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* Why would Loki want to be captured anyway? If he had been manipulating Banner from the start, like Black Widow asserts, then he would have no need to be on the boat-plane in order to cause some carnage via the Hulk. Also, given that Loki can poof his scepter away, why would he bring it back to surrender it?
** Loki intends to destroy the SHIELD helicarrier in a pre-emptive strike shortly before the portal opens. His first plan for doing that is 'Unleash the Hulk', and his backup plan for doing it is 'Have Barton and his commandos sabotage it'. Both plans require Loki to be on the Helicarrier -- the first one so he can get himself and the scepter within mindscrew range of Banner, and the second one because tracking the scepter's gamma emissions is how Hawkeye found the Helicarrier. (There's a Freeze Frame bonus in the scene where Barton's Quinjet is first approaching the Helicarrier -- Loki's scepter is on the tracking display. He's clearly following its signal to find the Helicarrier.)
* For Thor being a hotblooded warrior prince he was pretty underused in the final battle. Considering how extreme he was in the fight against the frost giants in his namesake film, Thor should have had more scenes fighting along side the Hulk. I don't mean he "needed more screen time", actually his lack of it up until the action scene at the end could be interpreted as fridge brilliance. He knows how to work on a team and he already learned his humility lesson, therefore he doesn't require the same character development as the others. The issue is his relative (to his own film) poor showing in the battle scene, which could be interpreted as a violation of [[Show, Don't Tell]], an example of [[Character Derailment]] and/or maybe a bit of [[Conservation of Ninjitsu]].
** What "poor showing"? When he single-handedly demolishes several leviathans and dozens of fliers within a few seconds with that giant column of lightning right at the start? When he takes down a Leviathan? When he's never shown to be as tired or wounded as the other Avengers, even after the Hulk punches him? How did he have a poor showing?
** "As tired as the other Avengers", is the issue. Comparing the Frost Giant battle and the Chitari battle Thor seemed to be a bit lacking in the final battle IIRC. Granted I've only seen the film once so my memory might be failing me.
*** Responding to the below post, I'll go see the movie again and I'll specify. Considering how far and fast Thor can propel himself with his hammer the drop shouldn't have been that big of a deal.
*** "Not that big of a deal"? Seriously? The drop is actually a brilliant deathtrap, and surviving it was a feat worthy of Golden Age Superman. Look at everything that's going on there:<br />a) The cage was built to withstand the Hulk. At the very least, it withstood a solid, standing strike with Mjolnir with barely a crack. Thor had to launch himself with his entire body to break out of it.<br />b) The cage is tumbling. This makes it impossible to orient yourself, much less anchor yourself to try to break through a wall. And at the speed it's dropping, it's essentially zero-G in there, making it even HARDER to hold onto a surface and break it.<br />c) The drop itself. The cage is launched down from many, many thousands of feet in the air to smash into the ground below. It was dropped from a high enough altitude that it most certainly reached terminal velocity. That sort of impact would have liquefied anything in it (we'd have to speculate what it would have done to its intended resident.) Thor escaped with fractions of a second to spare, which means he had built up the ''same'' momentum as the cage itself, and was being pulled into the ground at that same speed. He can't arrest his fall --the best he could hope for was breaking out of the cage at a perfectly opposite trajectory; and even then, even if his relative speed made him "shoot out" of the cage, his absolute speed would barely change (basically, he'd just slow down his fall ''a little''. It's basic Physics.)<br />So put all three things together: he DID manage to, in a fraction of a second, find his footing and smash out of a Hulk-grade cage with no way of telling which direction he was headed. And he didn't emerge directly upwards, but at an angle, carrying enough momentum to crash into solid ground and leave a crater. Hulk survived a similar fall, with a difference of only a hundred feet or so, because he's the Hulk, and he was still knocked out. Either Thor has similar endurance, or the drop ''hurt like all kinds of hell'' and it's basically a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] that he survived.
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** Breath mints and Dodgers cards.
** Coulson trading cards
** More seriously, it's probably survival gear, first aid supplies, and a backup radio.
* Why does the movie even happen? The [[Bigger Bad]]'s goal of the whole endeavour, made clear from the very beginning, is to retrieve the tesseract. Loki accomplishes this ''in the first five minutes'' of his arrival on Earth with ''zero trouble'' and it is established that cross-universe travel is relatively easy with the tesseract in hand. Seems to me any [[Elite Mook]] could have been sent to do the same job and be back home in about fifteen minutes, and not risk a bungle in some unimportant "conquer the Earth while you're at it" personal vendetta.
** Loki's deal was to get an army in exchange for the tesseract - wouldn't you want to get the army first before you give the tesseract away if you were in Loki's place?
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*** It's possible the little device Thor put the Tesseract in just takes them directly back to Asgard. Possibly Odin gave it to him with a message along the lines of, "Once you've got the cube, stick it in this and you'll be brought right home."
**** Or both. The device the Tesseract is in when Thor brings Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard appears to be of Asgardian design, and we have not seen it at any point prior in the movie. The handheld Bifrost may or may not require the Tesseract as a power source (Odin having to use dark energy to send Thor over the first time suggests it does), but there's no evidence Thanos even knows of such a device's existence. Presumably, Thor brought it with him from Asgard. As we never see any such device in Loki's hands, it can't really be accounted for on Loki's end of Thanos's plan; all Loki has to work with is the portal generator that S.H.I.E.L.D. built.
* This is minor and essential to move the plot forward, I realize, but it bugs me all the same. Erik Selvig probably knows more about Loki than anyone, thanks to his heritage. He's the first to identify him after the demigod makes his entrance at SHIELD headquarters, and Erik knows damn well how dangerous Loki is thanks to myths and being a first-hand witness to his destruction in ''Thor''. What I want to know is why, after watching TWO PEOPLE get brainwashed, did Erik allow Loki to get close enough to brainwash him in the first place?
** Because he's not an action guy. A lot of people who aren't used to being in life-threatening danger simply freeze the hell up when they're put in said danger. Simple as that.
** Selvig is an old guy who just watched Loki casually leap around the room and kill half a dozen armed SHIELD agents. He probably realizes that, at best, he might get a few steps before Loki reaches him and kills/brainwashes him.
** In addition, Selvig is literally the only human in the room who has ever seen Asgardians in combat before. He knows ''exactly'' how utterly, completely fucked he is.
* Isn't Loki ridiculously out-of-character in this movie? Murdering people at the start of the movie, and smiling while he does it; making sadistic comments; uncalled-for insults to other characters; smirking/grinning when he senses chaos and destruction happening.
:: In Thor's solo movie, Loki never showed any of those personality traits, '''except''' towards Thor himself, and in that case, it's arguable that Loki was just "pushed" into having that attitude and he would probably regret it after achieving his goal. He mostly [[Affably Evil|treated his enemies (Laufey and Thor) with respect while still being their enemy]]. The only person he killed (without being asked to) was an enemy of his father's. And even though he planned to destroy an entire planet, he was not doing it ''[[For the Evulz|"cuz it's fun"]]''. He was '''never''' shown to be taking pleasure in the death/destruction that he caused in Thor's solo movie. He didn't even kill Heimdall, so I assumed he was planning to just put some kind of spell on Heimdall after his plan was complete instead of killing him. In Thor's movie, Loki was a [[Knight Templar]] / [[Well
:: Before the movie came out, Hiddleston implied that Loki was going to be just as sympathetic as he was in ''Thor'', that he was going to be a character who we would feel sorry for because he's just looking for his rightful place in the universe. But that's not what I got from Loki's portrayal in this movie at all, only a [[Complete Monster]].
