WMG / Logan

Main X-Men Film Series guesses here.

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Pre-release theories

Charles is going to die.

And that scene with Logan holding a shovel near the end of the first trailer is probably his burial.

• Confirmed

The reason the other X-Men are absent is because Logan was tricked into killing them, just like in Old Man Logan

This could make for an especially potent Tearjerker if we see Logan's reaction to killing Jean YET AGAIN, or a scene where it's explained Logan has had to explain to the dementia-ridden Charles what he did several times.

• Jossed. It is strongly implied that Charles killed them during a seizure.

The ending will be a mix of Passing the Torch and The Hero Dies, with Logan sacrificing himself to save Laura, who picks up his mantle as Wolverine afterwards.

Bonus points if it adapts the infamous Death of Wolverine storyline, with Wolverine dying by liquid adamantium covering him.

• Partly Confirmed. The Hero Dies, however there's no indication yet of Laura becoming a Legacy Character in the films.

The reason Pierce has a cybernetic arm is because......

• Laura sliced off his original limb in her escape. This makes Pierce's motivation for capturing her personal as well.
• Pierce loses his arm to Logan early in the film, leading to him and the rest of the Reavers receiving an "upgrade" to better combat him later in the film.
  • Jossed. Information gleaned from the 40-minute preview indicates Pierce already had his mechanical arm before he even meets Logan.
  • Still, the reason many of the Reavers have cybernetic limbs could be their various previous incidents while working at Transigen.

Logan will come to view Laura as a Replacement Goldfish for Rogue.

It would certainly bring the comparisons to The Last Of Us full-circle.

• Jossed.
  • I wouldn't say it's fully Jossed. There are a lot of connections to Rogue in the piece, including in the comic that leads them to Eden.

It all circles back to Weapon X.

This film will reveal:

• The Workshop where Wade Wilson received his powers was an off-shoot of Stryker's experiments at Alkali Lake. Likewise, Transigen will be a front for the same project, led by Zander Rice.
  • No connection is made between Transigen the Workshop in this film, however it's not outright Jossed, either.
• Weapon X will be responsible for the current state of affairs. They engineered the circumstances in which mutants are dying out. Stryker himself will actually be the Man Behind the Man for Rice.
  • Confirmed! Zander Rice's father died while working on Weapon X, which motivated him to view the mutations the same way as polio - something to be cured.

Connecting to the rest of the franchise...

The film will reveal that even Stryker was not acting alone, but was merely a pawn of Mr. Sinister. Sinister will then become the franchise's Big Bad, having to be fought by the X-Men in all three time periods (past, present, and future).

• Jossed.

The film will take place in an another alternate timeline.

While giving closure to stories of Logan and Charles, the setting will also hamper future sequels such as "Deadpool 2", "Gambit" and "New Mutants" - it would be weird watching those knowing that Failure Is the Only Option. One way to get around that is to have Laura watch Logan die in peace, only for The Stinger to show Cable arriving to take her into the past, bringing her together with the main series cast and allowing them to avert the mutant genocide in a future sequel.

• Jossed by James Mangold, who confirms it's set 5 years after the new future at the end of Days of Future Past.
• Confirmed by All There in the Manual, which labels this a "dark future".

Laura's powers won't be a result of being cloned from Logan, as in the comics.

Instead she'll either be cloned from, or the daughter of, Victor Creed—giving them a way to bring Liev Schreiber back, as has been rumored.

• Jossed. Laura's origin is relatively the same as the comics. However rather than a clone, the process is described much more akin to conventional artificial insemination.

The mutants died out due to a disease or virus.

This would play into the current X-Men storyline where the massive release of Terrigen mist has not only sterilized all mutants, but is slowly killing them off as well. More significantly, it would be a means of introducing or referencing the Legacy Virus.

• It could also explain why Logan's healing factor is deteriorating; he's infected with the virus and his body working overtime to fight it off has weakened the potency of his ability to heal from external wounds.
  • Close. No new mutants are born because all food and drinks are secretly genetically modified to prevent that. This could also explain Logan's state, in addition to his age.

