If there’s one thing Marvel has proven over the last several years it’s that Iron Man is as popular as ever. With the character’s succes in movies come a renewed level of interest in his comic book exploits as well.

Fortunately, Marvel isn’t resting on its laurels and keeps turing out great stories for its major characters, Iron Man included. Now, with things heating up in the Marvel U and Tony Stark having problems, a new Iron Man is coming to take matters into his (or her) own hands.

That’s the story in Marvel’s upcoming Invincible Iron Man #518. The story, from writer Matt Fraction and artist Salvador Larroca, concerns “the Spymaster’s rampage within Stark Resilient and that incident’s bloody end. The Mandarin is throwing everything he’s got at Tony Stark including amped up super villains. With a big target painted on his back, can Tony Stark make it out alive? Can the new Iron Man save him in time?”

I guess we’ll see when Invincible Iron Man #518 hits comic shops, the Marvel Comics app, and Marvel Digital Comic Shop on June 6. In the meantime, check out some previews for the comic after the break.

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I feel bad being so late to this movie—granted this is the opening day, but it seems that for the past two weeks, everyone in the world has seen it already. And so, for the past two weeks, everyone’s been raving about it and saying that it’s the greatest superhero movie ever made; it’s the best movie of the summer; it’s better than a big sex sandwich, and so on.

The premise, if it weren’t already evident from the stingers Marvel’s added to the very end of every one of their movies for the past five years, is that a group of superheroes—Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner)–need to recover the Tesseract, a glowing blue cube that generates unlimited energy and also, somehow, opens the portal to the realm of Asgard.

No sooner does S.H.I.E.L.D., a shadowy government agency overseen by a committee whose purpose in the film is somewhat tenuous, discover this than the Tesseract’s stolen by Thor’s adoptive brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who also hypnotizes Hawkeye and one of the scientists from Thor, Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) into doing his nefarious shenanigans, namely, opening a bigger portal to Asgard and invading earth.

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And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born—to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand! 

Yesterday in select cities nationwide, thousands of people were treated to a back-to-back marathon screening of all six Marvel Studios films. From Iron Man all the way to the midnight premiere of The Avengers, this epic, butt-busting extravaganza was sold as THE best way to celebrate the arrival of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

The roster of films was impressive, but the time commitment was daunting. For true Marvel movie fans was this celebration a good thing? Is the act of subjecting yourself to hours upon hours watching these films worthwhile? Does it diminish the quality or enhance the context when you watch them all back-to-back?

These were all questions I had to ask myself before settling in on my seventeen hour quest through the Marvel Movie-verse, and they were all questions that were answered quite emphatically by about the fifth hour.

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With the live action Avengers hitting the big screen today Marvel doesn’t want fans to forget they have other programs featuring their heroes available to watch. In fact, a TV series about the Avengers is currently running on Disney XD right now.

That show, called The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, airs on Sundays and this week’s new episode promises some pretty good action and fun for kids of all ages. To help set the mood Marvel has sent us a preview for this Sunday’s episode along with some word we’re supposed to include. Here they are:

Can’t get enough of the Hulk?! This Sunday on Ultimate Spider-Man, catch more HULK SMASH action as he teams up with Spidey to take down an invisible villain who’s destroying Manhattan! In this behind-the-scenes interview, the big voice behind the big guy, Fred Tatasciore, gives an inside look into the mind of this week’s breakout Avenger.

Don’t miss Fred as The Hulk in Ultimate Spider-Man and in a new The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (featuring The Guardians of the Galaxy!), this Sunday inside Marvel Universe at 11a/10c, only on Disney XD.

Check out the video after the break.

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With the advent of the internet buying tickets to movies becomes more and more like buying tickets to concerts, and I don’t mean the inflated prices. When an event film comes out and you know you want to experience it with the midnight or opening day crowds you can by your tickets way ahead of time.

Lots of people are doing just that for the first ever major ‘Cross-over Event’ Film. According to MovieTickets.com the presale ticket numbers for The Avengers are larger than all the other Marvel Studio films… COMBINED:

MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS is pre-selling more tickets for the upcoming release than the online ticketing company sold for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, THOR, IRON MAN 2, and IRON MAN combined at the same point in the sales cycle for each film.  In fact, pre-sales of MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS is over one and a half times that of these past Marvel films combined sales at the same point in the sales cycle.

You can check out the bigger break down of how far ahead The Avengers is after the jump.

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While there are some haters out there who think a superhero mega movie isn’t worth the time spent on popcorn, the majority of the country, and now, the world, seem to disagree. Disney and Marvel’s The Avengers opened up in specific worldwide screens this weekend, a week ahead of the domestic release on May 4th, and have already superseded expectations in their market, breaking records in Australia by having the second biggest opening weekend of all time behind the final Harry Potter film.

THR breaks down the rest.

The Marvel Studios and Disney tentpole grossed $6 million, compared to $7 million for Deathly Hallows Part 2. And Avengers opened 214 percent ahead of Iron Man 2 ($1.8 million).

Avengers, which is beginning its foreign rollout a week ahead of its domestic launch on May 4, also did record business in Taiwan, scoring the best Wednesday opening gross of all time in earning $1.2 million.

The tentpole is setting down in a total of 42 foreign markets this weekend. Avengers is expected to be a box office monster, both domestically and overseas. In North America, it could debut north of $150 million, based on the sizable strength of pre-release tracking.

