Marvel Avengers: The book of the film.

As part of the Marvel Avengers marketing blitzkrieg a book for young readers was produced.  This was entitled, ‘Avengers, the book of the film‘.  Or, rather, ‘AVENGERS. THE BOOK OF THE FILM.’   Because it had to be in all caps on the cover.

This is the summary on the dust jacket:-

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Avengers assemble!  When a wicked enemy rises, one man assembles a team to pull the world back from disaster.  This is the epic adventure of the greatest Super Heroes of all time.

Stirring stuff.  Only…

The writer of this thing is a guy called Thomas Macri.  His name doesn’t appear on the outside cover and he is only credited inside with adapting the story.  This is not a good sign.

This is not a good book.

Firstly, the events of the Avengers, (Avengers Assemble, Marvel Avengers Assemble, whatever), only begin on page 129 of a 167 page book.  The rest is made up of the films that lead to the Avengers movie.

Captain America comes first, as chronologically it would.  In film order Iron Man came first, but this way makes more sense.  The events of Captain America play out pretty well like the movie.  The writing is turgid and dull, but workmanlike.

For some reason, this large segment is all a prologue.

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Steve sneaked into the HYDRA plant, winding his way through the labyrinth of tanks and tubes.  He took out a HYDRA agent, then another, then another, and continued to do so as he made his way through the complex, looking for the POWs from Bucky‘s division.

Has as much vim as instructions for a flat-pack bookshelf, doesn’t it?

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When he finally found the prisoners, Steve used all his strength to set them free.

Nice to know he didn’t use his brain in any way.

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When they asked him his name, he told them he was Captain America.

That whole paragraph reads like a piece in a local paper.  In fact up to the point of this paragraph, (page 15), there are only 15 lines in speech marks.  Nearly everything is told to us blankly, without tension or passion.

Then we come to the Hulk.  Chapter One.  Page 23.  This takes up pages 23 through 26.  All that happens is that Banner takes the drug and turns into the Hulk.

How well the quality control went here is demonstrated by these two lines:-

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Green waves undulated over his skin, and as his muscles swelled.  The hue deepened, leaving his flesh a bright green.

Yeah, nice editing.

The only spoken line in he Hulk’s segment?

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‘My word..’ General Ross uttered.

So now we come to Chapter two, page 27 and Iron Man.  Again, as with Captain America, this is a pretty good novelisation of the film and there are whole conversations to give us insight into character.  But again, the passion is drained out by the exciting climax sounding like a bored newspaper paragraph.

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Obadiah (Stane), soon had his suit.  It was the very thing he needed to finish off Tony.  It was three times a large as the Iron Man suit.

So why wouldn’t four times bigger have been better?  Or two times bigger enough?

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Obadiah attacked Tony at Stark Industries.  After a long battle, where Obadiah often had the upper hand, Tony, with the help of Pepper, (Potts), overloaded the building’s tremendous Arc Reactor and blasted Obadiah off the roof.

The bit where Tony nearly freezes by going too high and learns to modify his armour?  The bit where Stane steals the arc reactor in Tony’s chest?  Tony’s life or death struggle to get his old reactor?  The fact that the old reactor is running out of energy?  Stark’s realisation that Stane doesn’t know about the problem with going too high and gets chased up into the atmosphere, damaging Stane’s suit and evening up the odds?   Their chat on the roof of Stark industries and Tony’s desperate fight for survival?

Not needed here.

And Obediah was not ‘blasted off the roof’, he fell into the reactor as it overloaded.

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‘The truth is,’ Tony continued, then paused, with his eyes locked on his cue cards for an eternal instant. ‘I am Iron Man.’

An eternal instant.  Dear me.

Next we come to Asgard and the events of Thor. We are now on page 60, but Thor at this point doesn’t get chapters numbers.  We simply turn the page to the headline ‘Asgard’.  Maybe chapter numbers can only exist on Midgard and don’t impact other realms?

All of this part of the Thor story is in italics.  This makes it difficult to read.  If that was the only thing that made it difficult to read, it’d be okay.

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It is much easier for Asgardians…

This story never uses the word Aesir, the proper word for ‘Asgardians’

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…to travel to Midgard, which is what the Earth is called on Asgard, than it is for Earthlings to travel to Asgard.

Yeah, they can, we can’t.

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Asgardians can travel relatively easily beween Realms.

I have no idea why realms is capitalised here.

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And if Asgardians can do something, you can be certain they will.  So, to put it plainly, the people of Asgard have, and still do, travel to Midgard.

It’s stated in the opening of the Thor movie that Asgard hasn’t had contact with Midgard since their fight with the frost giants in the tenth century.  So, although the Aesir could have done it, they didn’t.

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Asgard has found a  place in human literature, history, culture and lore.  Thursday, to take one example is named for Thor, son of Odin, Allfather of Asgard.

Odin, or Woden gave us Wednesday and his wife, Frigga, gave us Friday, but research is for pussies and the Thor is Thursday thing was in the script for Thor. So…

The reason I hate the Thor segments is the butchery of Loki.  In the film, it clearly shows how both sons grew up loving Odin.  The book has Loki come in almost as an afterthought.  When the Frost Giants attack the vault, the book says Odin, Thor and Sif go to check, whereas in the movie it was Odin, Thor and Loki.  Why this is done I don‘t know.  I mean, why Sif?  It just sidelines Loki.

