Category Archives: The Avengers

Secrets of ‘The Avengers’

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After seeing “The Avengers” for a second time, I thought I’d note a few moments from the movie that didn’t make their way into my review.

In some cases, they might be elements from the movie that blew right past the general audience.

And there’ll be a spoiler alert before the very end, if you still haven’t seen the movie — and contributed to the record-breaking $200 million opening weekend take.

Loki did it: Thor’s brother, Loki, is a troublemaker, a trickster god of the first order. He’s the force that sets the plot of Joss Whedon’s movie in motion by materializing on Earth and stealing the Cosmic Cube. Later, Black Widow, using unconventional interrogation techniques, determines that Loki is trying to get to the Avengers through the Hulk.

That’s perfectly appropriate, because in the first issue of the Avengers comic, released in September 1963, Loki uses tricks and illusions to get superheroes Iron Man, Ant Man and Wasp to go after Hulk. Thor shows up and, after some typical Marvel hero in-fighting, the team is formed. And stays together until the next issue.

Life Model Decoys: When SHIELD agent Phil Coulson calls Tony Stark early in the movie, Stark answers and says he’s not the real Tony Stark, he’s a Life Model Decoy. The geekiest among us know that Life Model Decoys were a creation of SHIELD early in the organization’s Marvel Comics history. In Strange Tales comic in 1965, SHIELD deploys LMDs — perfect copies of agents including Nick Fury — as … well, decoys.

“Puny god:” In one of the funniest moments in “The Avengers,” Hulk thoroughly wallops Loki. The audience is still laughing as Hulk walks away, muttering to himself. (Yes, the Hulk spoke in “The Incredible Hulk” and speaks again here.) What does Hulk say after giving Loki a (literal) smackdown? “Puny god!” It’s a play on Hulk’s patented “Puny humans!” declaration.

The Chitauri: After months of speculation about Loki’s alien army in “The Avengers,” it’s mentioned in the first moments of the movie, during voice-over narration, that the alien warriors are the Chitauri. Who? The Chitauri are, in the Ultimate Marvel comic book universe, the contemporary equivalent of the Skrulls. Apparently the Skrulls are considered part of the “Fantastic Four” movie universe and were not available for Whedon’s use here. Clever writer that he is, he got around that by using the Chitauri.

Stark Tower/Avengers Tower/Avengers Mansion: One thing the movie does, as did many Marvel comics over the past 50 years, is thoroughly establish a setting in New York City. As a kid who didn’t know he would ever visit the Big Apple — still haven’t, actually — I soaked up everything I could about New York from hundreds of Marvel Comics set there.

Second only to the Baxter Building — home of the Fantastic Four — on Marvel’s Landmarks of New York Tour is Avengers Mansion. Originally belonging to Tony Stark, the mansion is loaned to the Avengers for use as their home base. Jarvis, Tony’s butler, even becomes the butler for the Avengers.

In the movie, Stark is building a NYC skyscraper emblazoned with his name. During the battle with Loki and the Chitauri, most of the STARK lettering gets knocked off, leaving only a bold “A.” We notice this at the end of the movie and can assume that, for the inevitable sequel, the Avengers will hang out here.

Here’s the big “Avengers” movie secret. Once again, if you haven’t seen the movie, spoiler alert in …

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Thanos: Partway through the end credits, the mysterious alien who had been talking to Loki is seen, on a crumbling asteroid in space, talking to a creature seated on a throne.

To go to Earth and take on the Avengers would be to “court death,” the alien says.

The massive figure stands up from the throne, turns his head and smiles.

It is Thanos, the Marvel Comics alien introduced in Iron Man comics in 1973. Thanos, created by writer/artist Jim Starlin, is based on Thanatos, the god of death from Greek mythology. In the comics, Thanos is to some extent Marvel’s counterpart to DC’s Darkseid, an extremely powerful and dangerous alien creature who has crossed over from comic to comic, posing a threat to many of the heroes of the Marvel Universe.

Whedon is a comic book fan (and writer) and, by including Thanos in “The Avengers,” sparked shivers down the spines of fans everywhere. If Thanos shows up in an “Avengers” sequel, the threat he poses will be far greater than that posed by Loki.

