Avengers out on DVD

[Ahriman238]

Just read "Fury's Big Week" the comic meant to set up the Avenger's film. Mostly it was the Marvel Movieverse through Fury's eyes as SHIELD tries to deal with the discovery of Cap, the Incredible Hulk, IM2 and Thor. Some highlights though:

The World Security Council (the mysterious Council of the film) slashed up Fury's budget and tried to get him to drop everything but research into the Cube. The central plot is Fury convincing the Council to actually increase his budget given how well he holds things together in the film.

SHIELD tried exposing the Cube to every form of energy and radiation known to man trying to "reignite" it back to the active state HYDRA achieved in Cap. Nothing worked, until they put it in the same room with the busted up Destroyer. Which also caused the Destroyer to fire it's disintegrator beam. ("Now disassemble it and put it back together 10 times smaller. And give it a trigger." Coulson)

Which leads us naturally to, SHIELD salvaged the Destroyer.

SHIELD was also hoping for results from Tony's new synthetic element from IM2. Apparently he submitted a patent with the name "Badassium" but it was rejected.

The scientist who came up with the "lithium oxide" that helped delay Tony's poisoning said there was a small chance it would kill him immediately. But by the time he got to the donut shop Fury had officially run out of patience and told the Widow to inject him the moment she could.

Fury thought Selvig was acting a bit funny (the comic makes reflection-possession seem a lot more likely) which is why he had one of his best agents, Barton, keeping an eye on him instead of dealing with any of a dozen important missions.

[Simon_Jester]

If you watch it again, it does look like a strain for him. We should remember he is injured at this point from that stiletto Loki got him with. It seems easier to buy that it's hard for him than he simply chose not to avail himself of a ridiculously easy method of destroying the invaders.

Yeah, I don't think Thor has infinite supplies of lightning-control, or he'd have just kept blasting Iron Man's suit until Stark blew a capacitor or something.

[Batman]

I just did watch it again, and I'm sorry, not seeing it. Five seconds after being stabbed, Thor...punches the living daylights out of Loki, picks him up and gorilla-press-slams him. After the initial 'ouch you stabbed me' moment the only reaction Thor shows to that dagger...is pulling it out and contemptuously throwing it away. He never shows any discomfort about that wound for the rest of the movie that I can tell, and he certainly doesn't look exceptionally strained for what little close-ups we see of him in the 'bring the lightning' scene.
Besides, isn't the hammer supposed to be the one doing most of the work for that part of his powers?

Now don't get me wrong, I positively agree that Thor being out of juice makes a hell of a lot more sense than him deciding 'I don't care if this would save New York and possibly the world-it's boring. HAMMER TIME!', I just can't see him being depicted as such.

[Kojiro]

Watch when he fries the ground troops and lands before talking to the assembled Avengers. He clearly staggers, leaning heavily on the car he lands next to. That said, he either heals from his wound quickly or just runs on the Asgardian biology equivalent of adrenalin (which is probably how he smashed Loki).

I'm not sure if the weather control is an innate thing included in the 'power of Thor' or Mjolnir. Perhaps there's a limit to the amount of power it can draw on in the local environment? The two big blasts we see from him are both after 'charging up'. If it were easy or less limited I suspect he'd use it appropriately.

[Alkaloid]

I personally would start with Hellfires and work my way up from there, but as long as they can stay above the skyscrapers (and I see no reasons why they couldn't, it's not like large parts of New York are roofed over or something) the Hogs should work too. Plus, on top of the cannon, they can carry lots of external stores...

Yeah, but given that what appears to be one of the Mk VII suits nastiest weapons is explicitly stated to run down the suits reactor before carving through the armoured shell of the space whale, and Stark expects an earlier version of it to cut through the Mk II armour, which seems to have similar properties to the Mk III 'shrug off tank rounds and high speed impacts with the ground fast enough to leave a swimming pool sized crater' suit, is anything the military brings to the table short of nuke going to be able to take them down before it eats them? It's all well and good to say look for vulnerable areas but I doubt most of what the military is using it going to be more capable of that then a tiny, high speed suit packing some absurdly tiny precision guided missiles.

Actually on rewatch its kind of funny how many things people bitched about weren't even a thing. "No explosions in space," there wasn't, it was a secondary from the station. "Romanov shouldn't be able to kill them with a gun," happens precisely once, with a shot from about 20 ft away straight through the open face on the helmet, otherwise exclusively uses the aliens weapons and her fist tazer thingies. Its almost like people have this compulsion to whine about things.

[Ted C]

Thor's lightning is certainly enough to kill those things, but it looked like summoning up lightning of that intensity was quite difficult for him. Not sure how long he could keep it up.

Where do you get this from? I never noticed Thor being particularly strained by his 'bring the lightning' stunt, he just decided not to keep it of for whatever reason from what I remember. Mind you, I get hit over the head a lot so my memory is far from perfect.

Well, everything he was doing looked a little strained after he got stabbed in the gut by Loki, but I got the impression (your mileage may vary) that using the Chrysler building as an amplifier to throw massive bolts of lightning into the rift was a major effort even for him.