** I think he ''did'' try to kill Heimdall. He used the freaking Casket of Ancient Winters, something with the potential to destroy worlds, on ''one person.'' Yes, he didn't make extra sure he was dead by shattering the ice but I think that completely freezing someone like that (which likely would have killed other people) is sufficient to assume that someone is dead.
** It's not very hard to believe that Loki's simply changed after everything that happened to him. In ''Thor'', Loki was just starting down The Slippery Slope. By ''The Avengers'', he's doing cartwheels at the bottom. Not to mention that he did try destroying an entire realm in ''Thor'', just because he thought I'd please his father...
** Loki ''is'' out of character in this movie--[[Word of God]] is that his trip through that wormhole at the end of ''Thor'' did bad, ''bad'' things to his psyche.
** Apparently, they cut 2 hours of material from the movie, so maybe there were scenes making Loki more sympathetic that were cut. I also thought he wasn't particularly like they set up Loki's character in ''[[Thor (
** There is actually a rather interesting theory on Loki's out of character-ness. It is thought by many fans that perhaps Loki was being at least partially brainwashed by Thanos. It is implied in the movie that the stone in Loki's staff helps perhaps increase the emotions felt by the Avengers when they start arguing and seems to be at least partially responsible for that argument in some way. If the stone did that to the Avengers, it has to be wondered what it could be doing to Loki. If it is the case that the stone is helping to increase negative emotions, Loki's out of character-ness is completely justified. Also, it is shown that the brainwashing seems to be reversed by blows to the head and after Loki was smashed around by the Hulk, he seemed to change back into who he was before.
*** I am very curious if this explanation will become canon in the next Thor movie.
** In addition to the point about the sceptre, there's an easily overlooked moment when we see Loki making his bargain with the Chitauri, in which The Other tells him that if he fails, {{spoiler|Thanos}} will make him wish for something as merciful as pain, and gives him a sample thereof. Loki takes it without resistance. We don't know how long Loki has been with the Chitauri. We do know that he didn't really have a plan, so much as he had an order from his superior with a request for himself. He calls himself an ally, but his motivations are purely in subservience to the Chitauri; his "plan" consists of after the Chitauri rule the Earth, they may be so merciful as to allow him to rule it if he is a good servant to them. And for the cruelty he shows the humans, when made to suffer for prolonged periods of time, some people who have never been cruel before, develop it as a coping mechanism. He's monstrous towards his enemies because it allows HIM to make them suffer the way he did. It makes him feel powerful when he's been made to feel weak. All of Loki's behavior, from his subservient motivation, to the acceptance of pain from his masters, to the cruelty he displays and his enjoyment of that cruelty, suggests that Loki isn't really brainwashed, so much as he is ''broken'' by {{spoiler|Thanos}}.
** One thing that should probably be understood, is that ''[[Thor (
*** Listen when Loki is talking with Thor the first time. He all but outright says that ''yes'', he's gone crazy. He goes on about having been "exposed to truths" and such. So yes, the movie acknowledges that Loki is indeed acting quite weird and he's lost a few marbles, backed up when Banner mentions that he's "a bag of cats". After getting the hell smacked out of him by the Hulk, he seems to relax a little bit and the Loki from the first Thor movie starts to reappear.
** In addition to all the points already made about the side effects of the trip down the wormhole, Loki also had a serious Villainous Breakdown at the end of Thor - he basically tried to kill himself after Odin says "no Loki" which he apparently took as rejection, after all, and even that didn't work. Thor's solo movie established pretty well that Loki deals with issues with violence and manipulation - and now he's got even more issues, so yeah, of course he was more villainous this time around.
** Loki was noticeably sick looking during his first appearance in the film; he's sweating heavily, is very pale and has discoloring under his eyes. Those are the same severe physical symptoms that Clint had before Natasha knocked him out. Loki's symptoms lessen a bit, but he keeps the paleness throughout most of the film. His skin color is back to normal after you-know-who slams his butt you-know-when. Just putting this out there.
*** And note when they're leaving the Tesseract room at the very start of the film. Loki is bent over and appears to be limping, and Random Shield Agent rests a hand on his back and seems to be helping him walk and/or inquiring about his health.
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* So, the Chitauri shooting at seemingly random civilians instead of trying to take out tactical targets. Are they just wasteful assholes or are they trying to be scary?
** They work for Thanos, who is the galactic grand champion at 'sacrificing zillions of minions inefficiently because he just doesn't care' and 'as long as lots of people are dying, I don't care about anything else'. Perfectly IC.
** A force tasked with invading an area and securing it before advancing outward will have a flexible or even nonexistent set of rules of engagement, permitting them to open fire on anything that moves. Plus those guys were in [[Kill
*** By "Tactical Targets" I mean Police units, Military forces, potential communications systems, etc. They seem to spend all of their time just rampaging around instead of actually trying to secure the area. It looked like the only advantage they had over our "puny" human infantry was surprise and those damn [[Space Whale|Space Whales]]. And that first advantage doesn't last forever.
*** They were shooting at police. Military didn't arrive for an hour, and then we didn't see much action between the two. As for "communications systems", they can't exactly destroy every cell phone, radio, and phone line while fighting the Avengers. They initially began firing on civilian targets indiscriminately, but the Avengers got their attention before they could become more organized and spread outwards, and at that point the Avengers ''were'' the primary tactical target to destroy before they could do anything else.
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*** We don't see much else of what they're doing besides fighting the Avengers, so if they were attacking the police we won't see it. There were only a couple of scenes with police, one with the group that were getting blasted as the Chitauri were strafing the streets and the large group of police that Cap rallies. The Chitauri ''did'' attack that latter group, as they were flying overhead and firing, and a group tried to attack on foot before they met a bad case of Captain America. Most of the police and military were establishing an outer perimeter and the Avengers were deliberately drawing the Chitauri into the area around Stark Tower to keep them from expanding outward. (that's Iron Man's entire job in the battle, after all) As for communications equipment, again ''what'' communications equipment would they target that would have any reasonable effect on the battle? TV antennae only broadcast out, cell towers are redundant, radio towers are redundant, and personal communications equipment is ubiquitous. The Chitauri could blow up every antennae in the city and personal radios and cell phones would keep working just fine. The only people who would need large-scale,d edicated communications equipment would be the military, and that only when they start setting up a an actual military base that needs to serve as a communications hub, which they don't at that point in the film. (realistically, you're not going to look at any kind of "antennae farm" unless you have a standing military facility; prior to this, and in the field, battalion commanders and down will have dedicated radiomen with radio packs who would be hard to discern in the chaos) And the Chitauri ''were'' trying to establish a beachhead, but they had the inherent problem of the entire area around their entry point into the city being bottlenecked by a demigod, an archer who can kill them without looking at them, a flying suit of powered armor with destructive energy beams that keeps shooting down anything leaving the immediate area, a giant green rage monster smashing everything it can reach, and Captain America and Black Widow tearing up infantry on the ground, all keeping them from setting up ''anything'' coherent. They can't establish their beachhead or set up positions on rooftops in that area until the Avengers are dealt with. If the Avengers weren't present, their infantry could form some sort of beachhead, but until the highly-mobile superhumans are dealt with, they can't.
