Professor Charles Xavier may be the leader of the X-Men, but the keystone of the movie franchise so far has been Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, who has appeared in every single X-Men movie so far except for (arguably) Deadpool. Having played the character on the big screen for 16 years, Jackman is now planning a well-deserved retirement, topping off his career as the blade-wielding, super-healing Canadian mutant with a final solo movie, Logan, directed by The Wolverine's James Mangold.

Since last week, an Instagram account under the name wponx (i.e. "Weapon X") has been posting mysterious black-and-white photos teasing the events of Logan. So far the images have included an elderly Charles Xavier, a severed arm clutching a shotgun, a restricted-access facility, a mysterious motel, and even a page from the movie's script.

Now, a new tease is here, and this one offers a first look at the character played by Boyd Holbrook (Narcos), and a tip as to who the character is - the caption "Pierce." This has led many fans to conclude that Holbrook is playing Donald Pierce, a cyborg supervillain from the comic books (pictured above). Check out the image below:

Pierce A photo posted by @wponx on

When Holbrook was originally cast, his character was described as being a "relentless, calculating and intense head of security for a global enterprise," and was said to be playing the lead villain of the movie. This is somewhat different from Pierce's occupation in the comics, as a technological genius and leader in the fields of electronics and robotics (who is also filthy rich), but the original character description may have been a little off-base, or Mangold may have made a few changes to the character for the movie.

The other possibility, of course, is that the word "Pierce" is a misdirect. Interestingly, the image of Holbrook is evocative of the portrayal of Hawkeye in Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's limited comic book series Old Man Logan, which is widely speculated to be a key piece of source material used for Logan. In that story, Hawkeye is blind and wears sunglasses, and drives around with Wolverine on a cross-country road trip. Of course, Hawkeye is off-limits for this movie, since Marvel Studios owns the movie rights to that character, but perhaps this image was intended as an homage.

Is Holbrook playing Donald Pierce, an original character, or a different character from the comics? Let us know your theories in the comments.

Logan opens in U.S. theaters on March 3, 2017, followed by unannounced X-Men films on October 6, 2017, March 2, 2018, and June 29, 2018. Deadpool 2GambitNew Mutants and X-Force are currently in development.

Source: wponx