The Avengers 2012

If Battleships degenerated from a serious imaginative sci fi  into comic nook then the first of what I believe will be new series called The Avengers 2012 brought together a number of Marvel Comic book characters into one unit and a film defending earth against Alien attack. It also was a film where the need was to build a communication and travel portal between worlds. The film was also was well starred.

 

In no particular order Chris Evans plays Captain American, the all American hero who was a super fighter experiment during World War II and bravely saves the free world from Nazi domination. He dies but is found in a state where he can be resuscitated  and brought back to the   present time in hospital room designed for the 1940’s so his new reality is not such a shock. A new film featuring him alone is scheduled for 2014.    

 

Mark Ruffalo plays the Incredible Hulk the Dr who when raged explodes into an uncontrollable violent huge green man. Although the film was released in 2006, another film is not planned until 2016. 

 

Robert Downey Jnr plays Iron Man the billionaire playboy who has a suit which makes him invincible and in which he can fly. There have been two Iron man films although HE also appeared briefly in Hulk and Iron man 3 is due in a couple of months. 

 

Chris Hemsworth is Thor a complex film directed by Kenneth Branagh and with a stellar cast about the good brother and the bad adopted brother and intergalactic rivalry and conflict which spreads through a portal to earth. The avenger’s story concerns the arrival of the baddie back on earth to pave the way for the alien horde that in turn will help the baddie to displace his brother and gain his kingdom.  A sequel to Thor is also planned for this autumn called Thor, The Dark World.  

 

Scarlett Johanson is the Black Widow a martial art fighter and spy from SHIELD a comic book and a TV series and stars alone with Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye also of SHIELD who is a specialist marksman.  Samuel L Jackson is the Director of SHIELD who has secretly been developing a device provided via Thor which is  an energy source of unlimited potential intended for peaceful purposes  its military potential is also being explored and  whose activities has aroused he attention of other worlds.   

 

Tom Hiddleston plays Loki the adopted brother who says he will recover the device and this will enable the aggressive race, the Chitauri  who in exchange will provide the army enabling Loki to become Master of the earth world.  He has a personal device which renders those he touches his slaves and he is able to gain the device from Jackson plus some of his key people to develop into a state where using the tremendous available power communications unit at the top the Iron Man building and which is independent of main grid and cannot be shut down he will be able to create a portal for the Chitauri army to come to earth. Faced with this emergency Jackson sets of in a battleship which converts to a space control centre from which brings together the members of what he hopes will be a balanced and skilled fighting unit to save the world- the Avengers. His plan is opposed by the World Security Council one of whose members is Jenny Agutter   Gwyneth  Paltrow also has a role.   

 

Loki  is captured and taken to a special security unit on board the control centre but they do not know what he is upto. His brother arrives to try and help concerned that SHIELD had developed the technology for military purposes and that it was now in the hands of people enslaved by Loki.   There are strong differences of view about the best way to try and find the device as welll as concern about its potential use and while this is going on, agents of Loki take the initiative and attack the control centre and free their leader. Thor appears to have his power removed after losing a fight with Loki and Hulk finds himself separated from the others.  

 

Too late it is realised that the device has been taken to Iron Man tower and is being used to open a portal with the enemy. While everyone begins to organise themselves into a superhero fighting unit which the SHIELD director hoped for the odds appear against them as the enemy arrives in various craft especially a huge caterpillar  mobile weapon.       

 

There is a prolonged battle in which the skills of the individual are all of great use in the race to close the portal before the main force mother ship is able to descend to earth. They is an also in race to avoid the area of New York being nuked on the orders of the Security Council. It is at this point that Iron man comes to the fore in that he directs the nuke through the portal to the enemy homeland and amazingly is able to escape before the portal closes behind the exploding rocket bomb. The impact disables and destroys the rest of the enemy force and Thor takes Loki and the device back to their home planet for safe keeping.  The team has carried out their first mission and go off for R and R  and to prepare for their next adventure.