Could ‘Wolverine 3’ Villain Be Russian Mutant Omega Red?

With eight X-Men movies and 16 years under his belt, Hugh Jackman will be back for one last run as Wolverine in his next film, rumored to be based off the Old Man Logan story written by Mark Millar. One of the challenges of Old Man Logan will be casting. In the comics, character’s such as Hawkeye, Hulk, Daredevil, and Kingpin appear in the story. Since those characters currently belong to Marvel studios, there is no way we will see any of them in a Fox property.

Cinemablend reports Narcos star Boyd Holbrook has been added to the film as the main villain. There is some speculation as to who Holbrook might be, but before knowing who is he, it’s best to understand the Old Man Logan story. It’s quite an interesting take on Wolverine in his later years.

Let me warn you that there are light spoilers here, but you can read the full synopsis of the story at Comic Vine

The Old Man Logan comic is an eight-issue story arc in the Wolverine series by writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven. The first issue debuted in June, 2008. The story is set 50 years into a dystopian, wasteland future. Think of it as the Mad Max of X-Men comics. In this future setting, superheroes have been hunted down and killed, and supervillains have teamed up to take over America. At the beginning of the story, we see Logan living with his wife, Maureen, and his two children, Scotty and Jade on a plot of land in Sacramento, California. The area is known as Hulkland and is owned by the Hulk and his inbred family.

The Hulk family continually harasses and abuses Logan and his relatives for money to live peacefully in their territory. Logan now lives as a pacifist and refuses to draw his claws even when presented with danger. His family is low on funds and are in danger of losing their home. This is when Hawkeye shows up and offers him a lot of money to travel with him cross-country to deliver a mysterious package. Logan has no choice but to accept the offer.

Without giving away too much more, let’s just say that things get very messy, a lot of people die, and Wolverine does draw his claws once more.

Den of Geek! indicates that Hugh Jackman’s final outing as the adamantium-clawed X-Man will be rated R, and this is thanks to X-Men fans and the success of Deadpool. When it was first announced that another Wolverine movie was coming, Fox studios and Jackman opened up a dialogue with fans to see what they wanted from the film. It helps that Fox’s Deadpool is the highest grossing rated R movie ever. This gave the studio confidence that rated R is the way to go for the next Wolverine movie.

As you know with new a story comes new villains. Fox has been pretty tight-lipped about who that villain is until now. Since the villain will not be the Hulk, Cinema Blend speculates that Holbrook may be playing villainous mutant Omega Red.

“This powerful mutant Omega Red, aka Arkady Rossovich, was experimented on by the KGB in the comics, but he could easily be changed to a security agent in Wolverine 3 who is enhanced either before or after his encounter with Wolverine. This character has the ability to create ‘Death Spores,’ but who also has retractable carbonadium coils in his arms.”

As we get closer to the release date of Wolverine 3, hopefully, more details will be revealed. In the meantime, fans will have to wait as it is slated for release on March 3, 2017.

[Image via Marvel Comics]