**** The problem is, they're really not doing much to "deal with" the highly-mobile superhumans. If they considered the Avengers a tactical objective, or even an ''obstacle'' at ''any'' point, they would've swarmed all of them the same way they did Hulk: a concerted attack with a bunch of sleds, out of range, peppering them with energy bolts. But for the most part, the ground combat was limited to Cap, Thor, and Tony fighting disorganized groups in ''melee combat'', and a few soldiers climbing up to Hawkeye's perch. Considering the amount of troops pouring out of the portal, then no, dealing with any Avenger other than Hulk was a very minor thing, so what was the rest of them so busy with elsewhere?
*** There's a problem with "swarming" the Avengers: They're [[One
**** Exactly. ''Eventually''. Because by then, they HAD realized the threat. But before that? Random strafing of random civilians and an inexplicable attempt to blow up a bunch of them in a bank (tactically pointless and a waste of resources and time,) where no one could see them (so it's useless for intimidation.) The Avengers were doing a good job at keeping them contained, but the Chitauri didn't really coordinate until the team's threat made itself noticeable. It was only after suffering heavy losses, ''because they DIDN'T coordinate'', that they started focusing on the Avengers. But even that was inefficient. You say that they're impossible to pin down, but consider this: ''they swarmed Hulk''. The unbelievably agile, swat-sleds-out-of-the-air-with-a-finger Hulk. ''He'' couldn't escape their onslaught, at least not for the few seconds it was shown on-screen. ''They gave Hulk a nosebleed''. That kind of power would've liquefied Thor or the Iron Man armor, and Cap's shield can only defend from one direction. And Cap can't outrace a sled, while Thor needs windup time to get off the ground, so only Tony can fly off on his own --and without Hulk's strength and nigh-invincibility, he can be brought down relatively easily. So why didn't they do ''the exact same thing they did to Hulk'' to everyone else --the much less agile, much less strong, much less resilient, but ''just as dangerous'' everyone else? Even Tony had trouble shaking off ''one'' trooper, imagine if they had really made an effort and dogpiled him en masse or called for air support while he was on the ground. The Chitauri were [[Zerg Rush|Zerg Rushing]], plain and simple. Nothing wrong with that.
*** ''Because by then, they HAD realized the threat. But before that? Random strafing of random civilians and an inexplicable attempt to blow up a bunch of them in a bank (tactically pointless and a waste of resources and time,) where no one could see them (so it's useless for intimidation.)'' I was under the impression that said group of Chitauri were some kind of death-squad whose job was to kill as many civilians as possible while the rest of the army secured the area around the gate. Only four soldiers were assigned to that task, so it obviously wasn't a large expenditure of resources. (another possibility is that they targeted the civilians deliberately to pull Avengers off fighting the rest of the force, but that's iffy)
*** Why send out death squads if your intention is to enslave the planet? Dead people tend to make terrible slaves. (Unless Loki asks Hela to give him the dead civilians back and promises her a pony for her birthday or something.)
*** ''The Avengers were doing a good job at keeping them contained, but the Chitauri didn't really coordinate until the team's threat made itself noticeable. It was only after suffering heavy losses, ''because they DIDN'T coordinate'', that they started focusing on the Avengers.'' Yes, because that's what always happens when a force makes contact with an unexpected threat. The Chitauri weren't expecting the Avengers, and they had to go through their OODA loop to respond to it, which they did pretty quickly considering how badly the Avengers were hurting them at the time. Compare the Chitauri's reaction speed to real-life situations like, say, the clusterfuck involving Task Force Tawara during OIF in '03 (it took coalition troops ''days'' to properly respond to an inferior force whose heaviest weapons were ''man-portable mortars'').
*** ''You say that they're impossible to pin down, but consider this: ''they swarmed Hulk''. The unbelievably agile, swat-sleds-out-of-the-air-with-a-finger Hulk. ''He'' couldn't escape their onslaught, at least not for the few seconds it was shown on-screen.'' And it did nothing to really stop him beyond pissing him off a little bit more, at which point he got clear. Furthermore, the Hulk had stopped briefly on that rooftop, giving an organized force the window to pin him down, however briefly. The other mobile Avengers couldn't be pinned down early on for the simple reason that early on the Chitauri were still reacting.
*** As I recall Black Widow and Captain America were on that same bridge with none of the heavyweights there to protect them for a good 20 minutes only about ten of which were before the Hulk showed up and demonstrated that yes this planet can offer meaningful resistance. A half dozen of those space sleds could have turned both of them into crispy swiss cheese before any of the other avengers could have reacted properly.(Hawkeye wouldn't have noticed before it was too late because they were swarming all over the damn place anyway.) That would have killed their leadership and fucked the Avengers coordination to hell for at least a few minutes. They didn't do that though because what passes for an officer corps amongst the Chitauri is loaded with morons.
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** The biggest problem with this line of thought is that it relies on what we know. The Chitauri did not have any intelligence on what they were coming into. It would be the equivalent of knowing that you have to go through an energy rift that opened in front of you. You know it goes somewhere, but you don't really know what kind of environment is on the other side or what the situation will be. Also, we don't know what kind of society the Chitauri have. If they are a warrior race where everyone is a combatant, they assume Earth is as well. We also don't know exactly how their technology works. Loki would only really be familiar with Asgardian tech, so we don't even know if the Chitauri can detect radio waves. And, since they have gone in blind, detecting radio waves as a means of determining communications targets means most of the planet is covered in targets.
*** It's still a little strange for Thor to declare that there is a higher form of war out there where having laser muskets apparently makes your grunts and their immediate commanders seem to have no idea how to actually launch an invasion.
**** Not as strange now that ''Guardians of the Galaxy'' has shown us that there's entire advanced interstellar star empires out there that will cheerfully go to war over an Infinity Stone, and the post-credits scene of 'Thor 2: The Dark World' has shown us that Asgard is entirely aware of and has contact with the interstellar community.
* Why do the Chitauri all just drop dead when the mothership goes boom? Were those infantry actually some kind of techno-organic remote drone? And if so, why did that one that fumbled with the grenade look so scared as it was fumbling with aforementioned grenade?
** Most likely, the Chitauri soldiers were implanted with some sort of kill-switch as a failsafe in the event of a betrayal by Loki. If Loki had decided to close the portal and keep the army for himself (since the [[Mooks]] would have no way of knowing he'd betrayed their masters), the army drops dead and leaves Loki with nothing.
*** Especially considering this is ''Loki'' we are talking about here. If Thanos ''isn't'' putting in hidden safeguards against the possibility of betrayal, then he's too stupid to breathe.
** I assumed that they were biomechanical and there was some kind of killswitch (as the above poster mentioned) or some sort of other psychic link to what was on the other side of the portal.
* Not really a big issue, but what the hell was the rest of the horde of heroes that base themselves out of NY doing during the alien invasion? That is, the in-universe reason the invasion even manage to damage the city so much, considering how much the hero community in the Marvel universe seem to love Manhattan? Sure, on a meta level, they didn't because it's an Avengers movie, and they are going to show the Avengers, not the dozen other heroes that live nearby, but it'd be good to see some in-universe explanation why the major heroes based out of the Big Apple don't help.
** Most likely because the Avengers seem to live in a different universe to Spider-Man, the X-Men and other heroes, even though they exist in the same comics universe. After all, there is no mention of human mutants existing in any of the previous films.
** Yep, if we're gonna get all Doylist, there's the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which is made up of films Marvel oversaw themselves) and the rest, who are at other film-companies (X-Men and Fantastic Four at Fox, Spider-Man at Sony.) The latter won't be entering the former until they stop making money for their respective companies. ''Until.''
