Fans are speculating the premiere of X-Men characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after a leaked photo from the set of an upcoming TV series hints at a key location said to be modeled after Singapore.

Madripoor is a fictional Southeast Asian island bearing a red and white flag and national symbols consisting of a white crescent, a star and a lion’s head — similar to that of Singapore’s. The same symbols were spotted in the leaked photo of the set of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier miniseries, which is currently being filmed.

The photo was tweeted by user Luke Hatcher on Dec. 4 but only picked up by pop culture websites this week.

Is that what’s at Wimblish tonight? I kept looking up from my desk at work to see this table covered with… squid? pic.twitter.com/cPy0QF1ksp — Luke Hatcher (@lukeman) December 4, 2019





“Definitely Madripoor’s flag from the comics,” Singaporean comic fan Jayden Marvel responded to the tweet on Sunday, as one other fan chimed in to say that Madripoor was inspired by the city-state.

“Yep, I felt the lion design was copied. The flag was probably just tweaked a little,” he added in a separate reply.

“Thanks to Twitter user Luke Hatcher, it seems that a portion of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier will take place on the fictional island of Madripoor! … This island is pretty important in some X-Men comics!” pop culture Instagram page The Geek Power wrote Sunday.





According to the Marvel fandom site, Madripoor first appeared in New Mutants Issue 32 printed in 1985, in a story titled, To The Ends of the Earth.

The fictional island, once a haven for pirates, suffers from extreme social inequality where the wealthy live in “Hightown” and the poor live in crime-ridden “Lowtown,” the website says.

Fans have been expecting the introduction of X-Men to the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Disney bought the 20th Century Fox company in 2017, obtaining rights to Marvel properties like Deadpool and X-Men movies, according to science and pop culture site Inverse.

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier stars Hollywood actors Sebastian Stan as Winter Soldier and Anthony Mackie as Falcon, and is expected to be released on the Disney+ streaming platform in late 2020.

More showbiz news from the Little Red Dot at Coconuts.co/Singapore.

This article, Fans abuzz after leaked film set photo of upcoming Marvel TV series hints at Singapore-inspired fictional island, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters!