“I’m gonna show you something beautiful.” It’s a line that seems more threat than encouragement, coming at the top of the first trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron. A day after it was announce that the first trailer would be publicly unveiled following Agents of Shield next Tuesday, the trailer has appeared online:
UPDATE: Following the leak Marvel has now posted a higher resolution full version of the video. Watch it below:
This would appear to be from the exhibition at the New York Comic Con, which ran earlier this month, and it’s got a bevy of sweet details all underscored by a sickly-sinister narration by Ultron voice James Spader.
“Where’s the end? The end of the path I started us on?” asks Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) at the 1:10 mark, an apparent reference to the toying he’s done with automated Iron Man suits over the last couple standalone Iron Man films which has morphed into (according to the few plot details that are available) a global peacekeeping initiative. It comes in response to an Ultron line which mocks the Avengers for expecting that the world could go unchanged after they came onto the scene. It’s a theme that’s been explored in Marvel’s Stage 2 films to date, but really seems to come to a head here. Heck, it might even provide some answer to the constant refrain, “Where are the Avengers?” in criticism of Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, suggesting that they can no longer hide in their own corners of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. With news last week that Captain America 3 will kick off the universe-shaking “Civil War” storyline, the MCU seems primed to be more interconnected than ever.
But the most striking image from the trailer has to be the one which drops in at 1:15 – Iron Man’s Hulkbuster armor. The massive suit shows up again at 1:38 and clearly shows that there are no mere trailer hijinks going on: Iron Man and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) are going to get in a fight. The suit made a cameo appearance in Iron Man 3, but never saw use. It’s back and looking even badder here.
Also in evidence: Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are woven throughout the trailer as Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, respectively, though it’s unclear so far exactly how/how much they’ll be interacting with the returning slate of heroes, including Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). The award for the weirdest shot in the trailer has to go to the ballet studio at 1:31, with the creepiest certainly being the broken shield of Captain America lying in the rubble at 1:49 followed immediately by the only footage of Ultron actually speaking. And he looks creepy.
Avengers: Age of Ultron is directed by Joss Whedon, and hits U.S. theaters May 1st of next year.