Avengers 2: What Can We Expect From A Billion Dollar Movie's Sequel?

Some spoilers follow:

        

      As everyone whose seen The Avengers and had the good sense to stay a while longer after the initial credits should know, Thanos will be the next villain in the film franchise. Thanos was an alien called The Mad Titan in the comics and sought the destructive power of a mystical device called the Infinity Gauntlet, a weapon briefly seen in the Asgardian weapons chamber in Thor. We will most likely see his power-hungry quest for the Gauntlet as the Avengers try to stop him. Along with Thanos comes the rest of the Shitari, the aliens from the first film, which hints at yet another alien invasion.

     The Ant-Man film has been officially announced and is currently in pre-production. Its expected release is before the Avengers sequel. This assumes the Ant-Man film will introduce its title hero: Hank Pym along with his wife Janet Pym, the Wasp (two of the original team members from the comics). If the movie is a hit there is no doubt the two characters will be integrated into Avengers 2 to join the original cast of heroes and possibly more additions.

     The three main heroes of the Avengers are announced to have sequels of their own and are already in production of some of them. These movies, however, are not meant to continue from the Avengers directly. Each film’s storyline does take place shortly after the events of the Avengers, but will focus solely on the individual hero. This will give a chance for the creators and writers to explore the heroes outside of the team-up atmosphere and frees the films from having continuity between them, something that was needed in their first films.

      In an alternate ending to the first film, viewable in the special features, shows us Maria Hill meeting the council on her own. The scene suggests she has taken the role of acting head of SHIELD away from Nick Fury (a story choice made in recent comics). Seeing as how Hill was not too fond of the Avengers Initiative in the first place, who knows how this change of management with SHIELD will affect their relation with the team in the sequel.

Avengers Assembled! Now What?

      I am very proud to say that The Avengers lived up to its name. The characters, the confrontations, the climaxes, all spectacular and exceeding previous expectations. Originally, before viewing the film, my biggest concern was the combination of so many big names. Four out of the six main heroes had their own movie titles, so creating a story that involves them, a large cast of supporting characters and, to top it all off, a villain, I feared the movie would feel too rushed and would cheat some characters out of their deserved spotlight. But director Joss Whedon did it correctly and each hero had their fair share of amazing moments. Now that The Avengers is being called “one of the greatest superhero films of all time” and “the best Marvel movie of all time” and being a film that has just shattered box office records, where do earth’s mightiest heroes go from here?

      This is where, if you haven’t seen the movie, you should probably stop reading (then again, about 500 million people or more have seen the film by now so odds are, you’re probably good to keep reading). But some spoilers do follow.

We're Almost There...

     This has never been done before. I mean this is something different, we have never seen anything like this. Since the release of the first Ironman film in 2008, the geniuses at Marvel studios had been cooking up quite a plan, a plan to join Ironman with the other heroes of the Marvel Universe. After Tony’s first meeting with Nick Fury after the credits of Ironman, every Marvel film afterwards was set in the same world and geared with the same theme, the creation and evolution of “The Avengers Initiative”. Four years in the making, five different films, “earth’s greatest heroes” and we are just two weeks away from superhero history.

     It all began with the birth of Ironman in 2008. After performing several heroic stunts and attracting the media, Tony is approached by Agent Colson, of the Strategic Homeland Interven- you know what I mean. After revealing himself to be the ironclad hero in front of the whole world, Tony is paid a quick visit by the director of SHIELD himself, Nick Fury (who first mentions the Avengers). Later that year The Incredible Hulk was released, which was originally thought to be a sequel to the movie in 2003, but of coarse it wasn’t. The only references made to the Avengers in this film was the use of a serum, resembling the super-solider serum (which Captain America would use later in the Marvel films) and the appearance of Tony Stark, SHIELD’s newest consultant (the events of this Hulk movie were later revealed to have taken place after the events of Ironman 2).

It Ain't Easy Being Green

     

     The Hulk is something else. It is safe to say that there is no other character like him in the entire Marvel Universe. He is difficult to define in the sense that he isn’t a villain, but he can’t be classified as a hero due to all the lives he’s destroyed. Whether it was due to the people he’s injured on his rampages or the money he’s cost them in property damage. But whether he has been defined as a villain, a hero or a monster, people still seem to enjoy him in comics, although I must admit that the Hulk has struggled over the years to become a fan favorite. What was an original and interesting idea when Stan Lee first created him has now “dried up” and doesn’t seem all too interesting anymore.

     In the early 1960’s, the Hulk’s debut comic hit the newsstands and was unlike anything anyone had ever read before. The Hulk wasn’t an alien sent to Earth from another planet, or an orphan whose parents were gunned down in front of him and a radioactive spider didn’t bite him. The Hulk was a gamma radiation scientist named Bruce Banner (the name varied between Bruce and David Banner). During an experiment involving gamma radiation, Banner is caught in a massive blast and the radiation infects him causing him to transform into a horrible monster whenever he feels anger or frustration. The story seems descent enough, and in the few years after the premiere of his first issue, the Hulk was a huge success. His famousness really skyrocketed when he became a member of the Avengers, and he became one of the elite “heroes” of the Marvel Universe. The Hulk had huge success when a television series, starring Bill Bixby as Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk, aired. He was the perfect character for a television series in the 70’s, with a low need for special effects, making it easy to fake his super-strength (just by recreating heavy objects using light materials). The show was very well liked by fans along with an animated Hulk series that aired shortly after the end of the Bixby/ Ferrigno series. This animated series was a good animated adaptation of the Hulk from the comics.