What Is Marvel’s Zodiac About? Here Are Some Clues From The Comics

As “Daredevil: Born Again” prepares to wrap things up with Season 3, Marvel already has a new TV show waiting in the wings. Marvel’s panel at New York Comic Con 2026 opened with Marvel Television chief Brad Winderbaum officially announcing a live-action spy thriller series called “Zodiac” and revealing the logo. The show is currently being planned for a 2028 release, with casting set to begin in “the next couple of weeks” and filming scheduled to kick off in London next spring.

That was it as far as official details go, but Winderbaum also teased: “If you’re a fan of the comics there is a lot hidden in that logo.”

Marvel Television

There are two obvious clues that stand out. One is the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo embedded in the “A,” and the other is the wheel shape embedded in the “O,” comprised of a pattern of 12 pieces, but with three of the pieces missing.

This isn’t the first time that the word “Zodiac” has cropped up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the “Agent Carter” one-shot, Zodiac was the name of a lethal chemical weapon that Peggy Carter retrieved from the wrong hands. Meanwhile, the pages of Marvel Comics feature a villain called Zodiac who was a particular foe of Moon Knight. However, this logo-within-a-logo points to another Zodiac, and to a specific iteration of it.

Zodiac is the name of a cartel comprised of supervillains that has been appearing in Marvel Comics since their 1969 debut in “Avengers” #72. The key concept behind the cartel is that each one of the twelve leaders represents a sign of the Zodiac. In the original lineup, each of Zodiac leaders was born under their designated star sign and also had a costume and/or powers reflecting their role. This was unfortunate for Jack Kleveno, the original Cancer, who had to wear a crab costume complete with pincer claw gloves. How he went to the bathroom is a mystery not answered in the pages of Marvel Comics.

The more cartoonish version of the Zodiac cartel has appeared in animated Marvel productions like the short-lived TV show “Avengers: United They Stand.” But the logo embedded in the “O” of Zodiac points to the slightly more grounded version of Zodiac that from writer Jonathan Hickman’s run of “Secret Warriors” and “S.H.I.E.L.D.” comics. 

Hickman introduced into Marvel Comics lore a time-traveling Leonardo da Vinci, who left behind a Life Model Decoy of himself to conceal his disappearance from history. Among da Vinci’s various exploits was the creation of a secret organization called the Great Wheel (pictured above), comprised of the world’s greatest spymasters. Among them were S.H.I.E.L.D. members Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan, and John Garrett, but also members of villainous organizations like the Hand and Hydra. Da Vinci assigned each of the 11 spymasters a sign of the Zodiac, designating himself Aries.

The wheel logo in the “Zodiac” title doesn’t just point directly to the Great Wheel, but also offers further clues with its missing three pieces. The positions of those pieces correlate to the figures of Scorpio (Nick Fury’s younger brother, Jake Fury), Virgo (Il Professore, a master computer programmer), and Aries (Leonardo da Vinci). The implication, perhaps, is that the Great Wheel will not yet be fully assembled at the start of the series.

The Zodiac referred to in the title could also be the aforementioned Zodiac cartel, which was founded by a member of the Great Wheel, a wealthy businessman called Cornelius van Lunt. In both the Great Wheel and Zodiac, van Lunt represented the role of Taurus (and had a cool bull costume to go with the title). The Great Wheel and Zodiac are not unlike S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra: light-and-dark reflections of one another with connections that run deep.

For fans who are more into Marvel Television than Marvel Comics, the presence of the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo might be more exciting than the presence of the Great Wheel logo. Officially, S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer exists in the MCU and has been replaced by S.W.O.R.D. But arguably nothing could be better for a spy organisation than no longer officially existing, and many fans are still hoping to see the return of their favorite characters from “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,” which came to end with its seventh season in 2020. (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” star Clark Gregg added a bit of fuel to the hope fire, possibly unintentionally) by sharing the “Zodiac” announcement in his Instagram stories.)

Until further details about “Zodiac” are revealed (or leaked), though, we’ll just have to keep checking our horoscopes.