Marvel’s Future Ant-Man Has A MCU Connection

The Ant-Man of one of Marvel‘s bleak futures has a surprising connection to a character largely known because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Ethan Sacks and Marco Checchetto’s Old Man Hawkeye miniseries is a bleak prequel to the Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s “Old Man Logan” plotline that inspired last summer’s excellent Logan movie. In the comic, an older Clint Barton living in a possible future of the Marvel Universe realizes that he’s going blind and decides to go on one final mission – to get revenge on a group of ex-Thunderbolts teammates who betrayed him when Red Skull organized a villain coup that resulted in the deaths of most of the world’s superheroes.

In the last issue of Old Man Hawkeye, Barton takes a break from his bloody spree across the United States at Josie’s Bar (a familiar locale to Daredevil fans) and orders a drink from the bartender – Turk Barrett. When Hawkeye complains that the bar is infested with ants, Turk mentions not to squash anyone…as it turns out that Barrett’s young nephew is controlling them with an Ant-Man helmet.

While Turk Barrett has typically been a D-List criminal (at best) in the Marvel Universe, his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have risen his stock quite a bit. In addition to appearing in all of Netflix’s Marvel shows, Barrett could also play a major role in the current Infinity Countdown event, as he currently holds the Mind Stone (as in the Infinity Stone) and is using it to succeed at gambling.

We know that in Old Man Logan, both Hawkeye’s daughter and Logan decide to form superhero groups to take back the world from the supervillains who conquered it. It’s possible that Turk’s nephew could become one of these new superheroes….or he could be destined to become yet another person looking to kill Hawkeye. After all, the issue ends with a group of Venom-bonded Madrox clones circling the bar, looking to kill Hawkeye in revenge for a fight at the start of the miniseries.

We’ll see if this new Ant-Man survives or has any larger role to play when the next issue of Old Man Hawkeye comes out in May.