*** Also, keep in mind that the invasion was only taking place in Midtown Manhattan, and only lasted a few hours, tops. It's entirely believable that the [[Fantastic Four]] and X-Men could have been somewhere else. And characters like Spidey, Daredevil, the Punisher, the Heroes for Hire, etc. are more street-level crimefighters, who may well be fighting the Chitauri, but [[The Greatest Story Never Told|aren't caught in the spotlight of the moment.]] So even if they ''do'' exist in the same universe, it isn't all that surprising that they aren't seen.
** Now, what about War Machine? He's a military officer of the country getting invaded by aliens, after all. I know it's a long movie, but a short cameo could've explained his absence.
*** The bulk of the film takes place over a day or two, and the invasion is only a few hours. If Rhodey's off somewhere, he would not have time to return, and would be told to stay back like apparently everyone but the National Guard was. Rhodey presumably doesn't have clearance for SHIELD, though Tony doubtless told him anyway.
*** In addition, it's possible Rhodey is still in California.
**** According to [[Word of God]], he was deployed in Asia at the time.
** Looked like a midday weekday, so Spidey probably had class. From a street sign in the ads most recent reboot, I'm guessing he attends City College or a reasonable fascimile thereof; maybe that's where they put ESU this time 'round. Even webslinging, it's a bit of a trip from the West 130s to Grand Central, and he ''would'' get distracted by herding civilians out of danger. By the time the X-Men got everyone loaded into the Blackbird and got air clearance, the fight would probably be over. Can't explain everyone else, though.
*** Elementary my dear troper. They don't exist yet in this continuity because FOX and SONY really don't like to share. There weren't any other heroes fighting in the battle of New York because there aren't any. Or at least they have yet to become heroes.
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*** They may also not have been able to lock the missile onto a target as small as the portal to fly through it. If that's not enough, insert whatever energy disruption technobabble you like to explain it.
** Nuclear missiles, by their very nature, are not designed to hit small targets. They're designed to hit rather...large targets. The nuke can't be targeted at the portal because nukes aren't designed to pass through fifty-meter-wide openings.
*** ''ICBMs'' aren't designed to pass through fifty-meter-wide openings (although the current-model Trident can reliably hit a 200-meter diameter circle). ''Cruise missiles'', which that one was, can reliably hit a ''three'' meter wide opening. Your average Tomahawk can go 900 miles and pick which window of an office building it wants to fly through.
**** Actually, that weapon was apparently based on the real-life Joint Stand-Off Weapon (which is a non-nuclear delivery system intended for air-to-ground attacks). And your average JSOW can hit a tank-sized object at fifteen miles, so...
* How did Loki get back to Earth?
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* The ending scene. Yes, I know they were sore about losing the cosmic cube. But I wonder why any of the World Security Council argued about keeping Loki on Earth. If they actually read the Norse myths and knew what Asgardian Justice means? Execution is downright merciful compared to snake poison to the eye every day.
** Which in itself could be a reason to argue to keep Loki. After all, most Western nations do have laws against handing prisoners over to regimes which would torture them.
*** Technically those are ''human rights'' laws. [[What Measure Is a Non
** Law enforcement, whether it be on the international level or the local level, is notorious for its territorial behavior. The WSC wanted to keep Loki because, as they mentioned, he's a war criminal. He's committed crimes against the Earth and as far as they're concerned, he should face justice as decided and administered by the Earth. Granted, he's arguably done ''worse'' to Asgard and the frost giant world, the name of which escapes me right now (Jotunheim, which quite literally means "Giant Home" - a helpful troper), but they don't know and likely don't care about that. Thing is, and I'm kind of surprised Fury didn't mention this; they can't exactly compel Thor to let them keep him.
*** Ironman and Thor were fighting on close enough to equal terms that a world that has Warmachine (and presumably the means to make more if they wanted) could have at least done a decent job of trying to stop Thor. It may or may not have worked but Fury didn't try and didn't try on purpose.
**** Iron Man and Thor were not fighting on equal terms. Iron Man was getting his ass kicked by Thor ''very slowly''. Notice that everything Tony does to Thor barely phases him, where as Thor inflicts serious damage on the Iron Man armor. The plan also requires Tony following the order to try and stop Thor, and we all know how good Tony is at following orders, and bringing Rhodey out in time to actually try, which, given how quickly they leave(a day, two, tops) might not have been viable as they probably didn't have notice until an hour before when Thor said "Whelp, been fun. Gonna be taking Loki and the cube back home now." Least that's how I imagine the conversation went.
*** Fury ''did'' mention that, with some understated snark:
{{quote|
'''Fury:''' I didn't make it. I just didn't argue with the god who did. }}
** Well, the snake poisoning punishment was not for messing with mortals, but for insulting all the aesir at one of their banquets and killing Baldur, so chances are pretty good Loki will not face this punishment.
** The Norse myths aren't necessarily accurate. They really can't be sure what will happen to Loki in Asgard.
** In addition, Fury is making the entirely rational point that Asgard is Earth's first diplomatic contact with an alien society, Asgard just provided Earth with a nontrivial amount of help in an interstellar war, and Asgard's going to be needed as allies against whatever the hell comes out of deep space at Earth next. In other words, Earth has every reason to pay very serious attention to any diplomatic requests that Asgard makes and shouldn't deny any of them without a very good reason -- and given that Loki is an Asgardian subject ''and'' that the crimes he's wanted for in Asgardian jurisdiction are even more severe than the ones he's wanted for in Earth's jurisdiction (while "leading an enemy invasion force to your planet and helping them massacre civilians unprovoked" is pretty damn dire, things like "high treason", "insurrection", and "attempted regicide" actually are still worse), Asgard's 'request' for Loki's extradition is entirely reasonable.
* Loki's trade off between Chitauri: He gets Earth. They get the universe. The universe pretty much includes Earth. Was he aware that his actions, even if successful, would have made him a slave to the Chitauri?
** I think "''the rest of'' the universe" was implied.
** Also, Loki ''really'' didn't think his cunning plan quite through.
** From the scene earlier on where Loki is communing with the Chitauri, it definitely felt like they already had a leash on Loki, and giving him Earth was just [[Throw the Dog
** What makes you think Earth is so important, anyway? It has no intergalactic travel, no natural resources that couldn't easily be found elsewhere in '''the universe'''. It's sort of like taking over the country and giving the guy who helped you do it Utah; not something you're going to miss on the grand scale. The Earth was only important to Loki (who wanted to conquer it to spite his brother) and because it happened to have the Cosmic Cube at the time (which the Chitauri needed to rule the rest of the universe).
*** Which would make sense, {{spoiler|given that The Other didn't expect Earth to put up much of a fight - let alone involving superpowered beings - like they did against his Chitauri forces, thus his line to Thanos about "courting death".}}
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** Since he was in space when he went through the portal, the nuke might not have made it to the mothership without continued propulsion.
*** In space, in the absence of friction, and object with a given speed will continue in that speed forever until it hits something. There is no propulsion needed once the desired speed has been reached, the object will just keep on going. Basic high-school physics. ''Guidance'' on the other hand might have posed a problem, since the nuke wasn't guided to hit the mothership in the first place -- although it should have exploded on its own once it was over Manhattan anyway; nukes are set to explode while in air, not when they hit the ground.
