CBR: "Avengers" Film Villains Possibly Revealed in Canceled Game Art

[CBR News]

Screenshots and concept art from a canceled "Avengers" game from developer THQ may provide hints to the menace faced by the Avengers in Joss Whedon's upcoming Marvel Studios film.


Full article here.

[Songbird/Diamondback]

Why is Thor in Ultimate outfit?

[Whitster]

Shame, we're probably going to get a shoddy tie in knocked up in the next 12 months now. However I thought Sega had all the movie rights?

[Sighphi]

Giant-Skrull is going to be in the movie!!!!
AWESOME!
He was my favorite.

[KurtW95]

Awesome, but why is Thor in his Ultimate costume? In the fighting footage he's in his armor from the movie and in the trailer he's in a sleeveless costume similar to this. And I really wish he was wearing the helmet. If Cap can't be a winghead then let Thor.

[StoneGold]

Awesome, but why is Thor in his Ultimate costume? In the fighting footage he's in his armor from the movie and in the trailer he's in a sleeveless costume similar to this. And I really wish he was wearing the helmet. If Cap can't be a winghead then let Thor.

Cap is a winghead, just they are painted on instead of... whatever the hell they are supposed to be.


That said, still doesn't mean anything. A lot of times, the video game tie-ins specifically avoid certain aspects of the movie to kill the spoilers and throw in entirely different elements. Remember the Punisher game from THQ? You end up fighting Jigsaw in the War Machine armor. Now, this game was enough of a movie tie-in that Tom Jane did the voice for Castle. But I don't remember ever seeing Jigsaw or Iron Man anywhere in the movie.

Same goes for, oh, let's say the Captain America movie game. I only played the demo, but Barons Strucker and Zemo weren't anywhere in the movie.

As to why Thor is wearing Ultimate, it's all concept art. And as we've seen from various pieces of concept art from the movie, the costume designs have a tendency to change at various stages.

[GRANT!]

Yeah.. Considering the designs are off I suspect the aliens might not look like Marvel U Skrulls (which I would miss). Apparently they are just called aliens.

[cookepuss]

Is this really anything we haven't already expected/suspected for the past year? Rumors of the Skrulls and/or Kree have been floating around for a while. It's possible that we might see them in some variation of this form, but probably only very briefly. Maybe when one of them dies. Something for the fans.

On the issue of the art and the game....

I know that I'm being "that guy", but I just want to point something out. It's quite likely that none of that is actually concept art per se. Those all look like in-editor shots taken from Autodesk Maya, the 3D modeling/animation suite that THQ was probably using. This project appears to have been pretty far past the concept phase for them to have fully modeled, textured, and rigged characters. To me, It looks like it was well into production already. It'd be a monumental waste of resources to do something like this for a pitch.

Whatever the case, I'm not too bummed that THQ isn't producing this game. The art looks competent enough, but THQ's reputation for quality gaming isn't what it used to be. I'd file this under "dodged bullets" if I were y'all.

I'm not surprised that we're seeing Ultimate versions of these characters in the game. For a couple of reasons, actually.

1. Marvel does try to have their games match up with the movies, but they don't always feel bound by them. They often expand on what's in the movie since a 2hr movie can't offer the same amount of depth or number of characters required for a 10-15 hour game. Look at their Spider-Man or Captain America tie-ins. Certain changes are made.

2. While that DOES look like Ultimate Thor, we really have no idea if what we're looking at here is the character's primary look or some alternate costume. The topology and silhouettes of Thor & Cap could support multiple costumes. Developers include valued added content like that all of the time. IIRC, the various Spider-Man games had alternate costumes/skins too.

[jediracer]

Didn't we already know this??

[hugh45]

Giant-Skrull is going to be in the movie!!!!
AWESOME!
He was my favorite.

Ok,had to look him up. So since his powers is base from Hank Pym,I wonder would we get Hank/Janet in next Avengers movie?

[J. Robb]

Wouldn't the Skrulls be considered Fantastic Four villains, meaning their film rights would belong to Fox?

[Whitster]

Wouldn't the Skrulls be considered Fantastic Four villains, meaning their film rights would belong to Fox?

Call them the Chitari, everybody wins maybe.

I don't know exactly how it works in terms of rights to alt versions of characters. Could Marvel pictures have Spiderman turn up in the cinematic universe if it was Miles rather than Peter without stepping on sonys toes for example?

[Blade X]

Wouldn't the Skrulls be considered Fantastic Four villains, meaning their film rights would belong to Fox?

The Kingpin was originally a Spider-Man villain, but FOX was able to use him in the DD movie.

[Sighphi]

I guess the rights go to the people that use the character first.
So since the folks that made the FF used SS now they can make a SS movie but that doesnt mean they have any other Herald in retainer.

[Phil Clark]

I guess the rights go to the people that use the character first.
So since the folks that made the FF used SS now they can make a SS movie but that doesnt mean they have any other Herald in retainer.

I think it has to be more specific than that. The license agreement HAS to spell out which characters the studio has access to, specifically because many villains cross from one hero to another. So there has to be control or it is anarchy.