The 1989 Avengers West Coast Annual featured an unusual short story by Mark Waid and then-newcomer Amanda Conner called "Rate The Hunks," in which Wasp and She-Hulk offered their expert assessment on the sex appeal of their male Avengers colleagues. Almost thirty years later, we've assembled our own experts to repeat the exercise, with an updated twist.
You see the release date in the image there: May 6, 2016. Marvel Phase Three kicks off exactly one year from yesterday with the release of Captain America: Civil War. With the clock ticking, and the Avengers: Age of Ultron publicity tour finally winding down, it’s time to get to shooting Cap 3. Marvel announced today that production has officially begun on next summer’s massive sequel, and they also revealed four more big additions to the cast.
The superheroes at the center of Avengers: Age of Ultron resonate so strongly with so many people because they’re so deeply entrenched in popular culture. Captain America, Iron Man and the Hulk were around for years before Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo were even born. These aren’t just characters – they’re icons. And while serious comic book nerds know how much Earth’s mightiest heroes have changed with the times, taking a look back at what the likes of Black Widow and Hawkeye and the Vision used to look like is both entertaining and (dare we say it?) educational.
There’s a lot to like about Avengers: Age of Ultron, but the coolest thing about it is the way it reclaims the comic book part of the phrase “comic-book movie.” Rather than using these characters to do something “edgy” or “adult” or “important,” or sanding down their quirkier edges to appeal to as broad and mainstream an audience as possible, Age of Ultron doubles down on its source material’s geeky origins.