Is it time for us nerds to start anticipating THE AVENGERS, directed by Joss Whedon?

I think it will be pretty close. Sam Jackson's Nick Fury is clearly the Ultimates version, and all the new character costumes seem to mirror their Ultimates versions pretty closely.

Trailer!

http://gawker.com/5848611/the-avengers-a-special-kind-of-club

Gotta say, my city looks pretty good on the screen!

So, yes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGt-saFvkNk

ok fine

Stuff, it blows up.

and they have a Hulk. It's like having a cow, only more.

well
it sort makes me feel better about having spent time watching Thor and Captain America

no Skrulls though it would seem...

Maybe that's what those bad-guy ships are full of. Yeah, I'll go see this.

I don't want no Skrulls/a Skrull is a guy who can't get no love from me

http://backlashmag.com/backlashblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/tlc-noscrubs-1.jpg

Definitely looked better than Battleship or that G.I. Joe sequel, but low bars both.

This lays out the baddies probable identity pretty convincingly. SPOILERS obv
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/02/05/lokis-army-revealed-avengers-superbowl-trailer-know-who-they-ish/

how old is Gandalf in this one?

it's the skrulls guys. cosmic cube is also involved somehow

this whole thing is really just a "how-long-can-we-milk-this" franchise experiment, so of course they went with something that would have a multi-movie story arc

So Loki and friends teaming up with the Skrulls then? Seems a bit much

slocki and friends teaming up with the skrulls then?

You know what I never got about comics? I get that folks like Thor ain't human, or that Spider-Man, say, is a mutation, or that Iron Man is wearing armor and Hulk is Hulk and stuff, and that's why they don't get hurt, or heal fast. Even Batman has a masochistic streak; he seems to get off on injury. But Hawkeye and Black Widow are humans who wear no armor. How do they throw down without getting broken in two?

kinda laughed at the epic reveal of these goobers in their halloween costumes

michael fassbender is. in. everything.

not that the trailer is ever any good predictor of a superhero flick, but this looks like it might be rather swell.

wait IS that michael fassbender?

no

which dude do you think is fassbender. wtf mate

Fassbender IS...Black Widow.

which dude do you think is fassbender. wtf mate

― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Monday, February 6, 2012 7:06 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the bad guy talking to tony stark. c'mon, it looks a lot like michael fassbender.

or, what ned said.

*blink*

Fassbender is so much better looking than the dude who plays Loki that it is not even funny.

oh, tom hiddleston. yeah i can kinda see that actually.

This lays out the baddies probable identity pretty convincingly. SPOILERS obv
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/02/05/lokis-army-revealed-avengers-superbowl-trailer-know-who-they-ish/

Have those Simonson pages been recoloured or something? That's not how I remember them looking like...

But Hawkeye and Black Widow are humans who wear no armor. How do they throw down without getting broken in two?

Geek explanation: Hawkeye uses ranged weapons and rarely does hand-to-hand combat (at least not with superpowered beings). Black Widow has been given some kind of chemical treatment that makes her heal faster and age slower (in the comics, she was born in the 1930s).

Non-geek explanation: readers/viewers like to have a badass normal character or two among the superpowered ones, it's easier to root for them.

We endorse Iron Man's use of technology to enhance the capabilities of the human body. However, his capitalist individualism is inexcusable. A collectivist army of Iron Men would be of greater use.

Yeah Tuomas, there was a recent omnibus of Simonson's Thor work that was recoloured.

I was kinda wondering, is this the first time any movie has done the shared universe thing so common in comics, i.e. have characters from different franchises appear in the same movie? Because the only other examples I can think of that are even close are parodies like "Abbott & Costello Meet Dracula", in which the parody character is clearly not the same as the original character.

Hmm, now that I think of it, I guess Aliens vs Predator and Freddy vs Jason are shared universe movies. I haven't seen the former, but in the latter it's certainly implied these are the same Freddy and Jason as in their respective franchises. And Kevin Smith has featured his own shared universe in most of his movies, with Jay and Silent Bob tying them together.

Any other examples like this?

According to TVTropes Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are supposed to be in the same universe, with characters named Vega apparently being brothers. That sounds like a pretty weak link though, and it doesn't explain why this universe has pairs of charactes (Mr. Blonde/Pumpkin, Mr. White/Winston, Mr. Brown/Jimmie) who look exactly like each other.

Lots of John Hughes films set in the fictional Shermer, Illinois. I'm sure he's not the only director to do this?

Lots of John Hughes films set in the fictional Shermer, Illinois. I'm sure he's not the only director to do this?

Well yeah, many directors include small winks like this in their movies, but what I was thinking was a bit stronger shared universe, i.e. one where actual characters are shared.

Whit Stillman did this a bit

Do you want to elaborate on that? I'm not familiar with his movies.

I'll just quote from wiki

The Last Days of Disco was loosely based on Stillman's experiences in various Manhattan nightclubs, including Studio 54. The film concerns Ivy League and Hampshire graduates falling in and out of love in the disco scene of Manhattan in the "very early 1980s". It concludes a trilogy loosely based on his own life and contains many references to the previous two films: a character considers a move to Spain to work for American ad agencies there after meeting with the Barcelona character of Ted Boynton, and Metropolitan's heroine Audrey Rouget reappears briefly as a successful publisher, as do a few other characters from that film, as clubgoers. In 2000 Stillman published a novelization of the film, The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards.

Kind of want Whit Stillman to direct a Marvel movie now.

Yeah, lots of writer/directors do this but as a studio/producer driven thing this is kind of unique -- none of these characters have shared a director among their solo movies.

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0027458/

the big difference/unique thing about the Avengers is that the franchise has been engineered in reverse - in every other case I can think of, subsequent characters/films have been spun off or refer back to the initial movie. this is the first instance where each individual character was deliberately introduced solo - in their own vehicle - and then brought together later for an ensemble film. this has never happened before afaict.

Freddy v Jason and Alien v Predator are different imho, they were created separately, they were not initially developed as existing in the same universe.

then why is there an alien ship in predator?

you mean alien skull in predator 2?

kevin smith did this with his gay 'askewniverce' or w/e

Yeah but that battle vs aliens in the city was freaking interrrrminabllllle. Liked the SHIELD helicarrier battles, tho.

i think i sort of snoozed off during that scene