[Batman]

I personally would start with Hellfires and work my way up from there, but as long as they can stay above the skyscrapers (and I see no reasons why they couldn't, it's not like large parts of New York are roofed over or something) the Hogs should work too. Plus, on top of the cannon, they can carry lots of external stores...

Yeah, but given that what appears to be one of the Mk VII suits nastiest weapons is explicitly stated to run down the suits reactor before carving through the armoured shell of the space whale, and Stark expects an earlier version of it to cut through the Mk II armour, which seems to have similar properties to the Mk III 'shrug off tank rounds and high speed impacts with the ground fast enough to leave a swimming pool sized crater' suit, is anything the military brings to the table short of nuke going to be able to take them down before it eats them?

The Mk III didn't shrug off tank rounds, it was downed by one. Not to mention noticeably damaged by Vulcan gun fire. And the tank that fired that shell was, again, highly likely to have been an obsolete design with an obsolete gun. Armour that can blithely ignore fire from an 1950s tank firing 1950s ammunition does not equal armour that can stand up to a 21st century 120mm APDS round, leave alone Hellfire and up calibre missile warheads.

It's all well and good to say look for vulnerable areas but I doubt most of what the military is using it going to be more capable of that then a tiny, high speed suit packing some absurdly tiny precision guided missiles.

Based on-what, exactly? Especially when your missiles have several thousand times and up the volume? Quantitiy has a quality all of its own.

Actually on rewatch its kind of funny how many things people bitched about weren't even a thing. "No explosions in space," there wasn't, it was a secondary from the station. "Romanov shouldn't be able to kill them with a gun," happens precisely once, with a shot from about 20 ft away straight through the open face on the helmet, otherwise exclusively uses the aliens weapons and her fist tazer thingies. Its almost like people have this compulsion to whine about things.

Curious how all the times Widow uses her guns and doesn't visibly kill or incapacitate, she isn't overrun and killed by the space biker forces. Yeah, I think that's a pretty clear indicator that her guns work, as is her and Hawkeye being able to take them out in hand-to hand. You go down to a guy hitting you over the head with a bow, yes, I think the US military can handle you.

[PeZook]

That means literally nothing. Any US soldier would die quite well if he got run through with a lance ; Does this mean some heavy cavalry could handle the US military?

The problem isn't that the Chitauri are invincible in infantry combat, it's the firepower of their weaponry and the sheer mobility of the platforms sporting said weaponry. We know little about it, but if they have a good enough range, they could literally hit every important target in the continental united states within a couple of days and destroy the country without the military being able to react at all, because it's not geared to fight enemies capable of advancing at 200 kmph in any direction, over any terrain, and from a staging point in the middle of their own territorry.

[Batman]

The difference is the Chitauri aren't limited to lances-they have firearms of their own, of comparable if not superior firepower to the modern world-and yet they don't swarm Natasha out of existence thanks to being immune to her handguns.

[Simon_Jester]

The Chitauri aren't bulletproof, but if there are enough of them they'd be a very credible threat to the US military.

Mobility matters here; PeZook is right. The US really isn't well prepared to handle "RAR a hundred thousand air cavalry troopers with laser guns teleport into the middle of New York!" As long as they're staying within a confined area where we can unload firepower onto them, it's manageable, but they can break out of any ground encirclement (if nothing else by flying straight up).

What matters is numbers and scale. It's really not clear how many Chitauri troops there actually are; both Loki and the Chitauri commander seem to think it's enough to win the conquest of Earth, but they might be wrong. Then again, that alien mothership could probably hold a lot of troops.

[PeZook]

The numbers aren't that high, but that may simply be due to the portal being closed prematurely and their station getting blown up ; Alternatively, they never intended to give Earth to Loki in the first place and sent just enough troops to make a mess, briefly secure the immediate area around the portal, shoot Loki in the face and get out with the Tesseract.

The difference is the Chitauri aren't limited to lances-they have firearms of their own, of comparable if not superior firepower to the modern world-and yet they don't swarm Natasha out of existence thanks to being immune to her handguns.

I didn't find it grating ; They did have their hands full with Hulk smashing their stuff, and they do exactly that to him. Maybe they just mostly ignored the human with two pistols down in the street as...not a particular threat.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes. Thor and Iron Man are mobile enough that they can't be mobbed. The Hulk isn't (quite), and he gets bombarded into the ground by huge numbers of troops.

Given the number of people on the ground with weapons who would be trying to fight back (New York police, soldiers, possibly random people), the Chitauri probably don't see the merely-human Avengers as adding all that much to the threat level. They're annoying, but not worth sending a whole platoon to take down, even if a platoon would do the job easily.

[Replicant]

Where do you get this from? I never noticed Thor being particularly strained by his 'bring the lightning' stunt, he just decided not to keep it of for whatever reason from what I remember. Mind you, I get hit over the head a lot so my memory is far from perfect.

If you watch it again, it does look like a strain for him. We should remember he is injured at this point from that stiletto Loki got him with. It seems easier to buy that it's hard for him than he simply chose not to avail himself of a ridiculously easy method of destroying the invaders.

