Hugh Jackman returns as the spikey-fingered superhero, Wolverine in The Wolverine, and you can see the Australian actor, rippling muscles included, in a new poster.

Hugh JackmanJackman and Deborra-Lee Furness posing at Vanity Fair

Ol’ lamb chops Wolverine looks pretty mad in the poster, knelt down in the rain; he doesn’t even care about getting his knees wet! And he’s got his shirt off, which means Jackman’s been beefing up for the role relentlessly. “It’s not easy for me because I’m actually quite long and lean,” he explains to Entertainment Weekly. The actor was snapped in New York wearing sweats and a hoodie with the word GOTHAM emblazoned across the chest while working out. The new film is set in Japan, and sees Wolvervine hunt down a figure from his past. “I'm thrilled the studio called it The Wolverine instead of Wolverine 2, because we're trying to set it up as a standalone picture,' said the X-Man to Total Film magazine. “Tonally, it's different from the other X-Men movies. It's got massive action sequences, as people would expect, and it'll be great fun. But it is a character-driven movie. It's about a guy completely out of his element, in this world that's foreign to him, and how he copes with that.

While Jackman has been synonymous with Wolverine since the franchise became a movie, this will represent quite a change from Les Miserables, which was his last outing on the silver screen. The Wolverine will arrive in UK and US cinemas on July 26 2013.

The Wolverine 2013 Poster
Hugh Jackman as The Wolverine