Just sayin’.

 

‘The Avengers’ delivers on four decades of fanboy dreaming

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There’s little to be said regarding “The Avengers” that hundreds of reviews and a million online message board postings haven’t said already.

So I’ll say it anyway. “The Avengers” rocks.

Writer/director Joss Whedon’s big-screen version of the Marvel comic — you’ve probably heard of it by now — seems to have broken our collective “Holy Jebus I’m so relieved” meter. Since Marvel published “Avengers” issue number 4 in March 1964, some of us have been waiting for this day with a mixture of anticipation and dread.

Right up until not long before 2008’s “Iron Man” introduced the concept of Marvel’s superhero team — created way back when as an answer to DC’s “Justice League” — to the movies with Nick Fury’s post-credits reference to “The Avengers Initiative,” most of us believed this would never happen. The odds just seemed too great that someone could get this all so right.

Over the decades, superhero movies had gotten bits and pieces of the comic book experience right: The first night Christopher Reeve’s “Superman” patrolled Metropolis; the slightly off-kilter emotional balance of Bruce Wayne and his alter ego in Tim Burton’s “Batman”; the concept of a tempestuous but effective super-powered fighting force in “X-Men.”

But more often than not, filmmakers proved they didn’t have what it takes.

Whedon ably demonstrated he could do heroic, tragic, funny and deprecatingly self-referential in his TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel” and “Firefly.” But to cap — pun only slightly intended — four years of Marvel movie foundation-building with one honkin’ big superhero slugfest seemed like more than anyone could manage.

And yet Whedon did it.

If you’re not familiar with the basic premise by now … I can’t imagine why you’re reading this. Suffice it to say that the heroes and supporting players of “Iron Man,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Thor” and “Captain America” come together when Loki, Thor’s brother, makes a deal with the devil (spoilers later) to take over the Earth in exchange for the Tesseract — known as the Cosmic Cube in the comics — the source of infinite power introduced in “Captain America”  last year.

The first half of the movie finds the Avengers introducing themselves in Mighty Marvel style: Through a series of misunderstandings and moments of self-interest, they fight, bicker and fight some more, much to the exasperation of Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the SHIELD spymaster who, we discover in this movie, has to answer to a (literally) shadowy group of superiors. And isn’t beyond manipulation.

The threat posed by Loki (Tom Hiddleton, in straight-on villain mode here) is great enough — an alien invasion force poised to devastate New York and, presumably, the planet — to convince the heroes to stop squabbling and work together. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) turns his cool sarcasm down a few notches, Captain America (Chris Evans) learns how to be a leader even in the modern world, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) balances his love for his brother and his sense of guilt, Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo, in both human and Hulk guises) almost seems to revel in letting the beast off the chain and SHIELD agents Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) more than prove their worth as the non-superpowered members of the team.

(I have to say I haven’t understood those people, many of them ostensibly fans of comic books, who said they didn’t understand why Black Widow and Hawkeye would be members of the team considering their lack of superpowers and invulnerability. The Avengers comic has always included human beings — although highly skilled ones — as members. While the movie has great fight scenes involving Thor and Hulk and Thor and Iron Man and Cap, one of the most dramatic scenes involves Black Widow dealing with the onslaught of the Hulk and its aftermath.)

The second half of the movie finds the Avengers, spurred on by dire circumstances, facing off against not only Loki but his invasion force, made up of the Chitauri, Skrull surrogates from the comics.

If there’s a weakness about the movie it is that the Chitauri are nothing but cannon fodder, not unlike the legion of orcs in “Lord of the Rings” or stormtroopers/fighting droids in the “Star Wars” prequels. While the climactic battle that pits the Avengers against the Chitauri — and devastates half of New York, it seems — is beyond exciting, and scenes with the Avengers in battle against the alien invaders and their giant flying snake things — ask for them by name — are great, it all feels like an extended warm-up for something bigger.

Although it’s hard to imagine what could be bigger than this.

