The Avengers Prequel, Featuring Iron Man

In 2010, the highly anticipated sequel to the well received "Iron Man" hit the theaters. While it retained a lot of the fun of the first film, many - myself included - felt that it was merely an extended commercial for the now announced "The Avengers" that featured Iron Man as basically a cameo. Don't get me wrong, I still like the movie. I just feel like they did such a good job making the first two films ("Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk") unique and letting them stand on their own that this just was sort of a let down. That being said, short of a few cast and director announcements, there had been nothing in the way of marketing for "The Avengers" since 2008 - that's two years! Even through this drought of information, people were still very excited to hear more about the superhero team up film.

"Iron Man 2" introduced us to more of the world that "The Avengers" would live in by giving Nick Fury and Agent Coulson more screen time, as well as introducing Black Widow, portrayed by Scarlett Johansson. Furthermore, at the end of the movie but before the credits there was a scene that really set up "The Avengers." Throughout the course of the film, Johansson's character was investigating Tony Stark to see if he would be a good addition to the Avengers team. Nick Fury meets with Tony Stark to tell him that while Iron Man is approved to be a part of the team, Tony is not. They are now looking at him being in a more behind the scenes role. Who knows what that means.

If you saw the movie in theaters in 2010, you might have left the theater when the credits started to roll. They already showed their Avengers scene, so surely there is nothing after the credits, right? Hopefully, you were smart and you stayed after the credits. If you were, you were greeted with this clip:

(Sorry for the bootlegged version - I couldn't find a good one on YouTube). In that clip we see Agent Coulson (who left Tony Stark to go deal with a situation in New Mexico) drive up to a 'crash site.' The camera pans out and we see what crashed - Thor's magical hammer Mjolnir. Coulson then gets on the phone and says either "We found it," or "We found him." While this wasn't as explicitly a set up for "The Avengers," this did announce which direction they were going in next - the most mythical of the Avengers, Thor himself. Of course, movie goers had to wait an entire year to see this next film...