Tag: Avengers

FX Artists Praises Marvel’s Avengers

 

Thor and Captain America in Marvel's The Avengers image courtesy USA Today

  Praise for The Avengers that should get fans excited! The FX artist with a resume full of Marvel superhero films says The Avengers is the best he’s worked on to date. Chris Wells is a supervisor at visual effects house Hydraulx and seen a rough cut of the film. His company is working on the prologue.

  “I went to a screening with all the temporary visual effects and it was pretty fleshed out. It’s a long movie but it doesn’t feel like it. Out of all the comic book movies and franchises I’ve worked on, this is the best one I’ve seen so far,” Wells tells Starburst Magazine. 

   “This thing has gone so big that Marvel are dwarfing their other franchises. For people who enjoy the comics and haven’t really liked the way some of the characters were treated in other movies, I think they’re going to be a little more appeased by this one. Especially the Hulk. They let the Hulk be Hulk and that’s great. He acts more like the comic book Hulk”.

Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner on sete in The Avengers courtesy Marvel.com

  “I think he [Joss Whedon, director] did a very good job of setting up the characters based on what we know from the Marvel franchise, integrating them together with all their differences and similarities and then getting on with business. And just when you think the movie is a character piece it just goes nuts.”

  Thanks to Dark Horizons for the story. I’m thrilled by his comments – especially the Hulk! The Avengers Assemble this May.

Avengers Movie Costumes

Avengers costumes from Disguise courtesy Marvel.com

  Why wait until Halloween you can be one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes this summer! New Avengers movie costumes from Disguise will debut to coincide with the May 4th premiere of Marvel’s The Avengers.

Iron Man, Thor and Captain America are pictured here. Here’s the Marvel.com link to see Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye and Nick Fury. You can even make mischief as Loki.

Avengers Secret Enemy Revealed in Game?

courtesy MTV Geek

  The biggest secret of Marvel’s The Avengers is Loki’s secret army. Executives deny the Skrulls are involved but speculation keeps growing. MTV Geek revealed new evidence that the reptilian shapeshifters may be in the big screen flick.

  A new strategy game at Toy Fair 2012 revealed your favorite Avengers and pink warriors that sure look like Skrulls. Here’s the link where you can see the board game including the pink warriors.

Secret Invasion #5 courtesy Marvel

  We’ll finally know the identity of Loki’s secret army May 4th. If you want a great read about the Skrulls  check out Secret Invasion, here’s the link to buy.

If you want to go way back then dive into the Kree-Skrull War when Earth is caught in the crossfire of Marvel’s two biggest alien empires.

Valentine’s Day – Great Comic Book Gifts of Love

 

courtesy Fantagraphics

Young Romance: The Best of Simon and Kirby’s Romance Comics The men who created Captain America also created the romance comics genre! Fantagraphics collects all the love, schemes, heartbreaks and makeups of the classic comics of a bygone era.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga A woman, two men that love her and the most powerful destructive force in the universe. The tragic heroine Jean Grey fighting a losing battle to control the darkness within her. Cyclops and Wolverine were the two men who’d take on the universe to save her. This is the ultimate X-Men story and one of the most cosmic love stories in comics.

Astonishing X-Men Omnibus This is must pick for two great love stories. Scott Summers and Emma Frost. The stoic leader of the X-Men slowly fell for the ice-cold bad girl turned ally. Kitty Pryde and Peter Rasputin. Not even death could keep them apart. Colossus came back from the dead and finally had sex with his beloved “Katya.” This is Joss Whedon’s romantic, thrilling and game changing X-Men era in one huge collection with stunning art by John Cassady.

New Avengers Annual #1

Jessica Jones and Luke Cage Marvel’s coolest couple is former hero Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Ex-superhero turned private investigator Jessica was introduced in the series Alias by Brian Michael Bendis. Former Hero for Hire Luke Cage was her love interest. When Bendis revamped the Avengers, Captain America recruited Luke and Jessica and their baby moved into Avengers HQ. The couple married in the beautiful New Avengers Annual #1. Luke has unbreakable skin but the tough guy went all soft and romantic for the troubled ex-heroine. AKA Jessica Jones based on Alias is in a television pilot stage and could become an ABC series. 

Rick Jones and Marlo Chandler this may be an odd choice but I love against all odds love stories. During Peter David’s classic run on The Incredible Hulk he eventually merged Bruce and the Hulk into one being. Rick was the Hulk’s sidekick. Marlo was the Hulk’s girlfriend in Las Vegas back when he was grey and a mob enforcer named Joe Fix-It. Marlo later became best friends with Betty Banner and fell in love with Rick. Not even death could keep them apart. After Marlo’s resurrection they couple were married in Incredible Hulk #418 in a sweet but hilarious cameo filled ceremony.