Other thoughts:

Hulk catch: Even if you’ve seen the many, many commercials and clips from “The Avengers,” there are entire sequences you haven’t even glimpsed yet. But I did regret that one of the trailers used the shot of Hulk flinging himself through the air and catching Iron Man as he fell, braking their descent by sliding down the side of a building. When the shot comes, late in the movie, I could anticipate it because I knew I hadn’t seen it yet.

Natasha and Boris — er, Clint: I really want to know more about Black Widow and Hawkeye. The movie doesn’t give them an outright romance, but there’s a lot of shared history there, so much so that they can even joke about it. I want to know all about the movie’s ostensibly “puny humans.”

Tony Stark and Bruce Banner: I loved how Whedon matched up the story’s resident eggheads. They share a lab and a skepticism of SHIELD’s motivations and even ride off into the sunset together at the end. How about making Iron Man/Hulk team-up movies?

Cap’s leadership: Since the fourth issue of  “The Avengers” comic, Captain America has been the team’s leader. There have been many moments of self-doubt for this man out of time. But Steve Rogers is a natural born leader of men. The movie establishes that in a scene in which he barks out orders to some NYC cops who wonder why they should obey his directives. Cap then smoothly demolishes some Chitauri, causing the cops to quickly turn and begin following his orders.

More Pepper: I didn’t realize Gwyneth Paltrow had as prominent a supporting role in “The Avengers” as she does. She and Downey are perfect together. I want a scene or two with her in every “Avengers” sequel.

That’s not creepy at all: SHIELD agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) has had nice supporting parts in several of the Marvel movies. Whedon gives him great stuff here, including a funny scene in which he professes his fanboy love for Cap. “I watched you when you were sleeping,” Coulson says before realizing how stalkerish that sounded. “I was present when you were unconscious .. from the ice,” he quickly adds.

Whedon brings the funny: The whole movie is full of funny quips and scenes like that one.  The guy knows when to ratchet up the action and when to leaven it with humor.

Whedon undercuts expectations. Some people fault Whedon with being too self-referential and jocular, but his sense of humor is perfect for a movie that could be ridiculous. That’s what the final credits scene is about. Finally, after four years of Marvel movies, Whedon came along and played with the audience’s expectations about Marvel’s patented “surprise” extra scenes following the end credits. And he did so in a style familiar to any Whedon watchers.

Spoilers ahead:

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What you’ve heard about the two “Avengers” credits scenes is true. Partway through the end credits, the mysterious figure backing Loki’s invasion is revealed, although non-fans might not recognize Thanos, the Marvel Comics god of death. It sets things up nicely for a sequel.

And the scene at the very end — showing the exhausted heroes having a bite to eat in a battle-scarred New York restaurant, while an employee tries to sweep up in the background — is quintessential Whedon.

Two ‘Avengers’ credits scenes? Complete with screen shot!

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Okay, considering that Marvel’s “The Avengers” brings together more than a half a dozen superheroes, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the movie — which is already playing internationally and opens wide in the U.S. this Friday — doubles down on Marvel’s practice of surprise end credits scenes.

Beware: Spoilers ahead (if Internet accounts are to be believed; I won’t see the movie until Friday). I’ll give you a countdown to the spoilers, though.

In 2008, “Iron Man” sparked the trend for end credits scenes — sometimes called stingers or buttons — in modern superhero movies.

There was plenty of precedent for post-credits scenes, in all kinds of movies, from “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off” to “Young Sherlock Holmes.” The latter, of course, showed Ferris shuffling out, addressing the audience and telling us to go home because the movie was over. “Airplane” returned after the credits for a final joke.

For real added-value after-credits scenes, “Young Sherlock Holmes” established the practice of offering a twist to the plot by revealing that Sherlock’s teacher would one day be his rival, James Moriarty.

When Samuel L. Jackson showed up as Nick Fury at the end of “Iron Man” and mentioned to Tony Stark “the Avengers initiative,” fans loved the glimpse it provided into Marvel’s plans for its expanded big-screen universe.

Stark himself showed up a couple of months later at the end of “The Incredible Hulk,” while trusty SHIELD agent Coulson appeared at the end of “Iron Man 2.” “Thor” and “Captain America” brought Fury back into play and the latter nicely set up “The Avengers” with what amounted to a commercial for Joss Whedon’s team-up movie.

