SDCC 2013: Marvel Enters the Age of Ultron…and more

DC dropped their news bomb about the upcoming Superman/Batman movie and Marvel countered by revealing the title and villain of Avengers 2 and a bunch of other news and footage about their upcoming movies.  Here’s a rundown of what they revealed.

• Avengers 2 is officially now Avengers: Age of Ultron and Joss Whedon will be back to direct.  Age of Ultron is the most recent major crossover of the Marvel Universe but it’s not clear how they will translate it to the Cinematic Universe as half the characters featured are not available and it has insane plot points that would probably melt general audiences brains.  Hank Pym aka Ant Man and Vision are key characters of the story, so this may be where they are introduced on the big screen.

• The first footage for Guardians of the Galaxy was revealed by James Gunn and most of the cast.  They revealed that the villains are The Collector and various intergalactic bounty hunters.  The footage, according to reports, showed off the humor of the movie with a running joke about how only Star Lord calls himself Star Lord and everyone else has never heard of him and there was some action montages featuring all the Guardians.  Still no word about who will be voicing either Groot or Rocket Raccoon but they specifically avoided saying who Michael Rooker will be playing, so he could be either of those characters.  Also, no mention of Thanos but Dijmon Honsou, who plays Korath the Pursuer, said his character is a close associate of Thanos.

• First footage from X-Men: Days of Future past was revealed in the form of a trailer.  The movie will follow Wolverine who starts out in a horrific future and is sent back in time to the 70’s by Xavier and Magneto to try and prevent it from happening.  Wolverine will then interact with the First Class cast and try to help guide young Xavier and also stop  industrialist Trask launching his army of Sentinels.  Pretty much all the original X-Men cast and the First Class cast are in this sequel and new additions are Omar Sy as Bishop and Peter Dinklage as Trask.
• First Footage from Captain America: The Winter Soldier was revealed and apparently Cap is much more brutal and efficient after spending even more time in the modern world.  There was apparently a fight in an elevator between Cap, Crossbones and a couple of other goons where he takes them down Bourne style.  There was also a clip of Falcon flying that was apparently great and a brief glimpse of the Winter Soldier himself reaching down and picking up the battle damaged Cap shield from the ground.  The movie apparently feels like it could be the grittiest Marvel movie so far but sort of like how Graceland is the “grittiest” USA show, even though half the show is still people hanging out on the beach.

• They apparently showed the entire pilot of Agents of SHIELD to the assembled fans and it’s apparently very much tied into the Cinematic Universe with the movie constantly referenced.  They also revealed that Cobie Smulders will appear on the show as Maria Hill but not as a regular cast member.
• Amazing Spider-Man 2’s panel was pretty much all about Electro as they revealed how he is introduced in the movie and how he gets his electric powers.  He’s apparently a low level Oscorp employee who is saved by Spider-Man during a chase after the Rhino (who will only be in a few scenes in the beginning to set the tone).  While repairing some wiring, Max Dillion falls into a pit of electric eels and his DNA is changed and he becomes an electrical being who is “god like” according to director Marc Webb.  Oscorp is seemingly being sent up as the focal point for everything in this Amazing universe and there was also a scene of Harry talking to his father in an asylum saying, “You can’t hide anymore”.