**** It is possible the reason the missile didn't hit the ground was due to this particular model firing based off a timing system with it calculated based on current location and velocity. Iron Man's out of power seems to imply he never cut off overclocking his jets despite catching up to the missile. So by increasing the missile's velocity it could travel farther before detonating. In line with the rules of narrativity, the timer just happened to go off near the alien spaceship.
* So at the climax of the film (obvious heavy spoilers) {{spoiler|the Mysterious World Council Of Mysteriousness fire a nuclear weapon at Manhattan. Seriously; a nuke? The battle was going quite poorly, true, but the invasion had only just started and took the US by complete surprise, so naturally the battle is in the Chitauri's favor. But the MWCM goes straight for the nuclear option. Are you serious? Nukes are ''last resort'' weapons. There are hundreds of different tactics and weapons that can be deployed that are less extreme than a freaking nuke. Even if the MWCM ordered a fleet of bombers to carpet-bomb the city, that would still be a more reasonable response than just going - "The 30-minute battle is going badly, so fuck it, nuke everything." Did these assholes even remember the Cold War?}}
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**** Formidable? We saw half a dozen get killed by a single SHEILD harrier jet piloted by Hawkeye using only its nose cannon, and several more were taken out by the same guy using only a bow and arrow. Modern fighter jets and helicopters could've taken them down easily, given the amount of [[More Dakka]] the Army, Airforce, and Navy likes to put on those things.
***** Again, you miss the important phrase in there: "piloted by Hawkeye." So, the guy with preternatural aim can shoot down a bunch of them. This is not indicative of what other, vastly less skilled people can do. Also, the leviathans didn't need weapons, they had enough strength to just fly through skyscrapers. And the only thing we ever saw damage them were Thor, Hulk, and Iron Man, and even they needed to put an effort into taking the things down. I'm comfortable saying the leviathans would shrug off almost all conventional ordinance.
***** The problem with that is we never saw Hawkeye demonstrate improbable aiming skills while flying that thing- he floated around a bit and fired the cannon at passing Chitauri flyers. It didn't look like he aimed much at all, and even if he did we saw the Chitauri flyers move slow enough that realistically conventional human aircraft can shoot them down just fine. It seems like a case of [[Show, Don't Tell]], since we're never given the impression that the same aircraft piloted by different people couldn't shoot down the Chitauri, just as we are never given the impression that squads of soldiers with automatic weapons couldn't take out infantry who have no sense of cover more efficiently than one guy with a melee weapon, one girl with a pistol, and another guy with a bow and arrow. Also, Iron Man killed the leviathans with conventional explosives in the form of the missiles launched from his shoulders, and some human weaponry can dish a hell of a lot more kinetic force than one of Hulk's punches (if not as fast); they could go down if conventional aircraft shot them enough times. Not to mention that we never even saw the military ''try'' to fight the Chitauri before ordering the nuke, even though the forces we saw didn't seem all that impressive and there are several places where they could've done something so as to not shatter the viewers suspension of disbelief while still putting the central role on the heroes.
****** The Leviathan was shown flying through buildings with no issue, but was stopped dead in its tracks when it ran into Hulk's fist at full speed. This lead to the shell cracking which allowed Iron Man to strike it's weakpoint for massive damage. While a missle could provide some concussive force, it wouldn't have the same type of continual stopping power that came from the Hulk standing in place with his punch. The only other time Iron Man was shown taking out a Leviathan was from inside, which a traditional fighter jet would lack the manuverability (and likely durability) to survive. The final Leviathan that was taken down required the combined effort of the Hulk and Thor, with Hulk piercing the creature with its own armor and Thor driving it in with a strike from Mjolnir. Considering that a Mjolnir strike was able to take Hulk off his feet earlier in the film, it's not hard to imagine what kind of force was needed to drive the armor shard deep enough into the Leviathan to bring it down.
** No, you wouldn't launch a nuke at the initial infantry troops and a swarm of hovercraft; you'd launch a nuke at the ''rest of the vast enemy army'' that would be coming right behind the initial invasion force. That was what the WSC believed they would be facing.
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** Everyone arguing the Chitauri's capabilities and our ability to handle them is missing the point. This wasn't a conventional bomb that would turn Midtown into a big crater for the tourists to visit and leave flowers. This was a nuke. There might be a few survivors, but between the blast and the radiation, New York is effectively sterilized. According to the 2010 census, that's 8,244,910 people. Aw, too bad, if you'd tried a just a liiittle harder, you could have beat the Holocaust by a full 50%! Then comes the fallout. Which way is the wind blowing? East, to Long Island (between Nassau and Suffolk counties, approx. 3 million)? West or South to Jersey? Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll blow North, where it'll only wipe out Westchester County (just under 1 million)! Of course, regardless of wind, this is New York. Without thousands of humans working constantly to maintain, it'll flood in short order. Whoops your radioactive material in the Atlantic currents! 3% of the total population of the United States dead, the environment poisoned, and let's not even talk about the collapse of the world economy thanks to the annihilation of one of the world's great financial centers or the destruction of countless irreplaceable artifacts. That's kinda petty in comparison. Could it have been avoided? Could all those people have been saved? Could the aliens have been defeated some other way? Never know now, will you? Of course the WSC had no idea of the Chitauri's numbers or capabilities. That's the whole reason you ''save the nukes for later''. Fury was right. It was a stupid-ass decision.
*** It makes you wonder if the WSC was also brainwashed by Thanos.
**** Well, "Winter Soldier" has answered this question. The WSC was indeed infiltrated by hostile forces -- not Thanos, but HYDRA.
* The denouement is kind of... weird. So they have {{spoiler|Loki pinned down and surrounded by very angry heroes, and the Tesseract is back under their control. So they take the time to... wash up, dress nicely in civvies and drive out to Central Park, just casually strolling to a sunny plaza, in plain view of the public, to send Loki and Thor back home? (And as hilarious as the second stinger is, ''that'' means that they cuffed and gagged Loki, stored him somewhere, had lunch, and ''then'' did the above.) Isn't that a rather carefree attitude to dealing with the insane genocidal overlord?}}
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* The portal: How was Loki's scepter the way to stop it, and how the hell did that scientist guy get un-brainwashed?
** The scepter stopped it because the shield around it was pure Tesseract entry, and the scientist put a backdoor in - it can't defend against its own power, so the scepter can penetrate the shield and disrupt the portal. He was probably not totally brainwashed to begin with and then managed to snap completely out of it.
** Also, when they first attacked Loki atop the tower, the scientist was thrown back fairly violently; if [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!|percussive maintenance]] can work to snap Clint out of it, there's no reason it couldn't work on the scientist too.
*** And hell, it seemed like even Loki "snapped out" of his state when the Hulk [[Curb Stomp Battle|beat the holy fudge]] out of him.
** Including a shut off switch seems like exactly the kind of thing a responsible scientist like Selvig would do when designing a device that could fail disastrously, brainwashed or not.
*** I am now picturing him convincing Loki they needed a shut-off switch by saying that while he more than likely fixed the implosion problem, there was still a chance he was wrong and the thing would blow up and take them with it if they didn't have a shut-off. Probably in an overly cheery voice with a lot of technobabble, knowing Posessed!Selvig.
** I forget what hit him, but he got hit. They even foreshadowed it when Black Widow freed Hawkeye. Apparently Loki's brain washing fades away if you get knocked out.
*** He got blasted back by the rebound of the energy from Tony's blasters when Tony tried to blow up the Tesseract and hit his head as he fell, which knocked him out.
* How come for Hulk's second appearance he seemed somewhat more in control?
