Marvel's Zodiac Series Is Official: Logo Clues Point to Agents of SHIELD and Jonathan Hickman

Marvel has made its live action Zodiac series official, and the few details it gave are that the show will come out in 2028, it films in London, and casting is expected to begin pretty shortly. Beyond that, the studio gave almost nothing away, except a logo that Marvel's head of television, and now also comics, says is full of clues for anyone who follows comics.

Further down, I'll get into what I think that logo is hiding, from a very obvious Agents of SHIELD connection to a less obvious nod to Jonathan Hickman, plus the characters I'd recruit and why I'm worried about where this is headed.

Zodiac was rumored before it became official for 2028

This isn't the first we'd heard of the name. When Marvel cancelled Wonder Man, just about a month or so ago, people started asking whether live action Marvel was dead at Disney+. The answer floating around at the time was no, because there were rumors they were working on a show called Zodiac.

Then Marvel made it official. They said Zodiac is a big, exciting project and they were very excited about it, but they gave really no details. The scant information we got is the 2028 release, the London shoot and the casting expected soon. Vision Quest also films a lot in London, which was nice. As Marvel has said before, they don't want every story to take place in New York City.

The Zodiac showrunner is the pivotal question

Among my many questions, I think the pivotal one is who the showrunner is. In television or streaming, the showrunner is like the director, and I think the showrunner is pivotal to the way a show turns out. The showrunners on Lanterns are Tom King, Damon Lindelof and Chris Mundy, and I think that show really feels very much like them.

Jac Schaeffer was the showrunner on WandaVision. She unfortunately just signed a deal to go over to Prime Video, and they announced her show, which isn't any comic book stuff. Then there's Terry Matalas, who's doing Vision Quest. I think it's extremely important who Marvel settles on for Zodiac, and that's a big shoe we're waiting to drop.

The SHIELD logo in the A points to Agents of SHIELD and Phil Coulson

Marvel's head of television said to look to the logo for clues. He said, "If you follow comics, you'll be able to get quite a bit of information out of this logo," and that he feels he's already given quite a bit. The most obvious clue, the easy one to get, is that the SHIELD logo is incorporated into the A.

That brings up Agents of SHIELD. It aired on network television and it was very network television in style, but it really had a strong fan base, and people bring it up to this day. That was back when Jeph Loeb was running the television division, and Kevin Feige hated him so much that he basically went on a little bit of a strike until they agreed to give Feige control of everything.

I think the biggest rumor to come out of the announcement is Phil Coulson coming back, because Clark Gregg, the actor who plays Agent Coulson, liked or retweeted it. People wondered whether he had just soft launched himself in the show, and I think that's a pretty good guess considering what we've seen before of how people handle social media.

That raises the question of whether Daisy, aka Quake, will return. People have been wanting a Quake return for quite some time. With the Avengers movies, people are always saying maybe Daisy will show up, and Chloe Bennet, the actress who plays her, often says maybe she'll show up. So far, she has not.

Why leaning on Marvel's TV past worries me after Daredevil

People might have booed at the convention when Kevin Feige confirmed that this will be the final season of Daredevil, but the viewership is really poor. You might get a great reaction at the fan event, but general audiences just aren't interested in it, and that's my concern with Agents of SHIELD.

I'm so glad so many people really enjoyed Agents of SHIELD and some of those other shows. But when it comes to Marvel's TV past, the Netflix shows and the ABC shows, I don't think it fits with where Marvel, and also the medium of streaming, is headed. I think that if Marvel leans too heavily into Agents of SHIELD, this show would largely be dead on arrival.

I don't think people understand what a disaster Daredevil was from an audience engagement perspective. It was really bad. It would be similar to how James Gunn keeps pushing his idea for what he wants the DC shows to be, and how they don't do well either.

The O in Zodiac looks like Jonathan Hickman's Great Wheel

The more interesting thing to me is that the logo mimics something comic book writer Jonathan Hickman did. Hickman is very popular, not just with fans but clearly at the MCU too, because Secret Wars and the Doomsday material seem to be based heavily on his version of Secret Wars rather than the earlier one.

The O in Zodiac looks an awful lot like the Great Wheel, the name of the organization Hickman introduced. It's supposed to have 12 slices, one for each calendar month or sign of the zodiac, with a couple of pieces missing. In the comic, these are time traveling spymasters led by Leonardo da Vinci. I do not think Leonardo da Vinci will lead this team.

Time traveling spymasters? That is the TVA. So I don't know if the show will include the time traveling element anymore, but it might be just spymasters having some kind of missions.

The original team needs new recruits like Zemo, Blade and Elsa Bloodstone

The original team included the original Nick Fury, before he was racebent with Samuel L. Jackson in the Ultimate storyline, and Dum Dum Dugan, who was in the early Captain America movies. That actor is still around, so you might be able to bring in those characters, and I could certainly see that. Samuel L. Jackson has made it pretty clear that if you cut him a check, he'll show up, though I think he got burned pretty bad on Secret Invasion.

Obviously they need some new recruits, because I think a lot of people would ask what kind of dry toast they're being served. It's shocking Hickman got away with it, though I guess that's how old the story is: the team has no diversity of ethnicity and no women. I never read this comic either.

My first choice is Baron Zemo. We've been looking for Daniel Brühl to return ever since he danced his way into our hearts on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. He's already a fan favorite and very affordable, and I think he'd be a really good, strong choice, even if obviously we'd be like, "Why wasn't he on Thunderbolts?"

Then there's Blade. If I'm Kevin Feige, I fix my Blade problem by calling up Wesley Snipes, who also will show up if I cut him a check. Snipes was very nice to support Mahershala Ali and say it wasn't cool what happened to him, and it definitely wasn't cool. There's no way Ali is coming back, so I'd bring back the original, especially for a Disney+ show where I don't have to use him too much.

For a female character who isn't Peggy Carter or Sharon Carter, because I'm done with the Carter ladies, I thought maybe Elsa Bloodstone. I can't say how I know, but let's just say Marvel has not forgotten about Werewolf by Night. That said, I don't think Werewolf by Night is coming back beyond just a mention, and I don't know if we'll ever see those characters again. But for mid-level MCU spymaster types, I think this isn't a bad place for them to return.

I don't have high hopes for Zodiac yet

Do I think this could do well? Honestly, I don't have high hopes for it. It seems a little bit too low level. As I said in my social media reaction to Vision Quest, it's such a big difference to focus on somebody who was a character in the movies. Coulson was, but I think he's now more associated with television.

This just seems too small to me, and I think it's going to be Daredevil all over again: cancelling Daredevil only to bring back something not so great and equally problematic in the same space. I think a large part of Marvel's fandom probably wouldn't be into this. Still, I reserve the right to change my mind if there's a really good casting announcement that brings back a character and totally changes the conversation.

Which character would you most want to see recruited for Zodiac?