The Avengers 2! The Official News and Speculation Thread

[KangConquers]

I wouldn't mind if it was a co-creation. It spreads the blame more evenly than just "Crucify Hank Pym". Ultron should still be based on Pym's brain waves though.

[Chewy]

Hank Pym's Big Bad Mistake is what separates him from other superheroes, and his personality flaws are what make him a memorable character. Don't want the blame spread, the blame makes him who he is.

Plus, without it he's just another genius white guy

[jaqua99]

Originally Posted by chewy

hank pym's big bad mistake is what separates him from other superheroes, and his personality flaws are what make him a memorable character. Don't want the blame spread, the blame makes him who he is.

Plus, without it he's just another genius white guy

exactly. That is why I got so excited about an ant-man movie. Because with ant-man, seriously comes Ultron. It's inevitable, so as far as I figured, if an Ant-man movie gets the go, we will get Ultron in an avengers movie.

[Gary Griffith]

Hi everybody. Forum virgin here! Please be gentle with me

Although I love the Ultron stories I don"t see how that accomplishes Joss' goal for making a smaller, more personal (paraphrasing here) sequel. The Ultron stories always seemed epic to me and the characters who have the most personal stake - Hank Pym, Wasp, Vision, Wonder Man, Grim Reaper - are not in the picture (pun intended) at the moment. Cap, Thor, Banner/Hulk, Hawkeye and Widow have no personal stake here, apart from fighting Ultron. I suppose with Stark you could involve him more with a "technology gone wild" sort of vibe, but that's as personal as it would get. And I'd hate to see A2 become a Hank Pym-centric film. That would be dreadful

[Gary Griffith]

Personally I'd like to see the team split into 3 smaller groups and sent off on different "assignments", with no knowledge that Thanos is actually behind all the shenanigans. Using the comics "Red Zone"story arc as a template, one group could be sent to Wakanda to investigate some crisis (it's Mt. Rushmore in the comic), while a second group discovers the culprit to be the Red Skull. A third could be sent to check out an alien anomaly in the desert (Hulk territory) backed by SHIELD/SWORD fighter jets, one piloted by Carol Danvers. Carol could be abducted by the alien thingie and disappear from the film until the finale when she returns as Warbird. Yeah I'd use that moniker over the Capt./Ms. Marvel names. Just seems cheesy to have a character named Marvel in a Marvel movie. Be like Paramount Pictures releasing a superhero called Dr. Paramount1

By breaking the characters down into groups there would be more oppurtunity for character interaction/development and it wouldn't skimp on action or storylines. Plus, in the above scenario, you reference Thanos, bring back the Red Skull and Hydra or AIM (one of them is behind the Wakanda crisis) and introduce Black Panther and Warbird/Ms. Marvel (leaving her abduction a bit of a mystery for a later film).

I don't know. Just spitballing here for fun. Of course we all know how Joss checks out this site for story ideas, so who knows! Lol

[KangConquers]

That's another good reason to have Stark (and maybe Banner) involved in creating Ultron...so that the film won't hinge entirely on a new Avenger.

[Chewy]

Well Ultron can control other machines remotely, so you have him overthrow SHIELD from within. Maybe an early scene can feature him crashing the Helicarrier into a crowded area. Suddenly Cap, Hawkeye and Widow are very emotionally involved in stopping him.

And there are other ways to give Hulk and Thor high levels of interest in the film's goings-on.

[Chewy]

Originally Posted by KangConquers

That's another good reason to have Stark (and maybe Banner) involved in creating Ultron...so that the film won't hinge entirely on a new Avenger.

I think that's a short-sighted way of looking at it. Does the first film hinge entirely on Thor? He's the only with any sort of emotional investment in the film's villain at the onset.

You force the other characters to care, or more precisely the villain does. A good "in" would be to have Hank Pym, as a character, look up to the Avengers as his idols, what he strives to be. And his "son" wants to be the apple of his eye. So not only does he view humanity as a threat to its own well being, he sees the Avengers as a threat to his "father's" peace of mind.

There are a lot of ways to approach it without shoehorning the leads into the villain's creation.

