Even as The Dark Knight Rises suffers an enormous setback thanks to a recent, unintentionally huge Dark Knight Rises spoiler, Marvel Studios seems to be doing just fine keeping the plot of The Avengers secret. While we know that Thor's Tom Hiddleston returns as Loki, he's clearly not the film's only threat, since the trailer shows enormous battle scenes on the streets of New York City, against a completely unseen menace. Popular internet rumors suggest that The Avengers will face off against the shape-shifting Skrulls, possibly in a sort of Secret Invasion storyline, but in a recent interview with Empire, Marvel's Kevin Feige debunked those rumors as speculation.
Here's an excerpt from the upcoming issue of Empire, via JoBlo:
"Who said they were aliens?" he teases. Beings from the Nine Realms, then, ventures Empire? "Closer...It's not Skrulls, I've been clear about that. Beyond that, we want to hide it. The identity of the alien race is not impactful. It exists in the comic books, but we're not setting up the Kree-Skrull war or anything like that."
Unequivocably not Skrulls, then. It's pretty funny that Feige starts with "Who said they were aliens?" and then a couple of seconds later says, "The identity of the alien race is not impactful." Definitely aliens then, definitely not the Skrulls and most likely not the Kree. What's left? Marvel has a ton of credible alien threats, ranging from the warlike Badoon to the techno-organic Phalanx. Their most prominent alien menace, beyond Galactus (the rights for whom seem to belong to the Fantastic Four franchise, not currently owned by Marvel Studios) is probably Thanos, another villain rumored to be a part of Joss Whedon's Avengers for some time.
But there's one other fan theory about the other villain in The Avengers, namely that the Red Skull - who in Captain America: The First Avenger disappeared in a vortex similar to the one Loki fell into at the end of Thor - could make an appearance as well. Feige says that's not true either.
"Was Skull vaporised at the end of the movie, or thrust into another realm?" asks Feige. "That remains to be seen. It would be fun to see Skull in future, but he's not in this one." (Joss) Whedon though is a little more circumspect when Empire confronts him. "I do have a comment on that," he says, before pulling a move worthy of Loki himself. "It's...oh, you're breaking up!"
Who else wil end up in The Avengers? Is Loki really not enough for you? Hopefully we'll have more information when a new trailer for the film appears in the next few months, leading up to the film's May 4 release. Guys... We're three months away from seeing The Avengers. Is that nuts or what?
CraveOnline will be back with more Avengers news after Jarvis gets back with our tea.