** The very end of the Hulk movie implied that Banner had learned to control the Hulk.
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**** Just my opinion, but it seemed to me that they both got to each other in different ways, so it was more a draw than anything. I think Loki was counting on tipping Widow off on the fact that the Hulk was the card up his sleeve while also causing her to run out of the room crying. Loki gets played, however, because he underestimates the shit out of her, because she's a human woman who he sees as weak. He has a look of genuine surprise on his face after she looks up, completely composed. In the end he does get what he wants, but he doesn't get there as flawlessly as he'd hoped.
* I'll admit, I'm not a huge comic book nerd, and when I saw the movie I didn't know who Thanos was, But is it really such a stretch to assume that the [[Bigger Bad]] actually was Red Skull from [[Captain America:
** Even if the lighting in the scene makes it difficult to discern red from purple, the chin is all wrong and the Skull's prominent cheekbones are missing. Thanos' face is flat and wide instead of angular and sunken.
** Yes, yes it is a stretch. A very big one. Just compare a picture of Thanos from Wikipedia and the shot of the [[Bigger Bad]]'s face. Also, Kevin Feige confirmed it was Thanos.
** I actually thought this for a split second, then I noticed the chin and the line about "courting death" clicked. But honestly, it would have annoyed the hell out of me if that had been the case; I can see Loki being a pawn for Thanos. I cannot see Loki being a pawn for Red Skull.
** Could it be that in this continuity, Red Skull was transformed into Thanos? If just a little Asgard magic could turn a man into Red Skull, a buttload might have altered him even further into Thanos. He'd have 70 years to complete his transformation into what we saw.
** This seems unlikely. Though Marvel made a [[Composite Character]] in ''Iron Man 2'' from two b-list villains (Crimson Dynamo and Whiplash), combining two very different a-listers like Thanos and Red Skull just doesn't feel right. Also, Schmidt's... condition was caused by unfinished [[Super Soldier]] serum having a bad reaction with his pre-existing psychosis and god complex- Asgardian [[Magitek]] had nothing to do with it.
** You're missing the entire point of this being Thanos. He's way worse than anything we've seen before in the MCU. Having him be Red Skull/related to Red Skull in some way would make literally no sense, and have very little purpose, beyond some tenuous connection to Cap, which is simply unneeded at this point.
*** Well, [[Red Skull]] at his worst is someone who can give Thanos a run for his money, in the comics if not the MCU- he's definitely more ''evil'' than him in many ways. [There are rumours that ''the Other'' is actually the Skull, transformed somehow- if true, then he probably ''knew'' that Earth would repel Loki's invasion and has been manipulating both Loki ''and'' Thanos all along, though it would be a case of [[Did You Just Scam Cthulu]] at best as Thanos is obviously a ''lot'' more powerful and the Other might go the way of Mephisto in the ''Infinity Gauntlet'' by the end.
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*** Still, at the end of the movie they're overseeing the ''rebuilding'' of the tower after it got wrecked in the invasion. Not exactly a private moment, since there's construction workers behind them fixing up the place.
** Also, [http://www.cracked.com/article_19137_6-artists-whose-weird-fetishes-defined-pop-culture.html Joss Whedon directed.]
** Actually she wasn't barefoot in her last scene. If you look carefully she has on pale pink ballet flats.
* When Clint asks Natasha why she's so eager to fight Loki, she says, "I've been compromised. I've got red in my ledger, and I want to wipe it out." What does she mean? She only broke down in front of Loki to trick him. Even if her distress was genuine on some level, that doesn't seem like being compromised. Is she talking about what happened to Clint?
** Her being compromised was referring to her [[Dark and Troubled Past]] before being a SHIELD agent.
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**** It's actually kind of subtle, but it's implied that what the scepter does for Loki (besides shooting...power beams, or whatever) is take his power to manipulate people and magnify it tenfold, which is why it allows him to ''literally'' control Selvig and Hawkeye. Therefore a great amount of his success early in the movie is due to his ability to be a [[Manipulative Bastard]].
* While we're on the subject of Loki's "unused arsenal," whatever happened to the ice casket? From what I remember it was still in his possession by the end of ''Thor'' and Loki seems to have the ability to store items in limbo until he has need of them. Wouldn't the ice casket have come in handy at some point (like, with ''any one'' of the Avengers)? Then there's also Loki's natural abilities as a Frost Giant (causing severe frostbite with touch alone). He has a "silver tongue" and an enormous ego, true, but how could he possibly forget the other weapons he had at his disposal, especially towards the end?
** You're mistaken. Loki left the casket in the Bifrost bridge when he froze it. He didn't have it on hand when he was fighting Thor or when he fell off.
** On second thought, he probably still hates his Jötun form and thus would never, ever use these abilities, even if they would be an advantage.
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*** As I recall, it doesn't negate or absorb ''all'' force anyway. In the comics, it's something like 95% of the force is negated/absorbed. Once, Cap uses the shield to survive a drop from a plane, letting it absorb the impact--but it still hurts like hell because apparently 5 percent of the force of being dropped out of a plane is still quite a lot.
* What specific event was Fury gathering the Avengers for? How many of are there actually on the roster anyway? It bothers me because with Ironman specifically told he wasn't on the team, Banner was so not on the team that he was in hiding, Thor not specifically tapped and worse on another plane of existence I'm not impressed at all by who's left. Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye are the only Avengers officially on the team at the start of the movie. They would have been hard pressed to annoy something as "minor" as Hulk's rampages. They would have gone down fighting but that's about it. It's not a very good plan. If on the other hand he had some vague clue as to the nature of the threat they were facing a good plan might have been to explain this to Tony and get to work on getting those military Ironmen from 2 back online and in mass production. Sure they didn't do well against two human piloted Iron Men (who in reality should have gotten spanked fighting a few dozen bots with shared vision. It's amazing the things you can dodge when you almost literally have eyes in the back of your head) but they could probably fight those stone guys rather well.
** He probably wasn't gathering them for any specific event, but with all these superheroes showing up lately there was always the chance that someday they would meet some vastly superior foe, the Avengers Initiative was set up to prepare for that day. The prequel comic also explains that the Avengers Initiative was never completed, because the WSC thought it was a waste of resources and wanted SHIELD to focus on studying and weaponising the Cosmic Cube.
*** This is pretty much confirmed when Fury says the Avengers would be gathered to "fight the battles we never could."
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* I know this is partially a problem with all comics but why is the US government made out to be the bad guys for trying to develop weapons? If the facts in ''Iron Man'' are to be trusted Stark has sucessfully privatised peace. It's a good thing he's on our side since if he wanted to take over there doesn't seem to be much we could do to stop him. Hulk has torn through entire batallions and just a brief encounter with Asgard shows just how weak the Earth is. As Fury says we are hilariously out gunned and it's just dumb luck that none of the other planets that want to invade have any extraordinary groups. We should be learning to stand on our own two feet and defend our planet, not depend on a very small group of people who might turn on us, might die, and might be too few in number. If Loki had been capable of opening multiple portals at multiple locations on Earth things would have turned out very differently.
** I don't think they're made out to be particularly bad. In both Iron Man 2 and Avengers Tony is learning how to be a team player, and at least SHIELD now is on good terms with him, so I doubt he won't be willing to help them when he can.