[Gary Griffith]

That's true, but the thing that makes Ultron unique is the relationship with Pym and the Vision. Without that he's just an extremely powerful crazy robot causing havoc. The rest of the team would still have no more personal stake in the proceedings than if any mega-villain crashed the helicarrier, which just kind of happened in the first film. I'm just going by Joss saying he wanted to make the sequel smaller and more personal. That might have changed, but that's what I was referencing.

[spideymouse]

Originally Posted by Chewy

Well Ultron can control other machines remotely, so you have him overthrow SHIELD from within. Maybe an early scene can feature him crashing the Helicarrier into a crowded area. Suddenly Cap, Hawkeye and Widow are very emotionally involved in stopping him.

And there are other ways to give Hulk and Thor high levels of interest in the film's goings-on.

I'm just imagining Nick Fury talking with the World Security Council and all of a sudden Ultron shows up on every screen as he takes over SHIELD, authorizing attacks on several major cities, blar-de-blar... That'd be pretty cool.

You know, now that I think about it, Stark did have J.A.R.V.I.S. hack SHIELD's secrets and take over operations of the Helicarrier, in which Hawkeye then did plant a virus... I guess people have made a good point about the possibility of Jarvis becoming Ultron--all the components are already there. Plus, Paul Bettany as an Avengers villain? ...AND Vision? Awesome!

...that said, I still don't like the idea of Stark creating Ultron and therefore cutting out one of Pym's. Maybe if Pym was the one who created the J.A.R.V.I.S. program? That has been suggested as well.

[BatsDC]

Ultron should take over everything. SHIELD bases, Hydra, Aim... All of Stark's past armours (somehow cut the current one off from Ultron), electricity, power around the globe, nuclear missiles... Ultron should take everything from the heroes, and the people. They'd be stripped of all SHIELD's tech, and it would be an emotional trial to literally save the planet from Ultron destroying all life using nuclear missiles, or something of the sort.

[terry78]

So he's basically bombing them back to the Stone Age in a sense.

[I'm Venom]

Originally Posted by KangConquers

That's another good reason to have Stark (and maybe Banner) involved in creating Ultron...so that the film won't hinge entirely on a new Avenger.

That's assuming they use him at all. Personally, I'd be fine if they didn't. With Thanos set up, my guess is that the movie will revolve around him.

[steintym]

Originally Posted by marcvader

I'd be irate if they made Stark responsible for Ultron's creation too. I hate when studio's change **** like that.

I agree, I wouldn't want to see that, but it wouldn't surprise me. As Chewy pointed out, it probably doesn't matter since the Ant-Man movie is a go.

[cherokeesam]

Originally Posted by BatsDC

Ultron should take over everything. SHIELD bases, Hydra, Aim... All of Stark's past armours (somehow cut the current one off from Ultron), electricity, power around the globe, nuclear missiles... Ultron should take everything from the heroes, and the people. They'd be stripped of all SHIELD's tech, and it would be an emotional trial to literally save the planet from Ultron destroying all life using nuclear missiles, or something of the sort.

That's a great idea, but it definitely puts a huge handicap on tech-based heroes in the battle. In particular, Iron Man, who's virtually useless against an Ultron who can play with him like a ragdoll. Not sure that general audiences would be too keen to pay to see Iron Man on the sidelines.

[cherokeesam]

I thought this article was interesting....basically confirming that Avengers Tower will appear in Avengers 2:

http://www.irealtytimes.com/articles...man-marvel.htm

[BatsDC]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

That's a great idea, but it definitely puts a huge handicap on tech-based heroes in the battle. In particular, Iron Man, who's virtually useless against an Ultron who can play with him like a ragdoll. Not sure that general audiences would be too keen to pay to see Iron Man on the sidelines.

Unless they somehow wrirte in that Ultron can't control Extremis and Stark uses that. There'd have to be some tweaking, but I'm sure Joss could make it work.

+ Yay, Avengers tower. Hope that's the base of operations this time around, Avengers should be moving away from SHIELD.