Not too shabby for a film about a group of dysfunctional teammates who take down an alien race, right? Catch Avengers in theaters next Friday.

OK, so we know it is coming, we know The Avengers looms just a little more than a week away. The early critical reception is very high, the buzz couldn’t be better and many of you already have your tickets in hand for the midnight shows.

That is a lot of anticipation, and we are certainly feeling it here at The Flickcast. One of the biggest things I am looking forward to the most is the score by Alan Silvestri, as the resident film music nerd here, his take on an Avengers theme tickles my fancy way more than most.

When a film of this magnitude is on the horizon, it is hard to keep things like it’s soundtrack under-wraps, and as such the entire score has already leaked online. I am happy to say it is quite great in what little I have allowed myself to listen to, but it only makes my jonesing for the movie that much more intense.

So to alleviate a little of that pressure, here is a video of the main theme by Mr. Silvestri, cut together as a music video featuring all of the as yet released Avengers footage. This video lets you experience the kick assery of the main theme in the context of actual Avengers footage.

Check it out after the jump.

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One of the greatest perks of Disney buying Marvel Comics a few years back was that we would start to see some Marvel flourishes in the Disney parks. It is going to be a long process before we see Iron Man and Cap walking around the parks, due to deals Marvel previously had in place with Universal Studios for theme park based attractions.

Those deals don’t, however, hinder Disney from promoting their new features starring the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Soon to be zooming overhead at the Walt Disney World Resort is the Avengers themed monorail!

Wrapping the monorails is not a new tactic for Disney, who previously converted Disneyland monorails into light cycles prior to Tron: Legacy’s release. However, these are much cooler, and will serve as a great looking speeding billboard for Disney World park goers this summer.

Hopefully this small entry into the parks is just the first step that will lead to a full fledged Marvel Comics land in one of the Disney Parks. Heck why not an entire separate Marvel Park, complete with Hulk Smash Bumper cars, Iron Man flight simulators, Thor Thunder Chrurros and Black Widow ladies rooms!

The Avengers hits theaters everywhere May 4th.

Whenever some one tells you some idea is unfilmable, some concept too complex to work properly on the big screen. You really ought to show them these behind the scenes pictures from The Avengers. Proof positive that large and unfilmable ideas can see the light of day.

To help get the world jazzed up for the upcoming release, Marvel has released several really amazing behind the scenes pictures that are just reeking of cool. Not only do you have geek god Joss Whedon appearing in most of these shots, but you also get to see him directing the icons of the movie.

It really feels like Joss is helping Bruce Banner find his motivation, or that he is sharing a new perspective on a scene with Thor. These actors fit the roles so well that they are transcending their own persona’s and have become the heroes themselves.

Sure that may be a bit of little hyperbole, but these awesome production shots are among the coolest officially released pieces yet and do more to jazz us for the film than 1,000 badly photoshopped one-sheets.

You can enjoy the whole set of six shots after the jump, The Avengers hits theaters May 4th.

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One thing Marvel never seems to get tired of is pitting its creations against each other. After all, what do you do when you’ve concurred all the super villains in the universe?

The latest example of this is Marvel’s upcoming Avengers versus X-Men. Not content with just one new series, Marvel is also dropping some tie-in books lioke the one we’ve got a preview of today.

This one, called AVX VS #1, comes from the creative team of Jason Aaron & Adam Kubert and Kathryn & Stuart Immonen. It features “pulse-pounding battles” as Iron Man faces off against Magneto & Thing takes on Namor.

Look for AVX VS #1 to arrive in comic stores on April 25. Check out the preview after the break.

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Now that we have Jennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games out of our system, I think it’s safe to say the next major release for the fan community is Disney and Marvel’s upcoming superfilm, The Avengers.

Set to bring just about a billion fans together for a solid 2 hours, the studio is hoping to shatter previous records (statistically speaking) and bring in the dawn of a new era of superhero franchise films. We’ve heard plenty of rumors as to who the main villain is in the film, what Avenger cameos we may be getting, and how much fun everyone had on set, but these images of Cap, Stark, and the rest of the crew really show why this film could be the biggest of the summer.

You get a little bit of everyone in the images after the jump, as well as the rarely seen Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill. And yes: for those who heard Whedon’s rant about how much he hates Iron Man’s triangular power supply, you’ll even see the newly designed circular one make an appearance.

Check them all out below and catch Avengers in theaters on May 4th.

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Due to the fact that two different movie studios own the rights to The Avengers and The X-Men, we will probably never see a movie here those two teams meet, let alone fight each other. However, we still have the comics.

Marvel has already released the first issue of Avengers vs. X-Men and it was, putting it mildly, damn cool. The second issue is coming soon and we’ve got previews for it for you today.

Here comes the Marvel PR stuff:

From the powerhouse creative team of Jason Aaron & John Romita Jr. comes the second part of the groundbreaking event pitting Earth’s Mightiest against the X-Men with the entire Marvel Universe at stake! As the all-powerful Phoenix Force hurtles ever closer toward Earth; The Avengers storm the beach of Utopia, determined to save mankind at any cost! This is what you’ve been waiting for all year, and now you’ll get the chance to see some explosive matchups and who comes out on top.

Look for Avengers vs. X-Men #2 to drop on April 18. Click through for some preview pages from the issue.

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