Comic Con Movies: Marvel Studios Panel

Perhaps the most anticipated panel of Comic Con 2010 was the Marvel Studios panel, which was set to feature Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and the long-rumored full cast for The Avengers. Although nothing was a total surprise, Marvel definitely delivered.

The panel began with Captain America: The First Avenger, which has only been filming for a few weeks. Star Chris Evans said he's been shooting for five days, so the teaser was very quickly strung together. It included some voice-over work, CGI footage of the shield and some World War II footage. Evans was seen in costume, but Marvel producer Kevin Feige explained that this was the costume test and that the actual costume will be a bit less cartoonish than the concept art that has leaked online.

Another clip showed off a bit of Johann Schmidt, the man who ultimately becomes Red Skull, played by Hugo Weaving. The crowd begged Weaving for a live German accent, but the clip provided a sufficient bit of voice over as Schmidt looked for the Cosmic Cube. Weaving said he had only worked with the mask for one day so far (but it's great), so the character is very much in the preliminary stages (as is every element of the film). Considering the clips didn't truly show anyone as their alias, there wasn't enough information to generate an opinion as to the film's quality.

The Thor panel came next, featuring Kenneth Branagh (director), Christ Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Clark Gregg, Tom Hiddleston and Kat Dennings. Branagh tried to explain a bit of the film at first, but then rolled the footage.

The first clip featured Hemsworth as Thor talking to Agent Coulson of SHIELD about how he bested a bunch of SHIELD agents and it prompts Coulson to ask where he came from, which brought the clip to Asgard, where a brief scene captured the essence of Odin (Anthony Hopkins) outcasting Thor. Then the clips showed Jane Foster (Portman) taking Thor in. Next came a flash back to Asgard where the evil Loki takes over and it becomes clear that Thor must rise up and save his home.

The footage was shown in 3-D, but it did not impress in that format. No more hubbub was raised about the Asgardian costumes as they made quite an impression when seen in action.

The panel concluded with the highly anticipated (and totally not surprising) appearance of the entire cast (well, the important people) of 2012's The Avengers including director Joss Whedon. See if you can figure them all out in the picture below.

 
They are Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Clark Gregg (SHIELD Agent Coulson), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) and the most recently announced members: Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk).

The cast was introduced with a half-minute teaser that consisted of voice over about the greatest heroes teaming up to fight some powerful foe and The Avengers logo. Jackson was introduced first and then he introduced the pre-existing cast members. RDJ got his chance to speak, of course, because the attendees of Comic Con are his disciples. He mentioned how he saw Inception and thought the film was ambitious, but he realized this project is pretty darn ambitious too. He introduced the newest Avengers and then Whedon spoke about the incredible opportunity he's been given and how he feels pretty certain he's going to screw this up, but he'll do his best.

It wasn't a surprise because we all knew it was coming, but still, seeing those actors all together is pretty incomparable.