# OK, I've seen The Avengers - open spoilers! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 8, 2012, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234 "2012-05-08T01:37:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/421 "2012-05-23T15:54:06Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Weeeelllll…I’ve heard spoiler rumors on Agent Phil’s ultimate fate… > > I’ve heard that they’re going to download Phil’s personality into an android body, and bring the Vision in that way. > > I have absolutely no opinion on the reliability of this rumor… I’ve seen lots of wishful thinking that this is the case, and I’m totally on board with it if it happens, but I’ve not seen anything that indicates it’s anything more than fanwank. Have you seen anything more official than message board and blog posts? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/422 "2012-05-23T16:45:06Z")
Yeah, everything I’ve heard on that front has been prefaced by “Wouldn’t it be cool if…”. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/423 "2012-05-23T17:21:19Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > And technically Loki’s a tiny Frost Giant, and for what it’s worth they seemed just as tough as Asgardians except for Odin and Thor. > > I was a little disappointed that we didn;t get to see Hiddleston in his Frost Giant makeup, but there was no real reason for it, and it would have confused people who skipped _Thor_. There was a very good reason against it: in _Thor_, Loki _hated_ his Frost Giant heritage to the point of trying to genocide Jotunheim so that he could be a real Asgardian in his own eyes (after all, he can’t be a Frost Giant if there aren’t any, right?). ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/424 "2012-05-24T00:08:56Z")
> [@Mines\_Mystique](#): > > They called them Chitauri due to licensing issues. I believe Fox still holds the license for the Fantastic Four, which has the Skrull name/characters, meaning that Disney/Marvel couldn’t use it for this movie. That makes it a little strange that Thanos had that cameo in the stinger. He’s really more associated with the Silver Surfer\* than the Avengers, and Fox has the Surfer via FF2. Seems weird they could use him but had to nerf the Skrulls. \*yeah or Adam Warlock, but the chances of that guy ever being in a movie are about a billion to one. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/425 "2012-05-24T00:27:37Z")
Joss Whedon, God-emperor of the Nerdverse: [http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/01/master-of-the-whedonverse/](http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/01/master-of-the-whedonverse/) ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/426 "2012-05-24T01:12:43Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > There was a very good reason against it: in _Thor_, Loki _hated_ his Frost Giant heritage to the point of trying to genocide Jotunheim so that he could be a real Asgardian in his own eyes (after all, he can’t be a Frost Giant if there aren’t any, right?). Yeah, I didn’t mean he would involuntarily change. But the spell did partially lift when the frost giant touched him, and when he used the Casket of Ancient Winters. So if for some story reason he encountered similar magic, that would have been a nice touch. ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/427 "2012-05-24T08:53:41Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > That makes it a little strange that Thanos had that cameo in the stinger. He’s really more associated with the Silver Surfer\* than the Avengers, and Fox has the Surfer via FF2. Seems weird they could use him but had to nerf the Skrulls. > \*yeah or Adam Warlock, but the chances of that guy ever being in a movie are about a billion to one. Not really, seeing as you can link just about every Marvel character to every other. By that reckoning, Fox would own the rights to half the Marvel universe, just because they had the FF. ---
**Author:** ![Tabby\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/428 "2012-05-24T09:34:42Z")
I do wish that Fox didn’t, though. The Fox movies so far have been unredeemably crap. Ian McKellen should have been in a Marvel produced movie, not whatever dreck Fox churned out. ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/429 "2012-05-24T15:39:06Z")
> [@Tabby\_Cat](#): > > I do wish that Fox didn’t, though. The Fox movies so far have been unredeemably crap. Ian McKellen should have been in a Marvel produced movie, not whatever dreck Fox churned out. :dubious: “X-Men” and “X2” were both great - the latter is generally considered one of the best comic book movies ever made. Of the Marvel Studios flicks, I’d really only put “Avengers” and “Iron Man” up there with them (and I enjoyed “Captain America” and “Thor”). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/430 "2012-05-25T04:13:27Z")
Saw it for a second time tonight, and it was just as much fun. I listened carefully, and Stark’s line to Hawkeye is definitely “Better clench up, Legolas.” And I was finally able to spot myself in my scene as an extra!: > **[I was an Avengers extra](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=650920)** > > I wrote a first draft of this right after filming, and recently revised it, now that the movie has been released in the U.S. and we’re released from the studio’s nondisclosure agreement. Hope you like it. I’ll remember that night for a long, long... ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/431 "2012-05-25T14:26:47Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Saw it for a second time tonight, and it was just as much fun. I listened carefully, and Stark’s line to Hawkeye is definitely “Better clench up, Legolas.” And to me that line makes the least amount of sense of all the other lines that we thought he said. Is that an archery term that I’m not aware of? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/432 "2012-05-25T14:31:15Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > And to me that line makes the least amount of sense of all the other lines that we thought he said. > > Is that an archery term that I’m not aware of? I took it as a shorthand way of saying, “You’re about to experience a significant [delta-vee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v), so you might want to make sure your sphincter is ready for it.” ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/433 "2012-05-25T14:37:13Z")