** The Avengers point out that building new, stronger weapons does nothing but create an arms race. Because SHIELD was using the Tesseract to build new weapons, they were seen as a bigger threat, and so that actually increases the chance that they'll attract the attention of strong baddies, causing a positive feedback loop. And honestly, it doesn't seem to me like Earth is all that outgunned. One nuke was able to take out the entire enemy battalion. Also, the fact that the super secret council was willing to bomb one of the largest cities in the world without even attempting a smaller, controlled strike shows what a bad idea it is to develop even stronger weapons. [[When All You Have Is a Hammer]], everything starts to look like nails, and so developing super strong weapons means that they're more likely to try to just solve everything with increasingly larger explosions. That's bad for everyone.
*** And the Avengers is very very wrong on that point. Loki flat out admit that he wasn't attacking because of the Tesseract, he was attacking to spite Thor. Even sans an army Loki could have done a lot of damage. I honestly don't think Ironman and Captain America could have taken him if he wasn't throwing the fight. The Super Secret Council is just a silly story telling device to make it seem like wanting to be on equal footing with say the Frost Giants is inherently evil. Having a hammer doesn't make you evil. What is the moral reasoning behind 300 million (or 6 billion depending on if you want to debate that America isn't the entire world) should be 100% dependent on 5 people for their safety and freedom? I know comics do a terrible job of expressing this since the X-men always come through and the military is at best slightly more effective than sweating on a fire and at worst actively either starting the fire or throwing gasoline on it so it's easy to get in line but still we need to be able to fight back. Also an arms race with whom exactly? All of the alien races we're aware of in Marvel (or DC for that matter) are so far beyond us that unless the Tesseract is a lot more powerful than is displayed they'd be no more threatened by us developing the weapons Hydra developed in [[WW 2]] (how have we failed to recreate that?!) than America would be of Ethiopia developing a battleship.
***** They pointed out why it is bad. Human society is not advanced enough to be trusted with weapons like that. The Tesseract produces weapons Earth is not ready to have. Thor stated weapons on that level would only attract the attention of other powers that would either want the Tesseract for themselves or view Earth as a threat. Another point is how soon would the weapons designed to defend Earth start to be used to threaten neighboring countries in the name of "national interests." Then you get in the question of preemptive strikes. The World Council panicked and was willing to blow up all of Manhattan to stop an alien invasion that was still containable. How long before Earth found its way to other worlds and decided to nuke Jotunheim due to a past invasion? How long before humans decided to start invading other worlds? The Jotuns proved they cannot be trusted with such power and had it taken away, their world destroyed in the process. The Asgardians have proven their society has advanced enough to be trusted with such power.
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* Why is everyone saying that Black Widow outsmarted Loki? The plan that he wanted Hulk to come out and destroy the Helicarrier. That, and more, happened. Isn't it possible that Loki, Master of Lies, etc., let the information slip to her on purpose?
** Look at Loki's reaction when she thanks him for his "cooperation." It's along the lines of, "Wait, what?" The information might have been too little too late, but she made him think he had really gotten to her, when she was playing him for information without him realizing it, which means she got the better of him.
*** Loki's low opinion of her is particularly clear when he insults her with a misogynistic slur (degrading her based on her sex as well as her species). It's probably safe to say that he assumed that she, as a human woman, was not capable of outsmarting him.
** She did outsmart him, and went to warn everyone about this... the problem is, "everyone" was much more interested in butting heads and insulting one another to ''listen''. As they say, spotting a trap is one thing, staying out of it is quite another....
** What advantage would it give him to slip her this information?
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** The way I understood it, the wormhole he took most likely sent him to the Chitauri world, and from there, he projected himself into Selvig's mind, but he couldn't physically enter Earth at that time.
*** I take it that the scepter didn't give Loki totally new powers, so much as it augmented his own capacities. Presumably, Loki can already influence minds in various ways; the scepter just allows him to do things like cast his mind across cosmic distances, and inflict lasting domination with a touch that doesn't require continuous concentration.
*** Theory has it that the gem in his staff might have been the mind gem which actually does augment mental capabilities. I assume that he got it from our [[Bigger Bad]] and when his image showed in the mirror in the post credits scene he was projecting himself and using his own skills of suggestion over 'lessor creatures' to influence Selvig. It also revealed that Selvig had been acting off for most of the time he'd been working with the Tesseract. So if Loki had been controlling him for all that time its no surprise he looked worse for wear when he arrived. Projecting and controlling a person from long distance for that long would probably take a toll on anyone.
* What did Banner mean by "I'm always angry."
** That he's managed to control his anger enough that he can voluntarily transform into the Hulk whenever he needs to. Hence why he smiled at the end of ''The Incredible Hulk'', and why his Hulk transformation during the New York battle was seamless and not as painful as the transformation at the Helicarrier.
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*** Actually as far as the Marvel Comic Book continuity goes Captain America is right, there is only one true all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present being, God with a capital G, the big guy upstairs, and His name is quite simply The One-Above-All. The Living Tribunal is the most powerful being in the Marvel Universe and whose role is to judge the universe and to prevent it from being destroyed, and when asked by a mortal if he was God the response was that there was someone even greater than The Living Tribunal. The One-Above-All '''is''' the Marvel Universe's God, He created it, but they tastefully don't mention which God He is so as not to offend people's religious perspectives only that He is the Supreme and Almighty God.
**** To clarify further Captain America is not absolutely right. In the MU, Thor and the other Asgardians among the Olympians and what not are classified as gods. Its just there are levels considered beyond godhood. The-One-Above-All would fit the monothestic definition of god, but is generally regarded as beyond gods. It has also never been confirmed to be the same as the Judeo-Christain God. If anything, recent stories have implied the Judeo-Christain God is more in line with someone like Odin than the One-Above-All.
**** The DC Universe has God under the name of The Presence, and He is heavily implied to be the Judeo-Christain God. The One-Above-All is never given such implications and is simply stated to be God without any explanation as to which God He is supposed to be. Though if these characters had to be any God the Judeo-Christain God would make sense because in our cultural perception that God is viewed as an entity who is all-powerful, all-knowing, present in all of space, and is ultimately immortal and timeless, and who we can relate to on a personal and moral level in that He judges mortals for their crimes against His laws but chooses to love and save them anyway. That God invokes images of the big guy upstairs, the one above all that everyone eventually and ultimately answers to, the Supreme Being of the universe who created everything and whom no one can be likened onto. Every other religion either has multiple gods that can defeat their head god if they worked together or the entity known as God is too impersonal, God in the sense we are talking of is both personal and has no equal so He works better as a character in a fictional story and He is special because we are filled with that religious and superstitious awe when He is mentioned.
**** It's funny that you mentioned Stan Lee, because God appeared to Spider-Man as an old man in one comic story. It would be funny if Stan Lee was God in the Marvel Movie continuity.
***** It would explain why he keeps showing up in all the MCU movies as different people.
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*** And to make it clearer: you want to know why he would brainwash people by poking their chest? Because ''the thorax is the center of mass of the human body.'' It's easier and instinctive for two human beings standing face to face to poke in the chest than to poke them anywhere else. For instance, when a person is annoyed and pushes someone back, or jabs them with a finger, they do it by pushing or jabbing right in the center of their chest, not their stomach, not their shoulder, not the side of their head. It's a very natural action. Touching someone's head is harder because you need to raise your arm (or in this case, the tool in your hand) higher, which takes longer, and if the person is facing you you need to "aim" (even if just a fraction of a second) because there's all sorts of stuff on the face that you don't want to touch, making the forehead or the skull a more awkward point of contact. And since all the scepter needs is to make physical contact with the person's ''body'', it doesn't matter ''where'' it touches --and apparently clothes are not enough of a barrier, or the sharp tip penetrates those clothes, but the metal of the reactor is alien enough to the body ("alien" as in "foreign object") to prevent such contact. Loki could've very well spent the movie poking people in the forehead, but that's a more delicate, deliberate action than just poking them in the chest (and it would have prevented the "Performance Issues" scene later on.) The "poke people in chest, take control of them" plot device has a very simple, natural explanation and we're all being forced to overthink it because of a ''more'' convoluted theory (that the arc technology responded to the scepter's energy despite ''the scene itself'' showing zero evidence of this.) But hey, maybe if Loki hadn't gone furious over the failure, he would've poked an unprotected part of Tony, like his head (or his back, or his ''ass'') and taken control of him that way!
