After Marvel's One-Shot "All Hail The King" was announced, speculation on what the status of the Mandarin will be in the Cinematic Universe has gone rampant, will Marvel admit their slip up and make Trevor the true Mandarin somehow? Or will they stand their ground and reinforce the creative choices made in Iron Man 3? Whatever the answer may be, we won't know the answer until Thor The Dark World comes out on blue-ray DVD on Feb. 25(US) or until the short is leaked online.
Along with the announcement, Entertainment weekly released series of stills.
A couple of things you can take from these stills:
1. Trevor Slattery is getting a lot of attention from his fellow jail mates.
2. This one shot most likely will be in some sort of documentary format.
3. Trevor Slattery is being held at Seagate prison.
Let's focus on #3, Georgia's Seagate Prison is quite infamous in the Marvel Universe, it has a wing for Superhuman prisoners, it was the place where the trial of Captain America (Bucky) was held, and it was also the birth place of everyone's favorite Hero for Hire Luke Cage, as pointed out by CBM user McNyagano.
Now here is where speculations begins, the relevance of Seagate prison and the rumors of Luke Cage making a cameo stem from the idea that Marvel maybe be looking to link their Cinematic Universe to their upcoming Netflix shows. As we all know by now, Marvel/Disney are joining forces with Netflix to produce 4 online shows, starting 2016, based on Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage culminating with the crossover Defenders. To this date a connection betwwen the movies and the upcoming shows has not been confirmed.
Marvel teasing at the upcoming Netflix shows through one of their One Shots would be nothing short of a stroke of genius but there is a couple of problems with the Luke Cage cameo theory. The first one being that Daredevil will the first character to be tacked, not Luke Cage. If Marvel wanted to tease at the Netflix shows perhaps Matt Murdock cameoing as Slattery's lawyer would make more sense. On the other hand, perhaps a Luke Cage cameo is needed since he is a less known character and they might want to get him some attention before he debuts on his solo Netflix show.
The Second is casting. No casting for such character has been rumored. Now, just because it hasn't been announced or rumored it doesn't mean that Marvel hasn't locked an actor for the part yet, but as you all know, Marvel is the worst at keeping things under wrap. Take as examples the casting announcement Marvel has made this year alone for Avengers Age of Ultron and Ant Man, everyone knew who was playing Quick Silver, Scarlet Witch and Ant Man months in advanced so by the time it was officially announced there was no surprise. So based Marvel's track record, if there were to be an important cameo we might have heard more definitive rumors by now or maybe Marvel is learning from their mistakes.
The third is "All Hail the king" is most likely Kingsley and Mandarin focused. It might be unwise for Marvel,after succumbing to fan demand for the Mandarin issue to be addressed, to not focus the short on the Mandarin and instead use it as vehicle to introduce other properties. The Mandarin could get short changed again, and result on even furthering people's anger towards Marvel's creative decisions.
However this plays out, cameo, tease or nothing at all, it's impossible to ignore the Seagate easter egg found in "All Hail the King" teaser pics has captures people's attention and has sparked more interest from fans to want see Luke Cage joining the live action Marvel Universe. I leave you with this Luke Cage teaser featuring actor/ former Old Spice guy Isaiah Mustafa. Cheers.
Note: I do not endorse Isaiah Mustafa playing Luke Cage, this video is just the closest thing to a live action Luke Cage we gotten so far.