Last year, “Green Lantern” showed how not to do a credits scene, with Sinestro abruptly embracing his dark — um, yellow — side early in the credits.

So it’s no surprise that “The Avengers” would have an end-credits scene. But after the world premiere a few weeks ago, Robert Downey Jr. teased that the cast was getting together that very night to shoot more footage.

It could only mean one thing: Another credits scene.

If you’re still reading and want to know — at least what little I know — read on.

Otherwise, veer off now!

Spoilers in

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Still here? Okay.

The mid-credits scene in “The Avengers,” as seen in international screenings, shows Thanos, the Marvel Comics god of death. It’s pretty strongly implied that Loki and his alien army were testing the Avengers for a future offensive on Earth by Thanos.

And the end credits scene? If it is what is depicted below, it’s a lighthearted moment of the Avengers, in costume, getting together to have a bite to eat.

This might surprise fans, but knowing Whedon’s whimsical sense of humor, it makes perfect sense. Of course, it could be a big Internet prank.

Here’s the shot. We’ll see soon if it’s true.

 

The road to ‘The Avengers’ (part two)

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Sixty years after the “Captain America” serial debuted in 1944, another Marvel movie milestone occurred: The aborted release of “The Fantastic Four,” a low-budget movie (co-produced by the legendary Roger Corman). Made to perpetuate rights to Marvel’s first family, the movie was pretty bad. While the cast and crew apparently thought it would be released and a premiere was announced, the movie was shelved. Today it is legend to some and reality to others who have bought bootleg DVD copies at comic book conventions.

For a while it seemed like Marvel’s heroes were destined for low-budget life only. Then “X-Men” was a hit in 2000, followed by “Spider-Man” two years later. The characters, as well as the Fantastic Four, were sold off by Marvel to different companies, though. While Sam Raimi made two good “Spider-Man” films, “Fantastic Four” and its sequel were lackluster enough to make fans crazy. After decades of no big-screen adaptations, were Marvel’s heroes fated to live only through erratic, variable-quality movies?

And would fans never see a unified Marvel universe onscreen?

At some point, Marvel decided to take the best of the properties it still had film rights to — Iron Man, Captain America and other longtime Avengers stalwarts — and knit a coherent universe.

The “Yes!” moment came in 2008 with the release of “Iron Man.” Sure, before Jon Favreau’s movie there had been references to the larger world of Marvel characters, notably on computer screens in the “X-Men” movies. Fun “Easter eggs” maybe, but with no hope of follow-through.

At the end of “Iron Man,” Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) returns to his home and finds Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) waiting for him. Fury tells Stark he’s not the only superhero in the world and tells him he’s there to talk about “the Avengers initiative.”

By that point, fans knew that Marvel had big plans for their universe. Soon, each movie would build toward “The Avengers.”

A long four years followed, but fans were rewarded with some fun movies. “The Incredible Hulk” in 2008 was, I thought, a terrific movie, with good Hulk action but also exciting scenes, including one in which soldiers pursue Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) through a South American slum.

The Hulk movie continued — even amped up — the Avengers foreshadowing. Spymaster Fury didn’t reappear but SHIELD was all over the movie, as it had been in “Iron Man,” and Downey Jr. appeared as Stark at the end. Maybe best of all were the references to the “super soldier” program that created Captain America, as Hulk’s nemesis the Abomination was created in part because of the same serum that, decades earlier in the comics, made Steve Rogers Captain America.

Between them, “Iron Man” and “The Incredible Hulk” made for a great one-two punch.

“Iron Man 2” dug deeper into SHIELD and the Marvel universe two years later. SHIELD was fully staffed by this point, with not only Fury and Agent Coulson returning but Natasha Romanov (Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson) showing up. Cap’s shield was even on hand, in Stark’s lab.

We found out why a year later, when the summer of 2011 brought fans “Thor” and “Captain America.”

The two movies almost felt like two chapters of one story. Although “Thor” took place in Asgard and the present day and “Captain America” took place in the 1940s (with a modern-day framing device) the movies integrated the Avengers building blocks. SHIELD agent Coulson and references to other characters, notably a veiled reference to Gamma scientist Bruce Banner, were sprinkled through “Thor,” while “Captain America” put the Red Skull in search of the Cosmic Cube, a treasure from the armory of Odin, Thor’s father.