Thor's lighting is not incredibly accurate. He can blast things that are close or he can fry a whole area. So he used it for a while to close the portal by blocking the entire entrance but the Chitauri were coming in waves. Odds are Thor fried the wave that was coming in then noticed that after a few minutes he was just frying open air and decided it was better to spend his time whipping out the enemy that had already gotten through the portal.

[White Haven]

Or, alternately, he was rudely informed that huge fuckoff lightning deathbeams aren't terribly subtle, and ended up mobbed by Chitauri aircav mounts until he was forced to abandon his position and keep mobile to avoid serious levels of concentrated fire. Even if not for his own sake, then for the sake of the building he was parked on.

[Replicant]

Or, alternately, he was rudely informed that huge fuckoff lightning deathbeams aren't terribly subtle, and ended up mobbed by Chitauri aircav mounts until he was forced to abandon his position and keep mobile to avoid serious levels of concentrated fire. Even if not for his own sake, then for the sake of the building he was parked on.

I dunno. If the Chitauri bikers had tried to mob him it would have pulled them up and and into groups that would allow him to blast them to pieces.

I really think it came down to him not wanting to fry empty sky between waves. As we saw in the movie a single whale came with the first wave, then two (three) in a second wave, which was when Cap told him to close the portal. Thor blasted a couple more whales who came in the a new wave or at the end of the second wave. Then there was nothing coming through the portal beyond bikes (if that) and Tony is able to enter the portal no problem which is when we see the next wave of whales and bikes that are just departing the station and heading to the portal.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I just rewatched the battle, it looks like the Whale that Thor blasts with lightning gets hammered (as well as a bunch of bikes coming straight at him), I can't tell if it's destroyed or literally forced back through the portal. Either way, next time we see him he's battling alongside the hulk while riding one of said whales (difficult to say as it's a crappy version I'm looking at while I wait for the blu-ray to come through the post).

[JME2]

Apparently he submitted a patent with the name "Badassium" but it was rejected.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Something that I noticed was that somehow, Banner seemed to have gained a greater degree of control as the Hulk during the battle, as while on the helicarrier he seemed to attack anything that moved (and the dumbass fighter pilot who distracted him ignored the order not to get too close), but later he was able to transform and attack at will.

[Batman]

Might have been because later he decided to transform, whereas on the helicarrier it was instinct taking over. Also, the helicarrier transformation was shortly after having been exposed to Loki's staff, which at least as I read the scene was making everybody confrontational, and given The Other Guy isn't the most even-tempered person to begin with, it wouldn't surprise me if the staff's effects were...drastic.

[Ted C]

I just rewatched the battle, it looks like the Whale that Thor blasts with lightning gets hammered (as well as a bunch of bikes coming straight at him), I can't tell if it's destroyed or literally forced back through the portal. Either way, next time we see him he's battling alongside the hulk while riding one of said whales (difficult to say as it's a crappy version I'm looking at while I wait for the blu-ray to come through the post).

Thor's gigantic lightning blast caused two leviathans to explode as they were coming through the portal, but two others had already made it through.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I just rewatched the battle, it looks like the Whale that Thor blasts with lightning gets hammered (as well as a bunch of bikes coming straight at him), I can't tell if it's destroyed or literally forced back through the portal. Either way, next time we see him he's battling alongside the hulk while riding one of said whales (difficult to say as it's a crappy version I'm looking at while I wait for the blu-ray to come through the post).

Thor's gigantic lightning blast caused two leviathans to explode as they were coming through the portal, but two others had already made it through.

Must be the crappy version that I have, I only saw one get hit by the lightning

[Batman]

Or you may have just missed it. While both are obviously destroyed (or at least go explodey to a point that I doubt will leave them particularly useful afterwards) the second one actually being hit by the lightning isn't easy to notice because it's pretty damned short. If you rewatch the sceen, you'll notice the lightning arcs from the first whale to the second one.

[Kojiro]

There's clearly a second whale exploding, but I don't see the lightning jumping to it (though admittedly I don't know what else could be responsible for its destruction at that moment).


It seems that Mjolnir causes some changes in the atmosphere to generate the lightning which it then absorbs, stores (briefly, though possibly longer) and releases it as Thor directs. I would suggest that perhaps there's a limit to how much it could draw from the local area, which is why Thor doesn't just sit there hammering the portal. I don't think the bikes would be a worry for him- they seem to be incidentally get obliterated by arcs from the main 'beam'.

[Batman]

That'd because on rewieving it looks like I mistook the arcing lightning hitting the tail of the initialy hit shark to be the second one. My bad.

[ArmorPierce]

Might have been because later he decided to transform, whereas on the helicarrier it was instinct taking over. Also, the helicarrier transformation was shortly after having been exposed to Loki's staff, which at least as I read the scene was making everybody confrontational, and given The Other Guy isn't the most even-tempered person to begin with, it wouldn't surprise me if the staff's effects were...drastic.

That's what I thought the staff was doing at first, but upon second viewing it looks like the significance of that scene was showing that the staff was acting as a homing signal for the boarding party.