Like Steve Jobs pulling off one of his classic “One more thing...” announcements at Apple’s keynote addresses, Joss Whedon – not, sadly, clad in a black turtleneck sweater – turned up at the end of the Marvel panel to reveal a brief teaser trailer for the Avengers sequel, which, as you can see from the logo above, is called Avengers: Age Of Ultron.
As the Marvel panel was literally about to shut down to make way for Kevin Smith, Whedon strode on stage as an already hyped up audience went even crazier. "Hi! I know it's time to go,” speaketh the Whedon one. “I don't really have anything to say, but I have one thing to add..."
And lo! there began a teaser trailer that was a CG rendering of the various Avengers’ iconic elements, with voice-over ripped from the first movie. As the camera rotated around, all the shiny metal was revealed to be the visage of Ultron, and the video revealed that the second super group film will indeed be The Avengers: Age Of Ultron. And hopefully not Avengers: Assembling Ultron in the UK.
Ultron, who we actually put forward as a potential villain in our piece about making the Avengers sequel awesome, is a criminally insane rogue sentient robot dedicated to conquest and the extermination of humanity. And, continuity fans, if you weren’t already aware, in the comics he’s the creation of Dr. Hank Pym, AKA 'Ant-Man', which would seem to all but confirm that the alternately miniature and massive Marvel man will be seen in the film, or that Ultron may be teased in the science hero’s stand-alone film, which Edgar Wright will soon be working on.
How much of the rogue robot’s backstory will make it on screen is anyone’s guess, but since he appears to be the main Big Bad, expect plenty of chat about his origins to set up the threat he poses. We’ll see how he fits in when the Avengers sequel arrives in the UK in 2015.