[cherokeesam]

Originally Posted by BatsDC

Unless they somehow wrirte in that Ultron can't control Extremis and Stark uses that. There'd have to be some tweaking, but I'm sure Joss could make it work.

+ Yay, Avengers tower. Hope that's the base of operations this time around, Avengers should be moving away from SHIELD.

Even with Extremis, Ultron should still be able to control the nanotech. All Extremis is is very, very tiny bots, so if Ultron can manipulate any network, he can certainly manipulate Extremis, too.

The irony is that Ultron WOULDN'T be able to affect/control comic-book Iron Man; but MCU Iron Man is controlled by JARVIS. So....yeah. Computers suck.

[catintheengine]

Hey Gary Griffith, welcome to the forums!

I have to say that I think Ultron could work well to make A2 "smaller and more personal" - more so than Thanos anyway. I have no problem with them saving Thanos for the third film because, frankly, it's hard to top him. While Thanos might be cunning, I don't see him having the same sort of cerebral story I could see them doing with Ultron.

When I think of Ultron I think of something like Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey - only given a humanoid form. I think Joss Whedon is quite capable of making this a character who manages to get into peoples' heads and toys with their emotions, playing them off of one another. He has the potential to be a very threatening character in that way and, assuming he is defeated in the end, it could still split the team at the end of the second film only to have the end up coming back together in the third to face Thanos.

Sort of a twist on the Avengers: Disassembled idea, while keeping with what Joss said about making the story smaller and more personal. As I've said in the past, this really needs to be an Empire Strikes Back sort of movie where, even if the villain is defeated, the ending has to have a down-note at the end to set-up for the triumph of the third. By that I mean: Even if they beat Ultron in the second, the damage has been done - nobody trusts each other anymore - and they end up disbanding. That sets it up nicely for the third movie where the monumental threat of Thanos is enough to pull them back together and they re-team to face him.

That's all just my opinion though.

[Son of Coul]

Considering Avengers Tower now being a factor as well as the Avengers breaking away from SHIELD, how much of a presence do you think we'll see/you'd like to see in the sequel? We know Cap is sticking with them for now, but can we expect Fury to rally up the troops again as opposed to them coming together on their own terms?

[I'm Venom]

If you want to introduce Ultron, the continuity already contains one "genius" who's inventions routinely fail in spectacularly dangerous ways: Justin Hammer. You got to figure if that guy ever tried to replicate Jarvis, he's pretty much guaranteed to end up with Ultron. I'd love to see Rockwell in a sequel. Supposedly, he's not in Iron Man 3.

"I just need to upgrade the AI a little so I don't have to... Oops."

[terry78]

Originally Posted by Son of Coul

Considering Avengers Tower now being a factor as well as the Avengers breaking away from SHIELD, how much of a presence do you think we'll see/you'd like to see in the sequel? We know Cap is sticking with them for now, but can we expect Fury to rally up the troops again as opposed to them coming together on their own terms?

It's already been established the main four aren't that fond of Fury, but Hawkeye and Widow are under his thumb being technical agents. They may choose to breakaway if they feel he's getting too crazy.

[Lorus]

I think that the audience were intended to see the Avengers as autonomous for SHIELD at the end of the film, hence them all assembling independently and taking the quinjet without permission. Considering that the purpose of Black Widow's arc is to have her step out from the shadow of the agendas of others, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the whole team would unite in the face of danger regardless of SHIELD.

If they were to be involved, I imagine it'll be similar to the 616 comics where they offer intel and resources but don't take any control or introduce the threat to the team.

[Son of Coul]

^That's what I'm hoping for.

[cherokeesam]

I think we'll start to see in Avengers 2 the first cracks of the great divide that became full-blown Civil War. You'll probably start to see one side of the team start gravitating towards the idea of becoming a legal, chartered authority, while the other side wants to remain autonomous.

I just find it hilariously ironic, intentionally or no, that Cap may well become the PRO-reg leader in the MCU (given that he's rumored to go full-on SHIELD agent in CA:TWS), while Tony becomes the eternal rebel and leader of the ANTI-reg side (given his complete mistrust and dislike of Fury and SHIELD, as well as the US guvmint in general).