Is The Avengers Actually A “Remake”?

I, like many of you, are very excited for the impending May 4th release of Marvel Studios The Avengers. What you may be surprised to know though, is that the silver screen epic is actually a remake! Not only that, but this is the 2nd time it has been remade! While the original movies are lost to time due to not being available on home video, thanks to the internet we can at least see the trailers for these epic films. First, the movie that started it all: 1952’s The Avengers!

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The most amazing thing about this film, aside from the absolutely dead-on Hulk and cameos by no less than 18 Marvel characters is the fact that the film debuted 9 years before the dawn of Marvel Comics! How is such a thing possible? I’ll get to that, but first, here’s the campy made-for-TV remake from 1978: Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes!

Man I swear, KISS was freaking everywhere in the late 70’s. Honestly I can’t say I’m too fond of this movie. Lou Ferrigno is still great as the Hulk, and this is was the best screen depiction of Tony Stark until Robert Downey Jr. However, I can’t abide by Reb Brown’s Captain America spending half the movie on a motorcycle like a low-grade Evel Knievel. Also, who’s idea was it to make Thor a beer-swilling viking? Thankfully, the new movie looks to erase the above movie’s bad memories, even if they aren’t using Skrulls this time out.

In all seriousness, these two clips are of course very clever fan-made YouTube offerings, but how cool would it be if they really existed? Well, the 50’s one anyway. Speaking of that masterpiece, the author actually has an annotated video to show all the cameos you may have missed. It’s pretty amazing how flawless it all looks.

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