Victor Creed will return and the film will finally resolve his rivalry with Logan.

The trailer briefly shows a scene of Logan fighting with another claw user. While it might be Laura, it's also possible that it's Victor, who's returned to settle his old grudge with Logan. This will either result in Logan ultimately killing Victor, or Victor teaming up with Logan to fight the Reavers and dying in the process. Either way, a resolution of Logan's relationship with Victor would be fitting since this film is intended to be his Grand Finale. Jossed although Creed was part of early concepts, intended to appear as an ally running the casino.

The post-credit sequence will help set up X-Force

The post-credits sequence will find Laura, now Wolverine herself, surrounded by mooks hunting down mutants. Shots suddenly ring out, and her assailants all fall over dead. Cue a towering figure with one glowing eye and metal arm, and toting a BFG whose features are obscured in shadow extending his hand and telling her "Come with me if you want to live." Deadpool will then pop his head out from behind his much larger companion's back and call out the reference while a bemused Laura looks on.

• An appearance by Deadpool in The Stinger has been officially Jossed by Mangold and Reynolds, after a report he would surfaced in December 28, 2016.
  • Lying Creator could be in full force. We'll just have to wait and see.
• There is no Stinger at the end.
  • It's at the beginning

Charles isn't real

He's a figment of Logan's imagination subconsciously created to keep himself busy and have a purpose in life. That or the real Charles imprinted a copy of himself into Logan's subconscious, giving the guy a personified moral compass should Logan ever outlive him and fall into another Who Wants to Live Forever?-related Heroic BSoD. Originally similar to the real Charles in every way, Logan's deteriorating healing factor and resulting chronic pain twists the image of Charles into the sickly old man he is in the movie.

• Possibly Jossed by the second trailer. There's a scene shown of guns being pointed at Xavier, which would be hard to explain if he only exists in Logan's head.
• Definitely Jossed here, when Pierce addresses Xavier directly.

Death of Wolverine will form part of the basis of the plot

Several elements of the plot are going to be based more on Death of Wolverine than Old Man Logan. In particular, several of the confirmed settings coincide with settings of Death of Wolverine, particularly the casino/nightclub and the desert research base. Pierce will be filling the roles of Nuke, Viper, and Sharp, Rice will be substituting for Cornelius, and Laura will provide a more personal spin on the mutants Logan sacrificed his life attempting to rescue from the Paradise base.

• Very loosely based, indeed. Logan sacrifices himself to save the new generation of mutant children, but everything else is different. It does make use of a casino as a prominent setting, and Logan's suit and beard are similar to his look in that particular issue.

Sinister will have genetic clones of Wolverine.

Before they can be unleashed, Logan and Laura destroy the clones. However, one will escape and will become the new male Wolverine, while Laura becomes X-23. These Wolverine clones will be played by Tom Hardy.

• No Sinister in the movie, but a perfect clone of Wolverine does appear. Still played by Hugh Jackman, of course.

The new male Wolverine will be Daken.

His origin might be changed into being a clone of Wolverine instead of his son and, whomever will end up playing Daken, will be the new Wolverine in future X-Men installments.

• A clone of Wolverine does appear, but it is X-24 instead of Daken and he dies at the end.

Possible reasons for why the "Mutants are gone".

• Most mutants have been hunted down and killed by Human Governments/Essex Corps/Reavers. Doesn't seem likely, as even in the Sentinel future the strongest Mutants managed to hold their own.
• X-Men have been killed by Logan under Mind Control, as in the original Old Man Logan storyline. Doesn't explain the abscence of other mutants across the world.
• Mutants have been wiped out by a virus, possibly developed by Essex Corps. Logan's healing factor is keeping him alive, but still shows why he's worse for wear.
  • This is the correct one! Except it's not an airborne virus, but genetically modified food and drink that prevents new mutants from being born.
• Mutants have been sterilized by a virus. So, while the X-Men might still be out there somewhere, no new Mutants are born, leading to their eventual extinction.
• Mutants have been depowered, either by a virus or the M-Day (Fox can use Scarlet Witch in their movies). This way the characters from previous movies might still be alive and well, just without their powers.
• Mutants are "gone" in the sense that the X-Men left the planet and went into space (which could be the setting of the future X-Men movies) to battle Shi'ar Empire, Galactus or some other cosmic threat Fox has the rights to.
• Mutants are still around but most have moved to Genosha because of whatever is responsible for their downfall with some still living on their own.
• Some adaptation of "House of M" is going on. The film's prologue will see someone say "No more mutants" and then flash-forward to the main narrative.