The two movies didn’t have the impact of “Iron Man,” perhaps, because the earlier film took so many people by surprise. But “Thor” and “Captain America” are so strong, so entertaining and so thorough in their establishing of “The Avengers” that they exude confidence.

By this point, Marvel was confident enough of its plans to end the movies not only with surprise extra scenes but James Bond-style “Captain America will return in The Avengers” slides.

Even while DC Comics was floundering, releasing a half-hearted “Green Lantern” movie that clumsily introduced Amanda Waller, a Nick Fury surrogate, and couldn’t get “Dark Knight” director Chris Nolan to agree to let his Batman character exist in the same world as the rest of the Justice League, Marvel had established its world.

The long road led to “The Avengers.” The movie comes out this week. Early reviews are very positive, and Marvel seems confident enough to continue to build its movie universe.

 

 

 

The road to ‘The Avengers’

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It’s been a long road to “The Avengers.”

Not just the four years since Samuel L. Jackson showed up at the end of “Iron Man” and freaked out fans — at least those who were sufficiently clued in to hang out in the theater until after the credits — by telling Robert Downey Jr. he wanted to talk to him about “The Avengers Initiative.”

There’s been a lot of anticipation since 2008, but considering the decades since Captain America was introduced in Marvel Comics (actually, Timely Comics back then), the past four years have been a breeze.

Here’s part one of a highly selective look at the road to “The Avengers” movie.

“Captain America Comics,” issue one, dated March 1941 but on stands months earlier, debuted as the world grew edgier about the war in Europe. The character — 98-pound patriot Steve Rogers, turned into Captain America through the Super Soldier experiment — was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Comics were a  huge deal back then, with far higher sales numbers than today, and Cap was a hit — especially with the punch he landed on Hitler’s jaw on the cover of one issue — and the movies beckoned.

“Captain America” the movie serial was released by Republic Pictures in 1944 starring Dick Purcell as Cap. But Cap wasn’t soldier Steve Rogers in this movie. He was a crime-fighting district attorney. And Purcell was kind of … egg-shaped. At least his head was. Cap continued in the comics but didn’t come back to the screen for decades and his fellow Avengers didn’t get their big-screen chance for an even long time.

The “Avengers” comic debuted in September 1963, the creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and — like Marvel’s other early team, The Fantastic Four — was a cool variation on DC’s happy family the Justice League. The Avengers bickered and fought among themselves — the lineup was constantly changing, which was one of the comic’s charms.

“Avengers” issue four marked a real turning point as Cap was discovered frozen in ice and thawed. While he joined the Avengers — and quickly became the team’s leader — he was an essentially tragic character. Most of the people he knew, with the exception of former commando Nick Fury, were dead. Most tragically, his World War II sidekick, James “Bucky” Barnes, had died in battle. Bucky would, amazingly, stay dead for decades to come.

In 1979, the first of two made-for-TV “Captain America” movies was made. The movies starred Reb Brown and seemed to be a bizarre attempt to cash in on Evel Knievel, the motorcycle stunt rider, since Brown spent more time on a bike than on two feet.

While he continued in the comics and, along with many other Marvel characters, showed up in various animated series, Cap didn’t return to the big screen until the 1990 Albert Pyun “Captain America” movie, starring Matt Salinger as Steve Rogers and Scott Paulin as the Red Skull, bizarrely changed from a Nazi to an Italian facist. Once you get beyond the novelty of seeing live-action images of Cap and the Skull, the move is pretty dreadful. Its low budget doesn’t allow for much action.

For years, attempts to bring Marvel characters to the screen fell by the wayside and it seemed as if fans would never see their favorite heroes in action.

Then Fox released Bryan Singer’s “X-Men” in 2000. The movie was a hit and the studio followed it up with films based on the Fantastic Four.

It was only a matter of time until Cap and the Avengers got their chance.

(More to come.)

