black widow

We’re approaching that point in the ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ marketing campaign where it can start to feel like we’ve already seen every big stunt and setpiece in the film before the movie’s even opened. But the new ‘Avengers’ trailer reveals yet another amazingly cool beat that’s never been seen before: Chris Evans’ Captain America loses his shield in battle with James Spader’s Ultron, so Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow snatches it while trailing the fight on a motorcycle, then slides under a semi-truck Fast & Furious-style and tosses it up to Cap so he can continue the battle. Awesome awesome awesome. (Marvel’s going to try to use that as a pull-quote on the poster, aren’t they?)

Marvel has announced a new bi-monthly book called A-Force Presents that will collect issues of various Marvel comics featuring female heroes in trade paperback format. Rather than the traditional collection of a single storyline, these collections will be more of sampler of what's going on at Marvel at any given time. This is a great idea from Marvel, and a really exciting example of how the publisher is taking women seriously as an audience.

Though she was hinted at during Toy Soul late last year, Hot Toys officially revealed the Avengers: Age of Ultron Black Widow figure today. With a new 'do, uniform, weapons and more, Black Widow has never looked better. Well, except in her Captain America: The Winter Solider form, which had the exact same head sculpt.

From Wally West and Linda Park, to Harley Quinn and Mistah J, we're asking you to vote on comics' most famous couples so we can determine the best (and worst) romantic partnerships that comics have to offer. If you think the couple is star-crossed and meant to be, vote 'True Love.' If you think they've got unstable chemistry and can only end badly, vote 'Bad Romance.' In today's polls, we're looking at matched pairs. Hawkfolk. Acrobats. Size-shifting bug-themed heroes. When it comes to love, is it always opposites that attract, or is the secret to a lasting relationship the shared ability to breathe underwater? Fun fact: This is what Carrie Bradshaw would sound like if she lived in the Marvel or DC universe. Let's try another; If you want to build a future together, does it help to share a history of murdering people for the Russians?

If there was one takeaway from Toy Fair 2015, it's that you can never have too many Batman collectibles. So it's a good thing that Diamond Select is breaking out the big guns, and bringing a variety of Batman busts and collectibles based on the 1966 television series and the beloved animated series.

OMG you guys, Dum Dum Dugan is in this episode. Ahem. Also; 'The Iron Celing' is the fifth episode of Agent Carter, and quite comfortably the best, not just because of Dum Dum, but also because it changes the scenery, places Peggy on a real mission, fleshes out Chad Michael Murray's Agent Jack Thompson, and gives us a real taste of the breadth and color of this Marvel Universe. The only thing I didn't really like was the title, a too-cute hybridization of Iron Curtain and Glass Ceiling that doesn't ultimately capture what the episode was about. 'The Iron Ceiling' was directed by Peter Leto and written by Jose Molina. And Dum Dum Dugan was in it. Let's recap it, SSR-style.

Chris Evans and Chris Pratt have made a bet on the outcome of this weekend's Super Bowl that will see one of them show up at the other's choice of children's hospital or hospice in their Marvel superhero costume brandishing their rival's team colors. Either Captain America will carry the flag of Pratt's Seattle Seahawks, or Star-Lord will don the jersey of Evans's New England Patriots. We couldn't let this titanic tussle between two of Marvel's super-Chrisses pass by without a contest of our own, so we're pitting the worlds of Star-Lord and Captain America head-to-head in a series of polls that we call... the Superpoll. Round two currently sees honors divided between the two heroes, with Red Skull and Redford claiming victories for Cap, and Kitty Pryde and the 1980s bringing it home for Peter Quill, but you still have time to make a difference. Today we pit the two heroes' teammates head-to-head in five rounds of titanic tussling, using a special matching algorithm (not really) to determine the fairest fights (we picked the match-ups we thought were the most fun). Welcome to the Superpoll: Round III.

This week, we're talking about the Avengers, a team that you might've heard of thanks to a movie that made literally all the money in the entire world a few years ago. But while you might know all about Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, and, uh, Thor, they weren't the only characters to fill those suits. This week, we dust off a few obscurities to show you other heroes who had those famous identities, from the good (Bucky Barnes as Captain America) to the best-left-forgotten. That's right -- it's TEEN TONY, Y'ALL!

There was a lot to digest out of this week's major Marvel Event that saw the formal announcement of the eight films in Phase 3 including Black Panther and Captain Marvel spinoffs. But, with all these Avengers getting sequels and spinoffs, one has to wonder about two of the more popular characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe who are still left without their own films: Hulk and Black Widow. Despite the fact that audiences love both characters, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said that they have no current plans to give either character their own solo movie.

For anyone who remembers the days when just one Spider-Man movie seemed an impossible dream, the above infographic is an astonishing representation of how comic book superheroes now dominate popular entertainment. ComicsAlliance’s own graphics maestro Dylan Todd put together this timeline that reveals what the next six years of superhero movies look like, with some dates and titles still to be announced. The graphic will be updated as new information is released.