The guy Logan stabbed in the head will actually put up a good fight before it happens.

And he will be made a Memetic Badass because of this.

• Jossed. Not only is there not a fight, the guy can't move because of Xavier's TP seizures.

The Legacy Virus is why mutants are gone

And Laura will be the key to fixing it because of her Healing Factor. Logan's won't be able to do it because his adamantium skeleton weakened it too much.

• Close. It's not an airborne virus, but genetically modified food and drink that prevents new mutants from being born.

Zander Rice is an alias for Mr. Sinister

Sinister is confirmed to appear, and yet no actor has been announced. It would make sense if Zander is his secret identity, as on the Wikipedia Page for the film his character description is extremely bare bones.

• Jossed.

Logan will use the classic comic book costume in the Final Battle

His healing factor will be severely compromised at that point so he'll desperately need any sort of protection. The suit and helmet will provide that.^note Honestly I don't expect this to come true, but a man can dream.

Logan will wear his costume, and its appearance will be foreshadowed earlier in the movie: While reading one of her comic books during a quiet moment, Laura will ask Logan why he doesn't wear his costume anymore. He'll coldly shut her down about how stupid it looks, and tell her there's no more superheroes left in the world. Late in the film she'll be recaptured, and Logan will head off to rescue her in the climax. He does so wearing his old costume, signalling that there are still heroes left. It will be a simultaneous Moment of Awesome and Tear Jerker.

• Jossed, but a kid in the last scene holds a comic book-accurate Wolverine action figure.

There will be a time skip

All official word on the setting of the film is that Logan is set in 2024, a year after the Good Future ending of Days of Future Past. However it's often been noted that a year is hardly sufficient for both Logan and Xavier to deteriorate so rapidly, and for mutants to have virtually died out. Therefore, while the film will begin in 2024, it will skip ahead a number of years after some incident in the prologue. The events in the intervening period will be teased out over the course of the film, revealing how things have gotten so dire for mutant kind.

• Jossed. It's all set in 2029.

The iconic costume will be worn, but not by Logan...

As per the newest trailer, there are 'X-men' comics in the world of the film itself, which apparently tell fictionalized versions of the X-men's adventures (Logan claims that only "a quarter of it happened...but not like this"). The comics depict Wolverine wearing the iconic yellow suit, which he may or may not have actually worn in 'real life'. Maybe by the end of the film, Laura sees Logan prove himself to be every bit the hero in real-life that the comics show him to be (despite his protestations to the contrary). And if Logan dies, Laura decides to honor his legacy by becoming that hero, putting together a suit similar to the one from the comics, and become the "All New Wolverine" (as she is currently in the real Marvel Comics).

• Jossed. The only place the costume appears is in Laura's comic book, and in a toy held by one of the X-23 kids at the end.

The X-Men comics that Laura reads will be written by some dude named Wade Wilson

...and Laura will meet him at the end.

• The latter half, at least, is Jossed by Word of God; Reynolds, Mangold, and Jackman all deny Wilson appearing in the film. The film never reveals who wrote Laura's books.

There will be a Take That! towards Fox for not letting the X-Men films crossover with the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Probably something like Logan about to mention Tony Stark before Charles stops him, not wanting to be reminded of a certain incident.

• Jossed.

X-23 will be the new Wolverine while a recasted Logan will make cameo appearances

• Jossed on both counts.

X-23 will think Logan is her father.

