A removed-from-Instagram snapshot of what could be a promo poster for The Wolverine movie has surfaced online at Screen Rant. The film is an adaptation of Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's four-issue 1982 Wolverine miniseries set in Japan and other stories focusing on the character's travels to the land of the rising sun, so it makes sense that 20th Century Fox would want to somehow play up the film's setting. This cleaving of the Japanese flag with Wolverine's claws is a striking visual, to be sure, and conveys the sense of menace and danger that follows the Canadian anti-hero wherever he goes.Fox hasn't officially claimed ownership of the poster promoting the July 26, 2013 release of The Wolverine, but if this emerges as the real deal, it will be interesting to see whether the design makes its way into advertising campaigns in the Japanese market, particularly in an era when movie studios depend increasingly on international box office money.

As most Americans are acutely aware, desecrating national flags can often be risky and emotionally-charged business, and it's possible that destroying nationalistic imagery related to Japan could play badly only a year after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of Japan. Then again, it could just as easily be a non-issue, particularly if the movie itself is as reverential towards Japan and Japanese culture as its comic book source material.

Really, all you have to do to sell audiences on a new Wolverine movie is put a scowling Hugh Jackman in a tank top on a poster -- you know, like Fox has done for EVERY OTHER movie the character has been in. I mean, have you seen that guy?

See what you think of the rumored poster design for The Wolverine below:

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