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THE AVENGERS: Assembling a New Classic?

HIGH CONCEPT

After carefully setting them all up with their own movies, Marvel now brings all their dashing superguys together into the greatest superhero group of all time with Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk and, for good measure, the token woman Black Widow and the archer who’s never quite gotten out of the Marvel second tier, Hawkeye.

U.S. Release Date: May 4, 2012

For many comics readers, The Avengers heralds the time when Marvel truly became Marvel. Lee and Kirby were like two athletes in their prime — graceful and powerful at the same time, and they moved with precision and finesse. It was a combination whose impact has never been matched. The world has since split between Avengers fans and X-Men fans, with me leaning more to the former.

It’s been quite a thrill for me to have become friends with creator Stan Lee since moving to Hollywood. We met doing an NBC pilot together, Missing Link, nearly a decade ago and have stayed friends. He even signed my Avengers #1 issue, which I’ve scanned here.

If you click on the image to the right, you can enlarge that comicbook (one word, per Stan), and you will see the miles on it. I bought it because it looked so cool, and I read it over and over and over — probably 20 times.

At the neighborhood comicbook club, we used to debate who should be in an Avengers film if ever dreams did come true. Most of the actors we thought of back then are, shall we say, no longer fit for duty on this one. Still, we’re pretty happy with what we’ve ended up with.

We’ll be Smacking The Avengers (2012) against X-Men: First Class (2011), both group origin films. In the meantime, here’s the latest trailer from Marvel which makes the movie look pretty damn good. I’ve been waiting a long time to see this one…

httpvh://youtu.be/sZaoCL5Klb0

About Bryce Zabel 196 Articles
Drawing inspiration from career experiences as a CNN correspondent, TV Academy chairman, creator of five produced primetime network TV series, and fast-food frycook, Bryce is the Editor-in-Chief of "Movie Smackdown." While he freely admits to having written the screenplay for the reviewer-savaged "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation," he hopes the fact that he also won the Writers Guild award a couple of years ago will cause you to cut him some slack. That, plus the fact that he has a new StudioCanal produced feature film, “The Last Battle,” shooting this summer in Europe about the end of World War II. He's also a member of the Directors Guild, Screen Actors Guild, and a past enthusiast of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. His new what-if book series, “Breakpoint,” just won the prestigious Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and has so far tackled JFK not being assassinated and The Beatles staying together.
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