The Week in Spandex – Captain America, Thor, X-Men: First Class and more

Presenting our weekly round-up of the biggest news stories from the world of movie superheroes…

The Super Bowl took place this past Sunday, which meant of course that the big Hollywood studios were looking to capitalise on a huge US television audience by forking out obscene amounts of cash to promote their upcoming blockbusters [see a selection of the best TV spots here]. Sure enough there was a strong superhero presence, or rather a strong Marvel presence, as the company took the opportunity to plug their Marvel Cinematic Universe Class of ’11 in the shape of Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. Strangely, Fox decided against booking ad time for X-Men: First Class, which made even less sense when it received a full scale trailer later in the week (more on that later), while I’m presuming Warner Bros. are relying on Green Lantern’s international celebrity to sell the upcoming DC adaptation with Ryan Reynolds.

Sunday gave us our first look at footage from Joe Johnston’s upcoming Captain America featuring Chris Evans as super soldier Steve Rogers and you know what? It looks great! Everything from the briefest of glimpses at the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) to Evans’ transformation from frail G.I. to beefneck Nazi-basher left me dying to see more. I’m really intrigued by the World War II setting, which if done right could really offer something different to the usual superhero flick, not to mention an abundance of super-evil baddies for Cap to batter. It also looks like it will fit right into the established universe of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, and the inclusion of Howard Stark could set up some nice possibilities for Evans and Robert Downey Jr. when Joss Whedon unleashes Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in 2012.

Obviously it’s difficult to gauge how something will come together from a quick 30-second peak (although ComicBookMovie give it a pretty good shot), but my only real gripe would be the wasted opportunity on the Red Skull reveal, which could have made for an excellent end to the first full-length trailer. So far so good for The First Avenger, which I thought was the best Super Bowl ad by far. The film is set for release in July, and also features Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), Toby Jones (Arnim Zola), Dominic Cooper (Howard Stark), Neal McDonough (Dum Dum Dugan), Stanley Tucci (Dr. Abraham Erskine), Tommy Lee Jones (Col. Chester Phillips), Richard Armitage (Heinz Kruger) and Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury). Meanwhile Latino Review report that Captain America screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus have already been hired to pen a sequel that will shift the action to present day and take place after The Avengers.

Now, we’d already been exposed to a trailer for Kenneth Branagh’s Thor back in December (and, if you were fast enough to catch it, the extended preview from Comic-Con which briefly came online back in July), so the Super Bowl spot didn’t really offer much new. It would have been nice to have had a glimpse of Loki (Tom Hiddleston), but instead the powers-that-be opted to focus on Thor (Chris Hemsworth), which I suppose is fair enough given that it’s the Mighty one's name in the title. Nevertheless, it was an exciting preview crammed full of Norse God action, and I’m hoping the movie will follow suit. Thor hits cinemas in April (UK) and May (USA), with Natalie Portman (Jane Foster), Anthony Hopkins (Odin), Jaimie Alexander (Sif), Colm Feore (Ymir), Stellan Skarsgård (Professor Andrews), Joshua Dallas (Fandral), Ray Stevenson (Volstagg), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Rene Russo (Frigga), Kat Dennings (Darcy), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) and Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) appearing alongside Hemsworth and Hiddleston.

In other Avengers-themed, The Hollywood Reporter suggests that screenwriter-turned-director Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight) has met with Marvel executives about stepping into the departing Jon Favreau’s shoes on Iron Man 3. Black is already familiar with Robert Downey Jr. from their work together on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but according to the report he’s just one of a number of directors under consideration. With Iron Man 3 set to arrive in 2013, you'd imagine the studio will be keen to get someone in place asap so expect an announcement in the very near future. Elsewhere the buzz about Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother) joining The Avengers as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill continued to pick up steam as Heat Vision announced that she was in final negotiations, while this week brought new rumours that Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck) could be in the running for Carol Danvers (a.k.a. Ms. Marvel), although given it originated from fan site Strahotski it should probably be taken with a pinch of salt.

Turning now to what was perhaps the biggest superhero story of the week – the first trailer from Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class, which almost caused an international Facebook incident after Fox teased the release on Wednesday before making fans wait… and wait… and wait… and you get the idea. Anyway, Fox eventually got their act together and delivered a pretty solid first offering, giving us a good look at most of the main players including Xavier (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Emma Frost (January Jones), Havoc (Lucas Till), Azazel (Jason Flemying), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne), Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), Darwin (Edi Gathegi) and Angel Salvadore (Zoë Kravitz) and throwing some impressive snippets our way (see Magneto raising a Russian sub out of the water and Beast flying around in a Blackbird, for a start).

I’d been pretty under whelmed by the weak character reveal that popped up a few weeks back so I was anxiously awaiting the trailer and hoping it would reignite my enthusiasm. I think it pretty much succeeded; there’s the potential for a great story with the tense 60s setting and the threat of nuclear conflict, and it certainly looks as if there’s going to be some epic action. However I’m still not 100% sold on McAvoy as Xavier (the whole “sex pest” description from an interview earlier this week did little to persuade me otherwise) and the continuity is going to take a right hammering. Good job X-Men Origins: Wolverine already put paid to that, while Darren Aronofsky’s The Wolverine is likely to push things even further out of sync. Nevertheless, based on the impressions from the trailer it looks like First Class could be a return to form for the X-Men franchise.

While this week’s top stories were dominated by Marvel characters, Warner Bros. weren’t completely out of the headlines as the casting rumours on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises started to get a little bit silly. Joseph Gordon-Levitt - who was revealed to be in talks to join Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy and company a couple of weeks back - has been linked to everyone from The Riddler to Professor Hugo Strange, and now just to get completely out of hand reports were linking him with the Boy Wonder himself, Robin. Now I highly doubt there’s any truth to that, or at least I hope there isn’t, because we all remember the last time Warner tried their hand at bringing Dick Grayson to the screen (look, if you absolutely, positively have to have Robin in a Batman film then make him a kid for Christ’s sake, not some fully grown guy pushing thirty). Thankfully, by yesterday talk had shifted to the character of Alberto Falcone, which would make a hell of a lot more sense.

Finally, to help get the thought of a Joseph Gordon-Levitt Robin out of your head, Superman: Man of Steel director Zack Snyder spoke to the LA Times Hero Complex about his favourite Superman comic book artists, which could give some indication as his thought processes going into the upcoming reboot with Henry Cavill (even if he says it doesn’t).

Gary Collinson