I missed this in my initial read of the press release about the involvement of Downey, Cheadle and Favreau in Marvel Studios’ The Avengers. Luckily, IESB caught it: Despite repeated suggestions, it appears as if The Hulk won’t be the villain in the 2011 film.

According to the release, issued late this afternoon, “The Avengers will bring together the super hero team of Marvel Comics characters for the first time ever, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk and more, as they are forced to band together to battle the biggest foe they’ve ever faced.”

There’s a chance the brief description is simply studio shorthand, and that The Avengers will follow the comic-book origin of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes: In September 1963’s The Avengers #1, the Norse god Loki tricked The Hulk into destroying a railroad track, which led to a response from Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Minus the railroad track, of course. But the god of mischief hardly seems like “the biggest foe they’ve ever faced.”

Maybe it’s a giant storm cloud …

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 8:11 pm and is filed under Marvel, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.