The answer will be left ambiguous for the audience to make their own decisions. Logan's line "I am not whatever it is you think I am" is him attempting to deny this.

• Confirmed. Logan learns that eventually as well.

There is a mutant colony on the other side of the border.

Getting Laura to the border will be the last chance Charles and Logan have of saving the mutant species.

• Alternately: Asteroid M.
• Confirmed, with a twist. The coordinate themselves are meaningless, but they server as a meeting spot for Transigen escapees, who then escape across the border to safety.

Professor Thorton/Hudson will appear.

Richard E. Grant is said to be playing a Mad Scientist, who's unnamed at the moment. He will be revealed to have been hired by Stryker as lead scientist of the Weapon X experiment. His only other appearance was in the non-canon video game X2: Wolverine's Revenge.

• Jossed, at least as far as Grant goes. He was long ago confirmed to be playing Zander Rice.

Laura will turn out to be Logan's biological daughter and not a clone.

In this universe, Laura might have inherited Logan's mutant gene and powers directly from him as a result of being his daughter. Transigen only added the adamantium to them.

• Kinda... She and the other kids are Test-tube babies made with the stolen DNA of mutants, which would make her Logan's biological daughter, but that was still an experiment to create a new Wolverine.

Post-release theories (Contains spoilers)

Not only did Xavier kill the X-Men with his first tremor...

• Due to his close connection with them, especially after he had reached so deep into both of their minds, it also killed Eric and Raven.

The so-called X-24 will be Daken.

We know from the leaked sound track that someone with the codename X-24 will appear in the movie and at one point in the movie Logan fights this person. The way I look at it there are 3 possibilities. Either it's Laura and Fox completely butchered her codename. it's another experiment that Logan fights late in the movie. Or it's Daken turned into a clone rather than Logan's biological son. While in the comics there is no such character and Daken has never gone by that code name, it wouldn't be the first time Fox has butchered an iconic X-Men Character.

• Jossed. X-24 is a perfect clone of Logan, and has no relation to Daken.

Deadpool 2 will fix everything.

We know that Deadpool 2 is gonna have Cable, which probably means it's gonna involve time travel. So Deadpool 2 is gonna be about Deadpool and Cable having to Set Right What Once Went Wrong to keep mutantkind from being killed off.

• Jossed. Deadpool 2's only connection to Logan is that Wade is pissed that Wolverine is riding his successful-R-rating coattails, and is determined to one-up Logan's death. And even his suicidal tendancies come more from Vanessa's death than anything involving Logan. Also, Cable's time travel plot has nothing to do with the mutant extinction.

Logan is set in a pre-Days of Future Past timeline

This is how it works-

Original Timeline/Logan: The events of First Class (possibly), Origins, the Original Trilogy and The Wolverine (barring the post-credits scene) occur. And then, by 2029, we have the events of Logan. After that, years or perhaps decades later, some unknown villain decides that what Transigen did wasn't enough to wipe out the mutant race (since X-23 and the other rescued test subjects escaped to Canada, and the mutant race was reborn and continued to spread), and so travels back in time. This results in...

Sentinel Timeline/Days of Future Past: This villain travels back to the 1960's (or possibly earlier) and manipulates events - primarily ensuring that Dr. Bolivar Trask starts the Sentinel program. Possibly, Magneto was framed for JFK's assassination to get him out of the way (unless that happened in the original timeline too). Mystique kills Trask in 1973 but is captured and her DNA is harvested, leading to the advanced shapeshifting Sentinels. The events of all the other movies occur, but by 2023, instead of Transigen's corn syrup having prevented new mutant births, its Sentinels who have brought mutants to the edge of extinction. Logan then travels back in time to prevent Mystique from killing Trask. This leads to...

Reboot Timeline/Post-Days of Future Past: The timeline caused by Logan stopping Mystique from killing Trask and preventing the rise of the Sentinels. It includes First Class, the 'past' part of Days of Future Past, Apocalypse and subsequent movies.

