Dammit, Hydra.
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) October 22, 2014
So, thanks to Hydra, we have the much-anticipated first-look at Avengers: Age of Ultron. There were lots of savory images, the usual apocalyptic destruction associated with the superhero stories, and a solid first impression made by the mechanical villain, Ultron (voiced by James Spader — or as Stargate fankids know him: Dr. Daniel Jackson, from the original film).
But what really got my attention was the not-so-veiled presentation of Tony Stark as persona non grata, realized in full as he (in his Hulk-buster armour) and the Green Goliath bring new meaning to the term “bash brothers”.
This trailer appears to confirm what is already upgraded from speculation to expectation: that MARVEL Civil War is the next big event in the offing [Source: Variety].
What is interesting about these few seconds of the trailer is that they are almost an exact representation of the battle between Iron Man and Hulk in Manhattan from the epochal ‘World War Hulk’ storyline — which technically takes place after Civil War in the comic book continuity. But this is the cinematic universe so expect (understandable) differences in continuity execution.
The point is, this battle could be setting up one of two threads:
1) Hulk and Iron Man turn on each other, destroy lots of major city, and Hulk ends up catapulted to Planet Hulk for his own film entirely apart from Civil War.
The problem is that Hulk hasn’t done very well at the box office by himself, and may need more development than just two Avengers films (The Incredible Hulk doesn’t count for much given that they recast the character afterwards.) So possibly we have…
2) Hulk and Iron Man have a bit of a skirmish — enough to hurt some innocent by-standers (a la Hulk’s rampage through Las Vegas just before Civil War breaks out in the comics).
At complete odds, Hulk is set-up as one of Cap’s primary supporters in Civil War (with Nick Fury), opposite Ant-Man (aside: that stand-alone film now makes a lot more sense in terms of a Civil War set-up piece) and (hopefully) Spider-Man. Bruce and Hank are both genius-level scientists, and Ant-Man is one of the few heroes that can contend with Hulk effectively, so that makes for an interesting pair-up.
What makes this scenario kinda neat-o is that it could be executed in such a way as to have Hulk go berserk against Iron Man and/or Ant-Man, level a major part of a NYC still reeling from the battle in The Avengers, thus giving the pro-registration side leverage for exiling the Jade Giant to outer space.
(At this point Ruffalo’s Hulk may have enough character development for Disney to be confident in some solo offerings. A stand-alone film would probably be something that would slot into their development of the Infinity Gauntlet story arc for Avengers 3 — which is also what Thor will be doing, and thus the reason he will not be in Civil War; he wasn’t in the original comic book arc either.
This would leave Cap down a major ally, at which point the Web Head might be having crisis of conscience issues over the handling of the pro-reg’s (unilateral?) handling of Hulk…
Marvelous times.
See the gallery below for more Avengers 2 trailer images! [Source: SuperHeroHype]
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