Marvel's Expanding Universe: Comic Con in Short

Because Otherwise We'd Be Here Forever

Finally found a cover picture for these articles!

Due to complaints that the superhero-movie posts are too many, and the "other stuff" movie posts are too few on this site, I'm going to compile the 10 posts I wanted to put up these past few days into one summarized post of all the excellence that happened at Comic Con. From an intergalactic raccoon to cream-colored armor, here's the finest bits of Marvel news for you.

New Armor

It has long been rumored that Iron Man III would be based on the Extremis story line from the comics. We could only wonder then what the most awe-inspiring suit of armor ever created by Tony Stark would look like? Thanks to the Marvel folks at the Iron Man III panel at Comic Con 2012, we have our first look at the new suit of armor.

Giggity

It's a very interesting design that flips the color scheme of the previous armors to incorporate more gold and less red. It's barely even a gold color, and more along the lines of a cream. At first I was a little taken-aback by the, shall we say, ostentatious factor of the armor? But then I remembered it's Iron Man. Some footage was shown of Tony working on the armor, and it seems it attaches to him in small pieces. The clip was humorous, as some of the pieces wouldn't fly right or would hit him in the head. Whether this was post-extremis injection or not is up for speculation, but it appeared he was controlling them by will alone.

The gold armor Tony bonds with his body

Going back to the color scheme, it seems to borrow from the current Iron Man armors, which are all plate armors that encase his whole body, and the original gold armor that was more of a mesh cloth the character first appeared in. There were smaller plates that attached to parts of his body after he combined the mesh armor with his body biologically. The new armor seems to borrow from both, with the pale gold color scheme, but also the full plate armor. I can't wait to see this thing in action, just like every previous Iron Man film.

New Characters

Due to the overwhelming amount of new characters Marvel is putting into their films, you'll have to bear with me through this shorter list, as I can't give every character the attention they need. Over the course of time, we'll get to the important ones eventually.

The Wolverine:

Will Yun Lee: Kenuichio Harada/The Silver Samurai

Will Anthony Mackie play the first
African-American Superhero?

Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier:

Anthony Mackie: Sam T. Wilson/Falcon (in negotiations)

Iron Man III:

Rebecca Hall: Maya Hansen

Ben Kingsley: The Mandarin (or a similar character)

Cobie Smulders: SHIELD agent Maria Hill

New Movies

Again, since the list is lengthy, you're getting the shorter version, with a brief summary of each.

Confirmed titles

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - It appears Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) will be returning as Captain's-best-friend-turned-brainwashed-cyborg-spy the Winter Soldier. Steve Rogers will work alongside SHIELD to take down this new threat.

Thor: The Dark World - Now needing to re-cast it's main villain after Mads Mikkelsen took his leave, little is known about this film except it will feature a more natural viewing of Asgard. Also, the main ensemble from Thor will return, including love interest Jane Foster (Natalie Portman).

Reboots

The Fantastic Four - The remake of the two-film tragedy that was the original Fantastic Four franchise is being reworked, and officially has a director in Josh Trank (Chronicle) and a writer in newcomer Jeremy Slater.

Good riddance! Also with this picture we increased
our views from teenage girls and their moms.

Daredevil/Twilight director David Slade appears to have lost his shot at directing the quasi-reboot/sequel to one of Marvel's first comic-book movies. Instead he is going to work on the Hannibal TV series. Fox has about 4 months to get production underway, or they risk the movie rights going back to Marvel and Disney. If they do manage to start in time, get ready for a mess of a movie... I for one hope they scrap it and let Marvel get one of their best characters back.

Special Footage

Ant-Man - Edgar Wright appeared at the Marvel panel at Comic Con, and showed some unfinished footage he shot for the character Ant-Man. It's been heavily rumored that Henry Pym would appear in a later Marvel film as a SHIELD agent. This footage does NOT confirm that an Ant-Man movie is going to be made by Marvel! There are numerous reports saying it is going into production. This is false, right now it is just a fun project for Edgar Wright, who has much bigger things on his hands.

The Punisher - Recently, Thomas Jane appeared in a 10 minute short-film reprising his role as the Punisher. Whether this means we'll see a new Punisher movie soon or not remains to be seen. For now, it seems the film was made just for fun. It has music from The Dark Knight soundtrack, so I wouldn't view it as anything official. The material is NSFW and inappropriate for viewing on our site, however you can view it here.

New Film

Marvel studios has officially declared their next ensemble film, which is going to involve characters unknown to most people. Guardians of the Galaxy will include heroes Drax the Destoryer, Groot, Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, and Gamora. This recently released concept art shows the characters from left to right.

"What's cooler than Tony Stark and a new suit of armor," you ask?
Rocket. Friggen. Raccoon.

GOTG is definitely under the class of "unknown." It would take me 4 articles and probably some money spent on comics in order to explain them fully. Rest assured, this will be the film of a lifetime, especially since Rocket Raccoon will be appearing. Also look for a character like Nova to be the main protagonist. This is a direct tie-in to the Avengers mid-credits scene (spoilers).

A character like Nova allows the guardians to have connections to earth, and would also allow for an Avengers crossover. Eventually once I've done thorough research of these characters, their stories, and learned enough about them, I'll release something to educate you on these wonderful guardians. Be on the lookout for casting and production rumors!

Avengers 2

This is just a small tidbit that was released shortly after the premiere of The Amazing Spider-man. Nothing is confirmed as of yet. Sony producers talked publicly about having Andrew Garfield's Spider-man appear in a future Avengers installment. A deal would have to be cut between Sony and Marvel, but Spidey's presence  is entirely possible now.