I was watching the Incredible Hulk again last night, and was wondering about the Super Soldier serum that Ross used on Blonsky. Where did he get it from? If the army still had serum left over, why was Cap the only Super Soldier? Why did it have side effects for Blonsky (his bones started to grow strangely before he was given Banner’s blood), when it worked perfectly on Cap? Are they offering no-prizes for the movies? ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Il\_Palazzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Lord\_Il\_Palazzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Il_Palazzo)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/434 "2012-05-25T14:55:17Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#): > > I was watching the Incredible Hulk again last night, and was wondering about the Super Soldier serum that Ross used on Blonsky. Where did he get it from? If the army still had serum left over, why was Cap the only Super Soldier? > > Why did it have side effects for Blonsky (his bones started to grow strangely before he was given Banner’s blood), when it worked perfectly on Cap? > > Are they offering no-prizes for the movies? There was no Super Soldier Serum left after what was used on Cap and the vial the spy stole being broken in the chase. What Blonsky took was an attempt to recreate the original formula; apparently there were some bugs that hadn’t been worked out. ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/435 "2012-05-25T14:59:34Z")
That’s how I’d remembered it, but he goes and gets it from a storage room, where it has clearly been mothballed. Apparently, there you can also see a label marked “Dr. Reinstein”, which is apparently an alias of Dr Erskine… [cite](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800080/trivia) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/436 "2012-05-25T15:36:06Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#): > > Why did it have side effects for Blonsky (his bones started to grow strangely before he was given Banner’s blood), when it worked perfectly on Cap? It worked perfectly on Cap because Iron Man’s dad zapped him with vita-rays or something. Iron Man’s dad wasn’t shown zapping Blonsky with vita-rays or something. QED. ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/437 "2012-05-25T15:38:45Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > It worked perfectly on Cap because Iron Man’s dad zapped him with vita-rays or something. Iron Man’s dad wasn’t shown zapping Blonsky with vita-rays or something. QED. Yeah, that might be the case, although that just raises the question, why didn’t General Ross use vita rays? Howard Stark wasn’t killed by a hydra agent, and surely _someone_ was taking notes ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Il\_Palazzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Lord\_Il\_Palazzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Il_Palazzo)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/438 "2012-05-25T15:44:45Z")
I haven’t seen the The Incredible Hulk since it was in theaters so take this with a grain or two of salt. Given what you’ve said, the serum could have simply been a prototype that had unintended side effects, or Reinstein might have been a later scientist who tried to replicate the original serum (or part of the original team who tried to recreate the work later) with imperfect results (I don’t remember Erskine using that name or being mentioned by it. The cite says Reinstein created the serum, but doesn’t say he was the same person as Erskine.) If it was the same serum, the difference could be the radiation they used on Cap. I don’t remember whether Blonsky used it or not but even if he did, he might have done it wrong or not enough. EDIT: So yeah, what **The Other Waldo Pepper** said. As for why they didn’t use the vita-rays, maybe they didn’t have access to the equipment and/or didn’t believe they had been an essential part of the process. (Just guesses, no real support for either of these, that I know of.) ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/439 "2012-05-25T16:05:07Z")
Dr. Erksine also makes the statement that the PERSON you use also affects how the serum works. It achieved the results it did with Steve Rogers because he was an overall good person who hated bullies. Same reason it turned Johann Schmidt into Red Skull and not into “Captain Nazi”. If the subject was not the right person you would not get the same results even using the same techniques and formula. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234/440 "2012-05-25T16:07:15Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#): > > Yeah, that might be the case, although that just raises the question, why didn’t General Ross use vita rays? Howard Stark wasn’t killed by a hydra agent, and surely _someone_ was taking notes IIRC, the Avengers movie has Cap get brought up to speed early on when someone explains how Banner figured – mistakenly – that gamma radiation was the key to duplicating how the serum worked back when. If we grant that Erskine for some reason never actually wrote down the formula (but it got correctly deduced, decades later, from his notes), then I guess it’s _ **equally** _ easy to grant that Stark – for the same reason – never wrote down what he meant by “vita rays” (and Banner incorrectly deduced “gamma rays” from Stark’s notes). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-ive-seen-the-avengers-open-spoilers/621234.md?page=23)