The 'Avengers' Tease Continues

Has any film been teased as much as the 2012 superhero film ‘The Avengers?’

The Marvel Comics epic won’t hit theaters until May, but we’ve already spent years watching end-credit snippets, fan-constructed posters and ‘Avengers’-related subplots meant to set up the saga.

Entertainment Weekly’s cover story on ‘The Avengers’ this week charts the start of the hype countdown beginning in 2008 with “Iron Man.” That film featured Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) hinting that the metallic hero was part of a much bigger plan. Since then, we’ve seen teases at the end of other superhero films (‘The Incredible Hulk’), suffered as the ‘Avengers’ storyline was jammed into the already packed ‘Iron Man 2’ and sampled ‘Avengers’ interviews tagged on to Blu-ray releases (like the recent ‘Thor’).

Just yesterday your humble film scribe received the above picture in my email box featuring Chris Hemsworth in full Thor regalia alongside Captain America (Chris Evans). You can even ‘like’ the movie on Facebook.

But will all this promotion pay off in the end?

Superhero films print money, even sub-part models like ‘Green Lantern.’ And the mere thought of seeing a gaggle of super-powered beings in one film is leaving this recovering comic book geek woozy with anticipation. But is all this hype actually hurting the film itself? Can any film live up to all this potential?

It’s all up to Joss Whedon, the writer/director of ‘The Avengers,’ to make things right for comic book fans – and the bean counters at Marvel Studios.