Marvel's Zodiac Series Explained: The Agents of SHIELD and Secret Warriors Clues Hidden in Its Logo

Marvel has confirmed Zodiac, its first new series coming to Disney Plus in years. It's a spy thriller coming in 2028 with an unknown cast and an unknown concept. So far all we have is a mysterious title logo, and when you look closely, the answer to what this show is sits in two letters: the A and the O. I'm going to go through everything we know, which is actually a lot more than you might think.

Brad Winderbaum confirmed Zodiac at New York Comic Con and said the logo hides a lot

This week at New York Comic Con, Brad Winderbaum, Marvel's head of television, animation, streaming and now comics, came out for a panel moderated by our colleague Brandon Davis. He made announcements and showed footage for the big Marvel television titles coming in the next year. The most buzzed about title, though, was Zodiac, which confirmed last month's Puck report of an in development Marvel spy thriller series.

Winderbaum began by unveiling the title logo. He said the show would be coming in 2028, would be shooting in spring 2027, and that Marvel would begin casting it in a couple of weeks. Then he left the crowd with a tease: "If you're a fan of the comics, there is a lot hidden in that logo." He followed that by saying that was all anyone was getting, because it's supposed to be a secret. Challenge accepted.

The A in the Zodiac logo is the SHIELD eagle, and Clark Gregg shared it

The first thing that pops out in the logo is the A. That is certainly the eagle head of the SHIELD logo. A lot of us assume from this that Zodiac will in part be a continuation of the legacy of Agents of SHIELD. It's worth remembering that Winderbaum said at New York Comic Con last year that he had recently been rewatching Agents of SHIELD, and many of us wondered at the time why, beyond the fact that it's a great show.

We should also note that Clark Gregg, who played Phil Coulson, shared the title logo on his Instagram story. So he's probably going to be in it, maybe even as a star. But if this is just a revival of Agents of SHIELD, why not call it that, or give it a title that makes the connection obvious? Why Zodiac? Most people who aren't familiar with the comics would only think of the infamous serial killer in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late '60s and early '70s.

The O is the Great Wheel from Jonathan Hickman's Secret Warriors

The real answer comes down to the wheel cog symbol in the O. The wheel has spokes making 12 total sections, with three of them missing. That's why it's called Zodiac: it's a reference to the Great Wheel, aka the Zodiac, created by Jonathan Hickman as part of Hickman and Brian Michael Bendis' Secret Warriors comic storyline that ran from 2009 to 2011.

Despite the name, Secret Warriors isn't really connected to Hickman's Secret Wars from 2015. Secret Warriors is an espionage thriller storyline that follows the events of Secret Invasion during the Dark Reign era. In it, Nick Fury discovers that the world has been secretly controlled for decades by competing spy organizations, Hydra and Leviathan. Specifically, he learns that SHIELD was corrupted, and he has to put together his own team of Secret Warriors to fight a battle the general public knows nothing about.

You're probably saying Marvel Studios already partly adapted this in 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the corresponding Agents of SHIELD series, which at one point even turned into Agents of Hydra. What we knew of SHIELD was actually Hydra all along. But the Great Wheel in this context is something else: a secret alliance formed during the Cold War in 1961 that led to the modern day shadow war of the Secret Warriors storyline.

Leonardo da Vinci assembled 12 anonymous spies under Zodiac code names

The Great Wheel was assembled by Leonardo da Vinci, who in Marvel Comics wasn't just the Renaissance artist, inventor and thinker who lived from 1452 to 1519. He led a secret society called the Brotherhood of the Shield, the precursor to the modern SHIELD organization. He also learned how to time travel, and he left behind a life model decoy of himself so the world would believe he died in 1519.

Traveling ahead to 1961, da Vinci gathered himself and 11 other operatives from rival nations and spy factions, the groups most likely to dominate the world at that time, in a location known as the Immortal City. He told all 12 that they would have to stay anonymous to each other. Imagine The Heist and Reservoir Dogs with the color code names, except instead of a simple jewel heist, it's spymasters acquiring ancient artifacts.

Each operative got a Zodiac designation. Da Vinci gave himself the code name Aries. Nick Fury of SHIELD was Gemini, and Dum Dum Dugan, also of SHIELD, was Libra. Baron Strucker of Hydra was Sagittarius. A Leviathan operative was Capricorn. John Garrett of SHIELD was Aquarius, and a Hydra operative was Pisces. Cornelius van Lunt, an independent, was Taurus. Jake Fury, Nick's brother and also independent, was Scorpio. Thomas Davidson, an independent hacker, was Virgo. The Kraken of Hydra was Leo, and Orion of Leviathan was Cancer.

Three missions to Egypt, France and the Zagros Mountains set up the shadow war

Da Vinci, as Aries, assigned three missions. Completing them would give these operatives resources unavailable anywhere else on Earth at the time, handing their agencies and factions advantages in the wars to come. Mission one went to Giza in Egypt. John Garrett, the Leviathan operative, the Kraken and the Hydra operative went through an ancient ship of the Brood, a time traveling insectoid alien race that attacked ancient Egypt in 2620 BC, to find a specific power source.

