Broken Frontier

Saturday, the third day of New York Comic Con, the word of the day was ‘Avengers’!

Saturday is usually the business, rowdiest day of this con, and this year was no exception.  After the release of the new trailer this week and the announcement that Avengers stars Chris Evans, Tom Hiddleston, Cobie Smulders, Clark Gregg and Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige would be attending tonight’s panel, excitement has been rising about the upcoming movie. 

The day started with a ‘raffle’ drawing at the Marvel Comic booth for exclusive tickets for signings with The Avengers’ own Captain America, Loki, Agent Maria Hill and Agent Coulson.  The distribution process had been hinted at the day before and news had clearly made its way around.  The line for the raffle stretched way down the convention hall, but many left disappointed as the tickets were gone within ten minutes.

The Marvel booth has been home to several Avengers goodies for fans to enjoy all weekend, including the actual battle-damaged costume worn by Chris Evan, pieces of the actual set and actual SHIELD agents that appeared as extras in the film.  The costume caused a bit of a traffic jam at times as nearly everyone who passed it had to stop and take a picture. 

Since Friday, the buzz around the convention hall Friday had been that it would be nearly impossible to get into the panel at 6:15, as people would be lining up four or more hours beforehand, but the truth was that many of the people that were able to attend the panel had been sitting in the IGN theater all day, due to NYCC’s policy to not clear the convention hall between panels. 

Dozens of attendees piled on the end of the queue every second.  Between 3 PM and 6 PM the line did move, but as only a few people left the hall after each panel, the movement was incremental and sporadic.  The line reached into the thousands at its height, but over time attendees began to give up hope and leave.  By 7:15, an hour after the panel was supposed to start, the room had been capped, and no one who arrived after 3:20 was able to make it in (without cutting at least).

The actual panel itself was amazing, and well worth the wait.  The confirmed guests were joined by a surprise guest, Mark Ruffalo, who is the first actor to play both Bruce Banner and the Hulk.  Guests were treated to the teaser trailer on two massive screens, then a quick question session with the moderator and a long preview click where Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanov attempted to recruit Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner.  This was followed by a slew of questions from the audience.

A young boy started the session by having the stars do a quick “Avengers Assemble!” shout.  Then Tom Hiddleston talked about how difficult his costume was to put on.  They talked about how Chris Evans’ costume was also difficult, but he got to do some days in a T-shirt and shorts, whereas Tom Hiddleston almost always was in leather and metal (which was “how Asgardians like it”, as he put it).  The panel also collectively agreed that no costume was really easy, and that Mark Ruffalo’s costume was the silliest as he basically wore gray polka-dotted pajamas while everyone else wore fantastic costumes.

Feige then went on to say that the film is still being cut right now and the studio does not yet know how long the movie will be.  Evans was asked whether he liked being the Human Torch better or Captain America, to which he replied “Captain America”, though he compared to choice to that of choosing “which kid you love more”.  The stars went down the line and named their favorite male and female superheroes before Hiddleston recapped his favorite Loki inspirations, which include Stan Lee’s early run and J. Michael Staczynski’s runs.  He then recapped the various fights he will have in the movie, calling his fight with Captain America “rough and tumble”, his fight with Thor “brotherly” and saying that his fight with the Hulk will be very interesting.

The female fans in the room were clearly enamored with Tom Hiddleston as nearly every question was for him, and began with some variation of “This question is for Tom.  First, I love you Tom, you’re an amazing and beautiful man…” The rest of the panel seemed to find it amusing, but towards the end of the panel, the audience did not.  One of the best highlights of the evening was a story that Hiddleston told with Gregg about the one night the entire cast found themselves in the same city at the same time.

Evans commented that no one remembered anything from that night, but Hiddleston insisted that he did and told us that while everyone in the club was dancing, he looked over and saw Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth talking.  Evans was asking how to develop tone in a specific muscle in the arm and Hemsworth replied, “I don’t know, man. You just work out.”  Gregg went on to tell us about how Scarlett Johansson busted some serious moves that night, and shocked a man celebrating his birthday into silence.

Feige also was able to confirm that the SHIELD set on the trailer is indeed aboard the famous SHIELD hellicarrier and that there will be a post-credits snippet at the end of the Avengers.  He also shot down a request for Wolverine to appear in Captain America 2, but said that he wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually happened.