**** It didn't just have to be the chest; it had to be the ''heart''. Loki mentions it implicitly when he hijacks Hawkeye at the start of the film. Stark's heart is physically inaccessible.
**** I'm sorry, but Loki said to Hawkeye "you have heart. I'll need that." In no way did he say that he has to access the heart - which also would make very little sense unless mind control works by pumping mind control stuff into the blood stream. And while the arc reactor doesn't glow when Loki pokes it with his Blowstick of Destiny, there is no evidence that it should glow if it DID prevent. Of course, if it did glow, we could be certain that the technologies were interacting, but at the present time, we have no evidence as to what the exact explanation is. But you can't just dismiss the theory that the Arc Reactor COULD be preventing the mind control shenanigans with [[New Powers
*** You can't "just dismiss" it, no. But there's no evidence for it. When the arc reactor does stuff of any kind, it glows, or there's a sound, or ''something'' to indicate that there's some kind of reaction happening. This is all wild speculation that flies in the face of the very, very simple and obvious explanation that we see in the film. ''That'' is the objection. That it turns a quick gag into this needlessly complicated connection that isn't necessary or hinted at.
*** Also, narrative doesn't work that way. An author's ultimate goal is to get information across to the audience, so the audience can understand the events --whether it is a novel, a film, a play, or even a video game. How do they get information across? By ''showing'' or even ''telling'' the audience what is happening. The act of show or tell ''draws attention'' to an element in the narrative, however minor, however throwaway, however unimportant it may be to the primary plotline. Even if it's there just for worldbuilding or character setting, and even if it's just a throwaway line or interaction for fans to speculate upon, ''it must be there to begin with.'' In the first ''[[Iron Man]]'' movie, Tony is injured in the convoy assault, and he rips his shirt to show a rather impressive vest --pointless in the grand scheme of things, but it was shown because the script wanted us to know he's a cautious man. Was it a [[Chekhov's Gun]]? Nope! The movie could've gone through just the same without that scene. In the second one, we find out that the new and improved arc reactor core makes Tony's tongue taste like coconut. Important? No. Funny? Hell yes, and that's why he stated it. Maybe a later movie will say that the coconut taste will have serious repercussions, but so far, it's just a quirky quip. In the ''[[Incredible Hulk]]'' movie, we find out that the Army has been trying to replicate the Super Soldier serum and tested it on Blonsky. For all the movie cares, they could've just called it Chemical X and nothing would have happened, but they DID make the connection to Captain America because the author ''specifically intended it'' in order to build a greater universe. In ''[[Thor (
* I'm curious about the nature of the experiments SHIELD was conducting with the Tesseract. By the time the movie opens, they have a dedicated lab with complex machinery, and the cube itself is aimed at what looks like a landing platform/gate installation. This platform even has some shielding apparatus and (IIRC) a seat or chair of some kind. It was even a happy coincidence that Loki arrived ''on'' the platform when he opened the portal remotely. But nothing in the ''[[Captain America (comics)]]'' film suggests that the Tesseract is anything but a cosmic power supply (the only witness to its teleportation abilities was frozen for 70 years, he probably didn't know what was happening, and the Pegasus lab was already in place and experimenting by the time he was thawed.) So if the installation ''was'' indeed a gate platform, when did SHIELD learn that it could be used to create wormholes, and were they already planning to send an expeditionary force through them?
** Maybe Nick Fury's a big Stargate fan.
** The post-credits scene in Thor implies that Loki is manipulating Selvig's mind. He could have planted the idea in Selvig's head.
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*** It's unlikely the Red Skull saw no other use for the tesseract than a power source. More likely he just didn't have the tech in the 1940s to do anything but extract and store energy from it.
* While we're on the topic of the Tesseract, something's been bothering me since the ''[[Captain America (comics)]]'' movie. [[Red Skull|Ol' Reddie]] calls it "Odin's crown jewel," and we do know from ''[[Thor (
** I was under the impression that the people in the church in First Avenger were the descendants of the people Odin saved in Norway. Perhaps Odin left them the Tesseract for some undisclosed reason and it's been protected generation to generation.
** He didn't leave it there, he ''hid'' it there. Earth was the last place anyone who wanted a tesseract would go hunting for it.
** Alternatively, it was ''stolen'' and he didn't ''know'' where it was.
** As shown in ''Thor: The Dark World'', Odin's apparent policy for keeping Infinity Stones in custody is to keep them hidden in obscure and remote places near Asgard, but not actually ''in'' Asgard. So he put the Essence in the abandoned ruins of Svartalfheim, and the Tesseract in an obscure village on a nearby planet of primitives.
* Bruce Banner has a hairy chest the one time we see him with his shirt off, but the Hulk has no chest hair. Where did it go?
** I had the same question watching ''[[The Incredible Hulk (
** Actually, the Hulk does. Watched Avengers for the second time last night, and I distinctly remember noticing that his chest had hair during the fight in New York.
** Original poster here. I took a search for it myself during my rewatch of the movie, and it seems it's hard to see because Banner's hair is grey and as the Hulk's chest his chest has stretched so much. Couldn't spot any except for one shot, right before the Hulk smashes Loki.
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** Maybe SHIELD came and picked Loki up, and Tony went "Hey guys, shawarma now, let's go."
** He went with them for shawarma, but he was in the bathroom in that shot. After being whipped into the floor by the Hulk, all he wanted was to whimper and go crawl under his bed at home, so they took pity on him and let him come along to have lunch with everyone.
** Popular consensus is that he was either stuffed into the trunk of Tony's car, or tied to a parking meter outside.
*** Another popular theory is that he was hidden under the table.
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** Maybe it reflects because it's a beam, not a solid object or blow.
** Well, if the beam was a laser, and lasers are light, then it should work. We know the shield reflects light instead of absorbing it because it's not pitch black.
** Honestly, the shield is very inconsistent with how it works in both the comics and the film. If its able to just shrug off a hit from Thor (or in the comics, the much stronger Gladiator), then it should absorb the force Cap puts into it and not even move when he tries to pick it up, much less be thrown and ricochet. Heck, it should probably just stay where it was and drill a hole through the planet as the latter spins through the void of space.
* Medium one here. Loki speaks the All-Tounge which is understood as anyone's native language- so why didn't Natasha hear it as Russian? She spoke ENGLISH to him during the reverse interrogation.
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** There is an interesting phenomenon in which the more people are witness to an event such as a murder, rape, or mugging, the less likely it is that any of them will do anythign about it. The reason for this is that when a single person sees something terrible happening and nobody else is around to see it, their mind immediately kicks to, "I have to do something. I have to stop this. I have to help." However, when a group of people sees such an event, their minds instead click to "There are a lot of people here. Someone will do something."
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