The Marvel Universe of comics has thousands of beloved characters and many of the A-list heroes have clocked time as members of “The Avengers.” The sequel to Marvel’s 2012 billion-dollar grosser, “The Avengers: Age Of Ultron” will boast at least two new major members from the comics: Quicksilver (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and The Scarlett Witch (played by Elizabeth Olsen).
The children of Magneto from the “X-Men” comics and mutants, 20th Century Fox owns that entire universe and the Marvel concept of mutants for the big screen, but because both superheroes logged countless hours as key members of the Avengers, Marvel Studios is also allowed to use them as well (they just can’t call them “mutants”). And while they’ll appear in ‘Ultron,’ the characters will also show up played by entirely different actors in “X-Men: Days Of Future Past.” Got that?
Anyway, concept art can be pretty lame generally, but this really gives you a strong and clear indication of what Joss Whedon‘s incarnation of these folks will look like. As promised by Elizabeth Olsen, the Scarlett Witch’s once extravagant costume with the blood red cape and mask has been significantly dialed back. “I don’t think Joss ever would have hired me, honestly, if he wanted me to wear those outfits; I am not a professional athlete and nor am I a model,” she told IGN last month. “Wearing those costumes wouldn’t be fun for anyone who wasn’t those things. He already had a different idea. It respects and involves the comic-book character but it’s different, more rooted. It’s for someone today.”
In fact, her costume is really a red leather jacket and a skirt and the concept art does a very faithful rendering of what she’ll look like. Fantastical elements of Quicksilver seem like they’ll be dialed back too. Gone is the character’s silver-streaked hair with the weird horns of sticky-uppy bangs that always looked like antennae. And the costume colors have been muted from shiny disco-suit gray (and in some cases a pale green) to a more subtle blue gray. Given how more and more super hero movies are going for a less-fantastical (and therefore less intentionally funny) and more realistic look, the visage of these two characters perhaps isn’t a total surprise.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson clearly didn’t want to have to contrive the character’s appearance. “That’s what we’re in talks about really, right now—how I could become that character and not feel forced. I might not look right with white hair, and the accent may be wrong… it just doesn’t work like that,” he told Total Film earlier in the year. And so it sounds like they may have, pardon the pun, tailored the character to his needs.
Taylor-Johnson also spoke about the appeal of the character. “He has real anger frustration—I like that. I always thought it’d be quite funny if you saw him eating loads and people asked him why and he’d explain it’s because he’s burning so much energy all the time. Or ideas that you’d see him come back round—but he’s already nipped out and got his lunch somewhere else. He just got bored—his attention span is so fucking quick.”
Marvel also released concept art of “Guardians Of The Galaxy,” “Ant-Man,” and The Incredible Hulk and Black Widow in “The Avengers: Age Of Ultron,” but most of it should look pretty familiar by now, given that the ‘Guardians’ trailer is out, the Ant-Man Comic-Con sneak-peek footage leaked long ago and you’ve already seen the first ‘Avengers’ film. Regardless, all the concept art is below. “The Avengers: Age Of Ultron,” hits theaters on May 1st.