 

AVX The X-Men’s Wild Card

X-Men #190 courtesy Marvel

  Avengers Vs. X-Men is filled with characters who may switch sides due to conflicting alliances. Wolverine, Beast and Storm are on both teams but I believe they will stand with their fellow mutants. Is there a wild card on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?

  I would love to see Mystique play a role in AVX? The shapeshifting villain always has her own agenda and has a track record of infiltrating teams anyone – hero, villain, ally – to execute her goal.

  During Mike Carey’s spectacular X-Men run Mystique was part of Rogue’s team only to betray them in Blinded by the Light and became Mister Siniser’s operative in Messiah Complex. Raven ultimately betrayed Sinister because of her own plot within a plot to save her foster daugher. Never underestimate the lengths Raven will take to protect Rogue.

X-Men Annual #1 courtesy Marvel

  Cyclops may recruit Mystique to infiltrate the Avengers. During Messiah Complex Scott and Wolverine assembled an X-Force black ops squad to kill the Purifiers. Would Cyclops make a deal with this she-devil? Raven could use her shapeshifting powers to get inside the Avengers and give the X-Men an edge.

 

AVX Vs. #2 Slugfest

Vs. #2 courtesy Marvel

  Salvador Larroca is one of my favorite creators. The Spanish artist’s style has evolved over several X-Men titles, Invincible Iron Man and does any recall the short lived but beautiful New Universal?

 Marvel gave Comic Book Resources several AVX preview covers. This is one of my favorites. Spidey faced a Cyttorak powered foe before in the classic Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut. Looks like Peter Parker will have to fight Colossal Juggernaut now that the X-Man can summon the power of the Cyttorak.

  Captain America and Gambit are clashing on the cover too. It’s tough to root for one over the other: the boy scout against the bad boy. Gambit’s luck may have run out on this fight.

 AVX: VS. #2 is by Kieron Gillen with art by Larroca and Steve McNiven.

New Uncanny X-Men Built For AVX

Uncanny X-Men #12 courtesy Marvel.com

  The geek world shuddered when Marvel ditched Uncanny X-Men’s numbering and relaunched with a brand new one after the Schism event. If you’ve been reading Kieron Gillen’s new Uncanny you know why – it’s a very different book because of Cyclops’ mission – to create an Extinction team to maintain peace and protect mutants through a show of power. Captain America demonstrates his own show of force when he arrives on Utopia in Avengers Vs. X-Men #1.

 “I’ll be entirely candid here: my entire run has been conceived in order to build towards AvX. I knew that was coming, and I wanted to do everything I could to increase its importance for it. You get people saying how they hate their favorite books derailed for a crossover, and I wanted to avoid that. AvX is the logical endpoint of huge chunks of what I’m doing. I sort of call the process “Steering into a crossover.” I’ve done it with most of my Marvel work — in that if you know something enormous is on the horizon, your story best veer in its direction otherwise it ends up feeling false when you do a story which does tie in. If you’re writing a shared universe book, you want it to help the book rather than hurt it. ” Gillen told Comics Newsarama in their exclusive interview.

 

Uncanny X-Men #11 courtesy Marvel

  “So, yes, it’s no accident that final arc is a team-up to defeat a string of world-level threats. It’s about seeing them together one final time before it all goes bad. It’s also about delineating the fundamental difference between the two groups. And part of me is always trying to at assume some people are only reading my book. I even try to assume that people have only read my book ever, so may not even be aware who the Avengers are. In that case, if they’re going to go to war shortly, I want to introduce them into the narrative before it happens.”

 For Gillen’s entire interview here’s the Comics Newsarama link.

AvX Iron Fist & The Phoenix Force?

New Avengers #26 courtesy Marvel.com

 When you think Iron First you think of dragons but the martial arts master may have a connection to the fiery Phoenix too!

 Marvel gave Comics Newsarama this exclusive first look preview of New Avengers # 26. Iron Fist appears to be shielding Hope Summers (from Avengers who want to seize her?)

 This is a new piece of the Iron Fist/Phoenix puzzle. Here’s the link to see New Avengers #25 featuring Danny Rand bursting with a Phoenix energy signature.

 The preview includes this: “The secret history of the Phoenix is revealed in K’un Lun’s book of the dead Iron Fists. One of the most important chapters in the AVX story.”