Mission two went to a chateau in France. Nick Fury, his brother Jake and Thomas Davidson went to da Vinci's tomb to find his original life model decoy. That LMD was actually reverse engineered by SHIELD to create the modern life model decoy program. Mission three went to the Zagros Mountains in the Middle East. Orion, Cornelius van Lunt, Strucker and Dum Dum Dugan fought through a horde of undead androids to find a collection of stasis chambers. Michelangelo, who we learn is a nonlinear being, had requested that the last caliphate be kept in stasis for centuries until they would be needed in the future.

Each faction's objective links with the others to reactivate the stasis chambers and the LMD technology. There's a lot of backstabbing and double crossing in this backstory, and it leads to the present day Secret Warriors crisis Nick Fury finds himself in. He ends up putting together a new spy team that includes Daisy Johnson aka Quake, Alexander Aaron aka Phobos, J.T. James aka Hellfire, and Jerry Sledge aka Stonewall.

Zodiac arrives in 2028 as the Mutant Saga begins

So what will this series look like when it arrives? Remember that it comes after Avengers: Secret Wars, in the same year Marvel Studios has its X-Men film coming in May 2028, Ghost Rider in July 2028 and Black Panther 3 in December 2028. Kevin Feige has indicated that after Secret Wars, it will officially be the Mutant Saga. So in what way could Zodiac be a mutant show? One possibility is that they redefine Daisy Johnson, as played by Chloe Bennet, as a mutant instead of an Inhuman.

But let's back up. Is this going to be another Nick Fury story? Samuel L. Jackson just confirmed to The Direct that he'll return in Avengers: Secret Wars. Still, will Marvel Television move forward with another Nick Fury espionage series after Secret Invasion? As cool as this Zodiac storyline could be, could they instead let Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Val be that older generation spy figure? Is that why Thunderbolts showed her flashback as a child from organized crime in Italy?

Who could be part of the MCU's version of the Great Wheel

Could both Val and Nick Fury be part of this secret history in the MCU? Could the MCU version of the Zodiac assembly include older operatives like Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, or Alexei Shostakov, the Red Guardian, or even a young Phil Coulson? It could instead be something that happened in the MCU's 1980s.

Or, if they wanted it to be a more recent past event, they could set that history in the mid 2000s and include operatives like Mockingbird, finally telling us her backstory as a SHIELD agent and why she retired. You could even make it something that Ava Starr's Ghost and Yelena Belova were part of. Either way, the inclusion of the SHIELD logo in the title suggests Marvel is going to bring back some of the Agents of SHIELD cast. Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson seems to be the case based on his Instagram story.

I think Chloe Bennet could return and life model decoys will matter again

I think this is also where we could see Chloe Bennet return as Daisy Johnson, Quake. And I think the Zodiac series is going to make life model decoys very relevant again in the MCU. Everything Phil Coulson went through as an LMD in the later seasons of Agents of SHIELD is about to be required homework.

I really just think Winderbaum came up with a way to do an Agents of SHIELD side quest story populated with other espionage operatives from MCU history. Maybe we could even look at it as a prequel origin story to what we knew Agents of SHIELD to be. If it's not that, it's kind of hard to see how important Hydra could be to the modern MCU, because as of 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, Hydra is basically done.

But maybe after Avengers: Secret Wars, the 616 universe as we know it gets remade so that Hydra can be back as an active threat going forward. And maybe, as part of that remaking, Franklin Richards will be generous to Agents of SHIELD fans and clearly make the show, especially the way it ended in season 7, firmly recognized as canon in this remade world. In my head it already is, it should be in future stories, and hopefully that's what Zodiac does.

The three missing pieces of the wheel might point to a hidden time traveling villain

The mystery in the logo itself is why three pieces are missing from the wheel. Could it be a clue that three of the 12 Zodiac operatives went rogue or went missing? Maybe there was one backstabber on each mission, to France, to the Zagros Mountains and to ancient Egypt. It's going to be wild if the series actually brings in mystical elements like a time traveling Leonardo da Vinci, the stasis chambers, Michelangelo and the Brood. That's a Zodiac series I want. I just don't know if Winderbaum and his team are going to swing that big.

If they do change things, remember this is the Mutant Saga. It would be very interesting if the series made the time traveling figure someone like En Sabah Nur, aka Apocalypse. I've been theorizing that Apocalypse could be the secret villain of phase one of the Mutant Saga ever since Asa Germann was announced as Angel for the 2028 X-Men film, and this series drops right as the Mutant Saga is starting.

Alternatively, maybe Pharaoh Rama-Tut, Kang, is somehow involved in the time traveling plot. Maybe this is where they recast Kang the Conqueror with a new actor, or if I had my way, several new actors in this new era of Marvel. My thinking is that those three missing cogs in the wheel could refer to some time traveling villain, or villains, or a villain in three forms who wanted to stay hidden.

What do you want from this Zodiac series?