The Wolverine, Kick-Ass 2 Photos in This Week's Empire

As part of Empire magazine's big superhero spectacular this month, Mark Millar is getting quite a bit of play. The co-creator of Kick-Ass, whose fan-favorite, low-budget superhero flick is getting a sequel this year and an infusion of Jim Carrey is also serving as an executive producer on The Wolverine, director James Mangold's upcoming sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand that stars Hugh Jackman as the titular mutant with the metal claws and antisocial attitude. Both of the films get a sneak peeks in Empire, with photos scanned and uploaded by CBM.

After a series of images that showed Wolverine shirtless, unshaven and generally not suitable for fine dining, he's looking more like a sharp-dressed man this time around, while everything Kick-Ass is coming up Jim Carrey and Hit-Girl, which is pretty normal for the film's officially-released photos so far. Maybe with a little luck, we'll finally get an official image of the film's villain, Mother Russia, sooner than later. If Fox stays true to form on the photos from The Wolverine, sometime this week they'll release at least the photo at right, in which Jackman is fully suited up, in a higher-resolution version. The Kick-Ass 2 photos give us another look at Aaron Johnson's Kick-Ass and Jim Carrey's The Colonel, as well as (if you squint) a look inside the headquarters of Justice Forever. There are two shots, though, of Chloe Grace Moretz's Hit-Girl, a character who's likely to be featured heavily in the film since the movie is half dedicated to the Kick-Ass 2 miniseries by Millar and John Romita, Jr. and half dedicated to their Hit-Girl mini.

Moretz, of course, has been all over the news in recent weeks following rumors that Matthew Vaughn, her director on the first Kick-Ass, pitched a version of Star Wars Episode VII to Lucasfilm that would have seen Moretz star as the film's central protagonist. This has been widely seen as confirming separate, earlier rumors that the film would revolve around a female Jedi. Check out the remaining photos below. More to come from Empire's new issue throughout the day, almost certainly.