• As noted above, Jossed by Mangold, who has confirmed the film is set about six years following the revised timeline at the end of Days of Future Past.
  • It's a real shame that this theory is jossed. It would actually make the X-Men film series tighter and more thematically unified, eliminate some headscratchers from Do FP, and eliminate the Too Bleak, Stopped Caring/Angst Aversion caused in some people by Logan.
  • Technically, Hugh Jackman himself said that this film has some degree of alternate continuity from the other films given some of the references that appear on the film, so maybe until further notice, we can still say that this theory is still in the air. Maybe it's on alternate path of the revised timeline after all. All There in the Manual labels this a "dark future", after all.

Pierce survived the attack by the kids at the end of the film

He's going to return in a solo film centering on Laura that will serve as this film's sequel, with more of his body replaced by cybernetics.

The X-Men are still around in some form

The "Westchester Incident" happened just a year before Logan, and while it killed seven, their ranks go far beyond that. Presumably they were involved in their own efforts to combat the fall in mutant births, and even with Charles' absence, that'd likely be enough to keep the remaining teachers together. Logan on the other hand had what was left of his ideals shattered - going through a robot apocalypse, shattering space and time to fix it, and then going back to see mutantkind dying off anyway and his mentor accidentally killing his friends would tend to do that - so he just took the Professor and ran, leaving the X-Men to what he saw as a meaningless effort; he implied to Charles they were all gone because he didn't want to explain to him why they couldn't go back, or even worse risk triggering his memories of what he did. He didn't take Laura to them because he didn't want to see her recruited into a doomed cause and getting a target painted on her back with the rest of them, whereas the location of "Eden" was at least in the middle of nowhere where she could perhaps vanish into anonymity.

The Good Samaritan/s of Canada is/are:

I would appreciate if you added options.

• Alpha Flight: A group of Canadian superheroes.
• A Young Cable
  • Regular Ol' Cable, since he seems to be sticking around in the past for a while as of Deadpool 2.
• Deadpool
• Magneto
• Mystique
• Other surviving X-Men from previous films, such as Rogue
  • Perhaps they opened the New Charles Xavier School, like in the comics.
• The mutant cast of the upcoming TV series (Blink, Polaris, etc.)
  • This has been Jossed. The Gifted (2017) is now confirmed to be set in a separate universe from the films.
• Former Transigen/Essex/Weapon X workers, such as Laura's real mother, Sarah Kinney
  • The last part of this seems to have already been Jossed by Logan itself: All of the women used as baby factories are indicated to have been murdered, and all were Mexican girls. Gabriela has no reason to lie to Logan about the identity of Laura's mother in the video confession where she reveals the truth about everything else.
• Mutants that have not yet joined the X-Men e.g. Psylocke or Gambit.
• Stan Lee
• Sabretooth
• The Avengers

Related to the above, a future ensemble X-Men film will work as a direct sequel to this film and involve Mr Sinister and Genosha

Laura will meet the other X-Men (based on option 6). She will learn that Essex is responsible for both Transigen and Weapon X and will go with the team to Genosha. She may also wear a comic-accurate costume to pay tribute to Logan.

The Essex Corporation will find Logan's body and resurrect him

They will modify and brainwash him to be an improved Weapon X. When fighting him, Laura will attempt to help him regain his memory. The modifications done to Logan's body will also give the writers an excuse to recast the character.

TV Connections

The forthcoming TV series will connect to the events of Logan, particularly as we already know that part of the plot involves a family whose daughter is a mutant attempting to fleet north to Canada.

• Jossed. Despite some Flip-Flop of God, The Gifted (2017) is now confirmed to be set in a separate universe from the films.

The little girl in the orange hat among the child refugees was Molly Hayes

Or possibly a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo. We didn't see her use any superpowers during the final battle and Marvel has a Runaways TV show in production, but her hat and hairstyle did resemble Molly's. And since Molly is a mutant, she may fall into the same legal gray area as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, allowing use by both companies.

A future film will introduce a timeline where Xavier didn't accidentally kill the X-Men

X-Men 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past both show that there are devices and medicine that can impede Charles' powers.

