One Month Until The Avengers

At midnight last night I noted that it was the first or April. Since April Fool's Day is considered a "holiday" by some, I decided to work on the "Storyteller" achievement in Batman: Arkham City which involves having "12 murderous dates with Calendar Man." Much like the Jeph Loeb Batman story arc titled "The Long Halloween," which if you haven't read you absolutely must, this simply involves meeting with the murderous Calendar Man in his cell in the Solomon Wayne Courthouse on every major holiday.

When I woke up this morning, however, and it was still the first of April another comic book realization appeared to me: Marvel's The Avengers comes out in one month, on Friday, May 4, 2012. It is finally here. And this is surprising because nearly every Joss Whedon project since the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel years has either been shot down before production (Ripper, Suspension, Afterlife, Wonder Woman), prematurely cancelled (Firefly, Dollhouse), or delayed for way too long (Cabin in the Woods). While I'll believe that Whedon's The Avengers exists only when I see the credits rolling (and then wait for way too long to see what's after the credits), it does actually seem like this movie is going to happen.

I ought to also mention that a lot has happened since I last posted on The Avengers. There have been two really fantastic trailers, one that aired during the Super Bowl and another that aired more recently, that blew the original trailer so far out of the water that Namor the Submariner could not reach it even with his most powerful foot-wing assisted dolphin jump.



Some people have suggested that the creatures that appear at about the thirty second mark in this trailer are Skrulls. I seriously doubt that this is true. Loki would be more likely to summon creatures from the nine realms to his side, which means that these are much more likely to be orcs or dark elves. Furthermore, I think that the line at the end of the trailer (Loki: "I have an army." Tony: "We have a Hulk.") may be the coolest line in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. Finally, it is worth noting that this is the first Marvel film to use motion capture for The Hulk. I believe that my friend Elliot said it best: "That's all Ruffalo."



The creature at end of the trailer was referred to by my friend Elliot as "leviathan" and by my friend Chad as some sort of monstrous metal ship, but I felt that it was more likely that this beast was Jormungand, also known as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent. You know, the one that is foretold to kill Thor when Ragnarok comes.

That's all I have about the upcoming The Avengers movie. I know it's not as exciting as much of the false news spreading today on the web, and it's certainly not as exciting as the rumors last April Fool's Day that Justin Bieber was going to be in Expendables 2 (I WANT TO BELIEVE), but the thing about these trailers for The Avengers that I think is the most pleasing is that they are real and, no matter how many raptures are forecast between now and then, The Avengers is certainly going to come out on May 4 of this year.