stay the same. Change may boost sales and extend a product’s life.

    1. The thing is they call it a reboot, to boost sales, and then things stay the same or go back to the status quo. I call it a confidence trick!

  6. Just seeing the “616” in the title of this post made me shudder as I hate all this multiverse mumbo jumbo. Any story where Steve Rogers is still alive doesn’t fit with “my” universe, and I guess I don’t have the patience of wanting to figure if he is, if he isn’t, is it a clone, blah blah blah. However I do like this theory of a an Old Man Logan prequel. I mean a lot of time passes between our now and the Old Man Logan’s then, so something has got to happen, but if its true I wish it wasn’t filled with this stuff.

  7. Only pull for me is Jason Aaron’s Thor work… both the main title and his current Unworthy mini, but have dropped everything else ever since the all new, new now, but not just now, Marvel soft reboot… I may check out this mini just to see where it is going, but Marvel has ruined everything that was good about them. Even through the changes, Aaron’s run on Thor has been the best story going, and not corrupted by the rest of the BS. Very interested in seeing just where he is going with this line, and I thin k I have an idea of the end game, but time will tell

  8. Over the past 5 years or so, I’ve continually been told that Marvel is Rebooting “within the next year”; and that all of the X-titles will be cancelled. Neither has actually happened. I don’t expect Marvel to reboot, and if they ever do, it will severely impact my pull list. I don’t mind most of the changes they make, introducing new characters or passing the mantle to a new character. The annoying ones are the multiples of the same codename both currently in use, which seems illogical that the characters themselves would even want to create that kind of confusion and not choose a unique codename for themselves… And I definitely hate the Renumbering and constant status quo shake-ups. I’ve written into Marvel pretty regularly, every time a book I am reading gets cancelled, renumbered, and with a new creative team or new roster of characters. They spend half of a series on build-up and characterization and by the time it fully forms, the rug gets pulled out, and the process starts all over again. These days, a book can barely get going at Marvel, so they never have any longevity with these new characters and teams. And the Event Series’ twice a year end up using up half of the issues of a 12-issue series with tie-ins that detract from whatever story the writer/artist would have rather told in their run had they not been interrupted.

      2. Have you read the preview for the new Weapon X books coming out. It does mention a new director of Weapon X program, maybe this Red Skull is involved? Not to mention old man Logan upcoming issues 21 & 22 both sound like things are happening. Issue 21 has several ratio variants attached also …hmmmmm….

  9. Comics need change after 30, 50 or 75 yrs, but it should make sense. Ive loved some of the changes (Ms Khan, X-25erine, Old man, Champions) but the mess that is x-men vs imhumans not so much.

  10. Interesting theory, but I’m thinking it won’t pan-out. Remember for awhile when everyone thought the, “Earth X,” comics would turn out to be the, “True,” Marvel future because the Inhuman books were ramping-up and the regular populace were all transforming? Then it turned out Marvel couldn’t convince us to actually care about the Inhumans and they finally have mostly given-up.

  12. If you haven’t been around long enough to realize….
    Marvel Reboot = a relaunch of #1s
    This simply means all their stories will continue but under new #1s. Sometimes they leave a few titles alone that either they don’t care about or was just recently relaunched. Marvel tends to not relaunch their universe from scratch. They always make it sound like that that’s what is going to happen but never does.

    1. Marvel is supposedly going back to the core with X-Men books, bringing back Logan, Steve Rogers as Cap, Tony Stark as Iron Man, Bruce Banner as Hulk, and a male Thor. That is the relaunch I have been talking about.
      Sent from my iPhone
      >

  13. Question for a different post, I didn’t see where I can reply to the post. Regarding the Amazing Spider-Man #25 Artgerm Variants, is there a print count for Artgerm Cover? $100 for set of 3 is pricy. I love Artgerm and was planning to purchase a copy but man, $24 just for the color variant is expensive.

  14. People still read Marvel?
    I guess not really, hence the re-gurge. In all seriousness though, if not for Star Wars and Deadpool variant flips, I’d have no interest in them whatsoever. My daughter has even grown tired of Spider Gwen.

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