The reason they wanted to save Caliban's remains was because a certain company wanted his brain.

And that's how Wheatley was born.

Every single X-Men movie released before Logan is just Xavier trying to figure out what happened to the X-Men.

Professor Xavier is responsible for killing off the X-Men, having suffered a lethal aneurysm which ended everybody save Logan. Making matters worse is that Logan rather understandably refuses to outright tell him this throughout the movie. Therefore, it is possible, especially since Xavier is suffering from Alzheimer's, that every single X-Men movie we've seen chronologically taking place before Logan is just Xavier trying to piece together exactly what happened to his students—but failing every time due to his Alzheimer's. Which is why the continuity's so unbelievably messed up. This could also apply to the comics seen all throughout the film—it is possible as well that the X-Men movies were simply the stories taking place within the comics Laura was reading, which also explains the Continuity Snarls all around.

X-24 has something from Sabretooth in his genetic code.

Traits, consciousness, bits of DNA, etc., he's definitely in there. And given that he kills Wolverine, it makes his The Only One Allowed to Defeat You quote from X-Men Origins: Wolverine true after all, even after the Cosmic Retcon.

The Caliban we see in this movie is the son of the version from X-Men: Apocalypse

This would explain why Caliban's appearance, traits, and powers are somewhat different, and why he's still alive and active 46 years after his previous appearance. It even fits with the actor's age; Stephen Merchant was 42 during filming, and if Caliban is meant to be of a similar age, then it's perfectly plausible for him to have been born shortly after the events of Apocalypse.

Caliban will return in a future film

His corpse and DNA is collected by Rice's men for further use after his suicide. And Stephen Merchant's performance has been praised by fans, so Fox would likely want the character back. It would also allow Caliban to interact with Laura, the lack of which disappointed some viewers.

The film takes place in the same universe as Ang Lee's Hulk

Both Logan and Hulk are based on Marvel Comics and are completely angsty yet have tons of similarities. While Bruce is hiding in Brazil, Logan went to Canada to meet his death.

• Jossed. Word of God confirms Logan is set in the new timeline created in Days of Future Past.

Messiah Complex

The post-Logan setting will serve as a stand-in for Decimation from the comics. Deadpool 2, X Force, and the core films will build up to a Crisis Crossover adaptation of the Messiah Trilogy, with Laura herself, or the X-23 kids in general, filling in for the role of Hope.

The reason for Charles and Logan sudden potty mouth.

The reason Logan and Charles swear so much more now is due to being in Deadpool's company so much. Bit of Fridge Horror when you realize our favorite Merc was probably killed along with the rest of the X-Men.

• The news report only said "several of the X-Men," not all of them, when Charles had his seizure. We have no idea what happened to the rest in the intervening years.
• In reality, it is the angst the two had been through, with the poisoning and Charles' Alzheimer's.
• Also, considering that it's implied that Logan's healing factor is the reason he survives Charles's tremors, and Wade has that too, it's likely that Wade's still alive. As an entry above points out, it's even possible he was the beneficiary from Canada that was going to protect the kids.

The X-Men comics aren't as popular as in Real Life.

Because a majority of comic book fans are anti-mutant, and don't want to read comics where the "freaks" are the heroes and anti-mutants are portrayed as evil.

Xander Rice is a Great Intelligence Avatar from Doctor Who

Rice was researching mutant powers to figure out how to kill the Doctor. Meanwhile, the Doctor was helping the mutant kids escape. Clara somehow aided Logan and ensured he'd end up killing Rice and protecting both the kids and the Doctor.

Logan was not Laura‘s genetic father, but actually her half-uncle.

[Disclaimer: this theory isn’t intended to detract from the father figure role that Logan provides Laura in the story].

Originally there was supposed to be a Liev Schreiber cameo as Logan’s half-brother Sabertooth who would own the casino that Logan, Charles and Laura take refuge in. An in-universe explanation for Sabortooth’s absence is because he is dead, and his DNA was obtained by Transigen and used to create Laura, which would explain her similar powers to Logan.

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