Pretty much what I was thinking. I think it’s kind of funny that all these The Avengers (tv show not comic book) fans are either unaware or intentionally ignoring the fact that there already was a The Avengers movie made based on the series, and it was one of the worst movies ever fucking made.
The new movie’s official title is Marvel’s The Avengers, so they’re making a deliberate distinction.
The only Marvel comics I read at all were ‘Silver Surfer’ and ‘Doctor Strange’. I found the X-Men embarrassingly bad and the comic version of The Avengers just never landed on my desk.
On the other hand, CBC carried The Avengers when it was first in production. Then it was in re-runs on CBC during the 70s, and I think the PBS station from the states carried it as well. Moses Znaimer loved it, and I remember it being run as a filler/nostalgia show on City-TV as well as Bravo.
And I never considered it remotely second rate - it was right up there with ‘The Prisoner’, ‘The Saint’, ‘Secret Agent Man’, etc. The best part about the TV series (and the part the film version completely failed to capture) was the tension between their propriety and their overwhelming sexual attraction. I just don’t think it would work in a modern day setting - the turn of the 60s was the perfect time for this series.
I’ve been too busy to pay much attention to movies. I’d seen the Avengers threads here, but never opened them. I just assumed that it was about John Steed and Emma Peel.
Then last week I was listening to a review on NPR and they mentioned aliens. 
And then the guy mentioned Bruce Banner and the penny dropped. :smack:
I haven’t seen any ads for it either, and I do watch broadcast TV. I feel like I’ve seen hundreds of TV ads for the Dark Shadows movie – including one just seconds ago – but nothing for the Avengers movie.
I do pass a movie theater almost every day, and when they put AVENGERS COMING 5/4 up on their marquee I did actually think “Oh, they’re doing another movie based on that old TV show that had Diana Rigg in a catsuit.” I didn’t realize my mistake until I was at the theater to see another movie and noticed the poster for The Avengers, which was obviously a superhero movie. The TV series was well before my time, but I had heard of it. I honestly had no idea there was a superhero team by that name, although I had heard of several of the individual characters and even saw the first Iron Man movie.
You know, I’m not much of a fan of Joss Whedon, and haven’t seen Avengers yet, but I reckon Joss would make a great Man From UNCLE movie.
Amusingly, neither team really does much avenging, as a rule.
It’s pedantic, but that always kind of bugged me too.
Fortunately, they did seem to fix that for this movie.
Yeah, my heterosexuality was confirmed at age ten. I recall reading the introduction to one of his books in which Asimov told of seeing Diana Rigg on Broadway specifically because she “peeled.” Full frontal, IIRC.
…yes. Yes he most certainly would.
I thought of the comic book Avengers when I heard about the movie, but I also have a housemate who is a giant comics geek. When Thor came out on DVD, we went a few streets down to the university and “requisitioned” (read: used the grad monkey’s keycard to get in late on a Saturday when no one else was in the building) one of the lecture halls with an LCD projector to watch it.
I would be equally excited to see a spy-Avengers movie, if they could manage to make one that wasn’t awful.
Canonically, the comic-book Avengers are called that just because it sounds really cool. Yes, really. There’s no deeper significance to it than that.
IIRC, the exchange went something like this:
“We need a really cool name for ourselves. Something like The Avengers, or…”
“No, that’s it! The Avengers! That’s our new name.”
In the TV show, Dr Keel’s wife was murdered by a drugs gang. He set out to avenge her death, meeting and teaming up with John Steed, who was after the same gang.
Here’s a gif of the very panel at the end of issue 1 where they decide on the name. Note the distinct lack of Captain America, who wouldn’t join up for a few more issues.
I think you mean they’d be playing Spider-Man and Wolverine! 
I like the Hulk channeling Mr. T: “I pity the guy who tries to beat us!”
Hulk not channel puny T man! T man only 11 when Hulk say that! T man owe Hulk royalties!
