Most Important ‘Avengers’ Movie Poster Yet: Agent Coulson & Nick Fury

Paramount Pictures have dropped what's presumably the last of a series of "duet"-style "character" posters for this summer's The Avengers, this one featuring the true heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Nick Fury and Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. Played by Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg respectively, these characters have appeared in nearly every film in the cycle leading up to Avengers, and certainly deserve to shine in their own poster alongside Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Hawkeye.

Click on to see the full image.

Writing on Twitter, Gregg credited his vocal fans with prompting the creation of the Coulson (or Son of Coul, as he has been called). To them he wrote, "thanks ... and BOO-YA!"

In related news, Agent Coulson also appears in Marvel and Disney XD's Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, which debuted over the weekend. Soon the whole world will be Coulson. He is the new Deadpool.

The Avengers is much anticipated by superhero comics fans as well as the wide audience that the charming Marvel Studios productions have cultivated. However, some industry professionals like Golem's Mighty Swing cartoonist James Sturm have called for a boycott in protest of Marvel and its parent company Disney's treatment of the late Jack Kirby -- the legendary cartoonist who created many of the Avengers characters (and a great deal of others owned by the company) and his heirs, who recently lost a court battle to reclaim rights to the characters.

Directed by Joss Whedon, The Avengers is a first for nerd cinema in that it assembles the main players from a series of several Marvel films that began with 2008's Iron Man and continued with The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. Known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, all of these films were mostly pretty good to even great, performed very well in their own rights, and served collectively as a prelude to The Avengers. The film opens May 4.

[Via Spinoff Online]