Geez, you go away on business for a couple of days and Marvel have the indecency to release a fully fledged teaser trailer for possibly the most anticipated comic book movie of all time; The Avengers. SO please watch the trailer and then join me after the jump for a Sidekick's view:

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This week’s column presented a challenge. When I decided to write the next three columns on the Avengers Big Three (Iron Man, Thor and Captain America), I hadn’t really factored in that they haven’t actually been played by as many actors as, say, Batman or Spider-Man. Until their recent movie adventures, the characters didn’t have the same level of popularity as their slightly more famous friends, and they just haven’t clocked up as many screen appearances.

Of course, all that changed with the release of the first Iron Man movie, but it’s only really been in the last few years that the general, non-comic reading public (or Flatscans. Maybe Muggles) have become aware of the Armoured Avenger, et al. This means fewer (though by no means a total shortage) animated or computer game outings in which actors can portray them, and a distinct lack of great Iron Man performances.

In fact, and I’m aware that this is a controversial statement that may well generate some backlash, for my money, while there have been several good Iron Men, there are only two performances who stand out as great. But let’s visit some of the good ones first...

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The latest Marvel Studios film, Captain America: The First Avenger, has been out in the UK now for just over a week. It’s doing quite well at the box office, and has had, for the most part, some pretty solid reviews. But among the film going fans, be they comic geeks or not, opinions seem to be a little divided. Not in an extreme manner, we’re not talking huge arguments between those who loved it and those who hated it. But whereas there seem to be widely agreed upon opinions on the previous films in the Avengers franchise, there appear to be two differing groups when it comes to Cap. You have those who loved it (which includes myself, who actually holds it up as the best Marvel Studios film to date), and those whose opinion is best described as “It was okay. I liked it, didn’t love it.”

Like I say, it’s not like there are any massive differences, but it did get me thinking. There’s no such thing as a universally held opinion. You’ll always find someone who disagrees with you. But a quick poll of the other Avengers films should yield the following results, generally speaking: Iron Man is awesome, and a great start to Marvel’s shared film universe. The Incredible Hulk is dumb, but fun. Iron Man 2 is hugely flawed, too much of a set up, yet also quite likeable. Thor is a spectacular blend of superheroes with epic fantasy and some Shakespeare thrown in for good measure.

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Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a 90lb weakling from Brooklyn who wants nothing more that to fight for his country in WW2. Unfortunately, he’s a 90lb weakling, which is not exactly a quality high on the list of your average Army recruiter. However, what he lacks in brawn, he more than makes up for in fight and spirit, which is what catches the eye of Emile Erskine (Stanley Tucci), an enigmatic German scientist with a Super-Soldier serum that should be right up Steve’s alley. It is a resounding success, but while Steve is put to work as a USO sideshow, selling war bonds and socking “Hitler” in the jaw up and down the Eastern seaboard, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) and his ultra-Nazi offshoot Hydra are harnessing the power of an ancient artefact with an aim to make Hitler’s plans for world domination look positively anaemic. A punch-up between the two seems more than inevitable.

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Well in honour of our current predicament with our beloved leaders getting their measuring sticks out I decided that this would be a suitable time to review some Marvel books.

Hmmm, what could I possibly review that could be of interest, oh yeah Civil War, or at least the books that the library has in stock.

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Another day, another tease from the comic book movie world, anyone would think there was some kind of mass media, movie/comic book event happening on the West Coast of the USA...

Shiny.

So here it is, your first look at the movie version of The Avengers. Underwhelmed? I know I am.

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Link: http://beta.news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-marvels-uncanny-x-men-ending-oct-070621654.html

Uncanny X-Men will end with issue #544 in October. That's it, that's all she wrote, no more Uncanny X-Men. WTF?!

This is all because of the fall out from Jason Aaron's Schism event, which has been described widely by Marvel folk and others as the X-Men's Civil War. Civil War was an event that ran in all the Marvel comics which split the universe straight down the middle based upon the inherent philosophical differences between Tony Stark (Iron Man)and Steve Rogers (Captain America) on how to deal/regulate with Superhumans and Superheroics. This Schism event seems to be based on a difference in opinion between Cyclops and Wolverine on how to move forward with Mutantkind, much like the Magneto/Xavier divide that came before this. What to do with a problem like Mutants eh?

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Link: http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=31051

In an interview with Empire magazine whilst at Cannes film festival, Stellan Skarsgard let slip that the now standard post-credit sequence in Thor was actually directed by upcoming Avengers director, Joss Whedon.

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Expectation seems to be everything with the new Thor movie. Whether it be the expectation of what has come before (Iron Man, Hulk) or what's next (Captain America or the Avengers Uber-movie). That being said, although Thor can be seen as bridging some gaps in the cannon continuity of the new Marvel-Film Universe(lets ignore Hulk for now), it comes alive by just being it's own thing.

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