‘Night of the Comet,’ ‘Buffy,’ Black Widow: Butt-kicking heroines

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With “The Avengers” coming up on May 4, it’s interesting to note that one of the first clips from the movie officially released, a couple of weeks ago, was one of Black Widow, the non-superpowered, female member of that particular boys club, easily escaping from some bad guys and demolishing them in the process.

It’s a pretty good action scene, if mild compared to what we’ve subsequently seen involving Thor, Iron Man and particularly the Hulk.

But there was some nice symmetry to the clip’s release considering that “The Avengers” was directed by Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

There’s been some backlash to Whedon’s signature use of petite female characters as ass-kicking heroines, including Buffy and other slayers from that series and “Angel” as well as River, the programmed killing machine in “Firefly.”

But it’s interesting to note that Whedon has cited in at least one interview “Night of the Comet” as one of the influences on the creation of “Buffy” the lame movie and terrific 1997-2003 TV series.

Not long after the series ended, Whedon told IGN:

So, you know, when I hit on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it was right around the time when Revenge of the Bimbos, or Attack of the Killer Bimbos or something – there were a lot of movies coming out that were proto-silly ’50s style titles. They were on the video store shelves. I worked at a video store. I would watch them, and I’d be like, “You know what? This is just another bimbo movie. These women aren’t empowered at all. They just made up a funny title.” I was like, “I would like to make a movie that was one of these crappy, low-budget movies, that like the Romero films, had a feminist agenda, had females in it who were people, and had all the fun, all the silliness. Night of the Comet was a big influence. That actually had a cheerleader in it. With a title that would actually make people take it off the video store shelves, because it has to sound silly and not boring. 

“Night of the Comet,” released in 1984, was the story of two Southern California teenagers, sisters Regina (Catherine Mary Stewart), known as Reggie, and Samantha (Kelli Maroney), known as Sam, who survive the end of the world, brought on by global exposure to a comet that reduces most of the world’s population to red dust and turns the rest into zombies.

Reggie and Sam, after a moment of shock and loss, quickly set out to survive in the post-apocalyptic world and connect with other survivors.

Although they’re teenagers — and the movie was released during the “Valley Girl” craze — Reggie and Sam are level-headed, even matter-of-fact, about the end of the world. There’s the customary all-you-can-shop scene, played to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” set at the mall, but George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” succumbed to the same idea a few years earlier.

And even though Sam is a cheerleader, the sisters are hardly pushovers. Raised by a career military man, the two quickly find supplies — although Sam is scornful of Reggie’s choice of automatic weapon, noting, “Daddy would have gotten us Uzis” — and are more than capable of defending themselves and other, less capable strays they come across.

Director Thom Eberhardt’s movie is amiably low-budget. You know they filmed the deserted downtown L.A. street scenes on a Sunday morning, for example, and you admire their ingenuity.

Whedon — who I’m pretty sure is an outspoken feminist — is a fan of empowered women. Even if they’re five feet tall and a hundred pounds. As long as they can wield a mean Uzi, kung-fu vampires into the afterlife or hold their own with the likes of Captain America and the Hulk, Whedon believes that size doesn’t matter — and neither does gender.

More new ‘Avengers’ pics, clip

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How many more days until May 4?

I told myself I wasn’t gonna do this. But I’m prematurely geeking over “The Avengers.”

It’s not like I’ve been waiting for this movie since I was in elementary school or anything. Not like I’ve been waiting since the first “Iron Man” movie had a hint of, ultimately, the superhero team-up that is “The Avengers.”

Not like the Twitter reaction to this week’s premiere of Joss Whedon’s movie hasn’t been pretty much uniformly praiseworthy.

Not like Marvel didn’t just release a quick clip of Cap and Thor fighting aliens.

Not like I didn’t just read my first review of the movie. I’m not even going to link to it. The review gives too much away.

Sigh.

Twenty days.

Madchen Amick fans assemble!

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What do actress Madchen Amick, the newspaper comic panel “The Family Circus” and the giant flying snake thing from the previews for “The Avengers” have in common?

They’re pretty much the most popular topics I’ve written about in this blog.

Since early this week, when I followed up on my “Mad Men” review with an entry noting that Andrea, the old fling of Don Draper who showed up on Don’s doorstep — and under his bed, choked to death, in his fever dream — was played by Amick, hundreds of readers have checked out the blog.

