As Marvel moves into the final promotional push for Avengers: Age of Ultron, we’re gradually learning more and more about the blockbuster-to-be. This includes a new image making the rounds that shows off how HYRDRA plans to make use of some tech scrounged from the aftermath of an earlier Marvel movie.
Just a heads up, but there is a pretty serious SPOILER beyond this point. You’ve been warned.
You’re likely familiar with the sprawling climactic battle from The Avengers. You remember the one, where Loki opened a portal and let an army of Chitauri warriors loose on Manhattan. We knew that incident unleashed a massive ripple effect, and we’ve been watching the consequences play out. Comic Book Movie has this new still that shows another unexpected effect: HYDRA has started using otherworldly Chitauri tech for their own nefarious purposes. That’s not going to be good for anyone.
HYDRA has been on the rampage through the Marvel Cinematic Universe since revealing their full force last year in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and as you can see in this image, that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. After the Battle of New York, they collected as much Chitauri armor as they could get their grubby little mitts on. They must have felt like an evil kid in an evil candy store thinking about all the evil schemes they could perpetrate.
More than anything, this makes us wonder what exactly is HYDRA’s role in Age of Ultron? Up to this point, almost the entire focus has been on, well, Ultron. His name is in the title after all, and we haven’t seen much, if anything, in the trailers and TV spots from the shadowy terrorist organization. Voiced to creepy perfection by James Spader, Ultron is the result of Tony Stark’s attempts to create a global security system, only it backfires and the villainous tech becomes hell bent on destroying the human race.
What we don’t know is how HYDRA fits into the picture. Do they throw in with the artificially intelligent villain? That seems like a bad idea since, eventually, he’s likely to kill them off if his plans succeed. Do they maybe take advantage of the chaos caused by Ultron? It’s easy to imagine them running around, shouting "Hail HYDRA," stealing secrets, toppling government, and things of that nature. Perhaps they only appear early on, as a threat Earth’s Mightiest Heroes battle before Ultron emerges.
As with most things about Avengers: Age of Ultron, we likely won’t know for sure until we sit down in the theater on May 1, but it adds another layer, another threat to what already looks like a harrowing picture. Age of Ultron stars returning faces Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, and Cobie Smulders. Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson get in on the action as Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, respectively, and Paul Bettany makes the jump from a voice only role as Jarvis to the new addition to the team, The Vision.