So, in the spirit of cheap plays for page views, I wanted to note the popularity of Amick, best-remembered for most of us as diner waitress Shelly in the cult classic TV series “Twin Peaks.”

I also wanted to note that most sources online appear to agree that Amick, born in 1970 according to her IMDb entry, looks pretty amazing.

It doesn’t take much Googling to determine that clips of Amick, particularly in a bikini from the cable TV series “Californication,” are out there.

Go ahead and Google. I’ll wait.

Anyway, Madchen Amick is now forever enshrined in this blog’s hall of fame, along with Billy, Jeffy and the the rest of the Keane comic strip family as well as the Leviathan or whatever flying beastie the Avengers will face.

Now if there was only some way to get Madchen Amick, the ghostly grandparents from “The Family Circus” and the flying snake thing from “The Avengers” all into the same blog item.

Hmm.

New ‘Avengers’ images: Giant flying snake thing and … Beta Ray Bill?

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At this rate, I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to hold out until May 4.

As anticipation for “The Avengers” builds and speculation about the elements of the movie works toward some kind of geeky online meltdown, new images and details continue to appear.

Today a new commercial tie-in to the movie was released featuring an Acura outmaneuvering New York street mayhem brought about by … yes, the giant flying snake thing we’ve been wondering about since we first saw it in the trailer released in late February.

We’ve already noted speculation that the big ol’ beastie was some kind of incarnation of Fin Fang Foom, an oddball dragon creature from the early days of Marvel Comics.

Online of late he’s being referred to as Leviathan. Not sure where that came from, but it’s pretty cool.

The Acura commercial featured shots of the creature/ship flapping its stubby little wings. Here’s what it looks like:

Meanwhile, some enterprising geek has analyzed shots of the alien warriors the Avengers face, using images from a TV spot that has debuted in the last week and theorized that the menace unleashed by Loki are denizens of the Marvel world of Korbin. The planet is of interest because it’s where Beta Ray Bill, an important character in Thor lore (try saying that three times fast), comes from.

Could the aliens be from Korbin? Could we see the introduction of the geeky but popular Beta Ray Bill, or at least overtures of such?

Does old Bill there look much like the alien at the top of this blog entry?

And don’t you think the giant flying snake thing could outrun an Acura?

New images: ‘Man of Steel,’ ‘Avengers’ on Disney XD, ‘Beware the Batman’

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Images, we got images. Nah, it just doesn’t sing.

But nevertheless, we’ve got lots and lots of images.

In the days, weeks and months leading up to the debut of a new TV show or the release of a new movie, set photos and officially sanctioned photos of the cast turn up online and in magazines. But the geeks among us also enjoy seeing logos and promotional pictures.

So today was a bonanza, with new images released for “Man of Steel,” Disney XD’s “Avengers” series and “Beware the Batman,” the new Cartoon Network show.

First the big-screen movie, “Man of Steel.” It comes out in June 2013, but we’ve already seen set photos like this one of star Henry Cavill:

It is a cryin’ shame how that guy has let himself go.

Anyway, today came the release of the new “Man of Steel” logo, showing the Superman shield.

I think it looks pretty good. And I’m definitely pleased they’ve made the shield bigger on Supe’s chest than it was in “Superman Returns.”

If you haven’t seen “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” on Disney XD, you should check the half-hour animated series out on DVD. It’s a good show that feels very close in spirit to the Marvel comic. It also seems to dovetail nicely into the “Avengers” movie coming out in May.

Anyway, here’s a new photo from the Disney XD series showing what would appear to be a greatly expanded cast that includes the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Wolverine. Some online comments said the picture reminded them of “Justice League Unlimited,” the Cartoon Network classic of the DC Animated Universe. What do you think?

Can you name all the heroes? I was stumped by only one.

Lastly there’s “Beware the Batman,” the new Cartoon Network series coming in 2013.

The image is pretty cool and hopefully the computer animation is a little more polished than in the new CN “Green Lantern” series.

But can any cartoon depiction of the Dark Knight ever top the classic “Batman: The Animated Series?” I can’t imagine it.