Anyway, Thor, Loki, Sif and the Warriors Three go off to Jotunheim to pay them back for the assault on the vault.

Chapter Eight, all two pages of it, cuts in here, to have a meeting with Tony Stark and introduce Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D.  It also messes up by having Fury tell Stark about the Avenger’s Initiative, which was, in the films, Stark’s idea.

Back to Italics, this time under the chapter heading ‘Jotunheim‘.  Thor and his mates turn up, and have a fight with the frosties.  That’s it, really, except for another sterling example of why this should have had a decent editor:-

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It seemed that nothing would end this confrontation save the totally annihilation of every living being fighting in it.

Loki tried, in the film, to negotiate with Laufey, the Jotun king.  He succeeds, but Thor starts the fight anyway.  Here Loki simply tells Thor they are outnumbered.  Again, it’s taking away from Loki as a sympathetic, intelligent character, for no real reason.

Chapter Nine, (page 69), and we’re in Iron Man 2.  We will only get the introduction of the Black Widow here and then we move back to italics, chapter headed ‘Midgard‘.  Despite the fact that it begins with Odin exiling Thor from Asgard.  And ends there.  Midgard is mentioned once in the one page chapter, but that’s all.  It doesn’t even say that Thor is exiled, or is going to Midgard.  Just that Odin is angry and Thor is unworthy.

Chapter Ten, (page 74), is back with Stark, he has a showdown with Fury and Natasha, (Romanov - The Black Widow).  The Rourke character with the electric whips in Iron Man 2?  Ivan Venko?  The business guy who is Stark’s rival in the film?  Justin Hammer?  Those two protagonists?  Don’t show.  Nothing.  Nada.  The proverbial Zip.

To be continued…

We are now on Chapter Eleven, (page 78).  Confusingly we are now with Thor, but without italics and with a chapter number.  Really, is there no sense in this thing?  Thor goes to Earth and the next two chapters follow pretty much the story of Thor.  He meets Jane Foster and she meets Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D.

But what annoys the hell out of me, is that Loki never finds out about his heritage in this book.  Loki believes he is the son of Odin.  He calls Frigga ‘Mother’ in the movie, though it’s never made clear whether he thinks she is his real mother before his revelation.  Thor also calls Frigga ‘Mother’ and she isn’t his birth mother, but the film didn’t address this either.  Being a prince of Asgard is terribly, terribly important to Loki.  He has been brought up to believe that the Jotuns are enemies, monsters.

During the attack on Jotunheim, Loki is touched by a Jotun and his arm turns blue, like the Jotun’s skin.  Other Aesir who are touched are frostbitten.  When he returns he confronts Odin, who tells Loki the truth.  Loki is a Jotun.  He is of that race of monsters he was raised to despise.  He isn’t of Asgard, the place he loves.  He isn’t Odin’s son.  Loki is told he is an unwanted runt.  Being small, his ashamed father, Laufey, (the Jotun King), had Loki placed into the temple and left him to die.  Odin rescued him he pities the child and because he thought that Loki might be useful.  In the movie, Odin then falls into the Odinsleep, a sort of regenerative hibernation, and Loki, horrified by the truth, goes mad.  All he does in Thor is designed to hide the truth of his birth.  He kills Laufey, tries to destroy Jotunheim and ends up falling into an abyss, not because he is evil, but because he is desperate, panicked and horrified by the truth.

This directly leads up to what happened in Avengers.  It’s vital to understand where Loki came from, why he is so deranged, so lost.  Absolutely none of this shows up in the book.  Here, Loki’s bad because he’s bad.  It’s fundamentally lazy writing.  I had no trouble understanding complex characters as a child.  Hell comics, real kiddie ones, not just graphic novels, have ambiguous, shades of grey characters.  Loki might as well wear a stove-pipe hat, have a twirly moustache and tie someone to a railway track. 

Chapters 12 through 14, (pages 83 through to 92), pretty much follow the events of  Thor, with S.H.I.E.L.D. taking Jane’s stuff, Thor going to get Mjolnir, (Thor’s hammer), back and him failing to lift it because he’s not worthy.  He gets arrested by Agent Coulson.

Now we’re back with Loki, in another chapter numberless bit that is titled ‘Midgard’, which deals with Loki telling Thor that Odin is dead, and Thor permanently exiled.  Again, this is part of Loki’s madness.  If Thor returns and learns the truth, that Loki is Jotun, Loki will have no future in Asgard.  If Thor is exiled and Loki can become king of Asgard, he will be able to control the truth about his birth and he will be safe.

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The adopted brother of the Mighty Thor would speak to his sibling, who was in captivity on Midgard.

This is the first time we hear of Loki as ‘adopted’, who he is and from where are not addressed.  I must say this is all kinds of mixed up.  All the stuff off Earth was in italics.  Then when Thor comes to Earth it’s no longer italic and has chapter numbers.  But when Loki comes to Earth it’s back in italics and has no chapter number.

 

Honestly, pick a system and go with it, would you?  Consistently?

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Their father - Odin - was dead, Loki told Thor, lying.

This guy is a professional writer?  Dear, dear me.

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Thor, stunned and stricken with grief, asked if he could return home and Loki spun more lies.

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Frigga, Thor’s mother, had forbidden her son’s return, Loki said, completing his deceitful lie.

What’s Loki the god of again?  Untruths or something, wasn’t it? Why is Odin referred to as ‘their father’, but Frigga only as 'Thor’s mother'?

Back to chapter numbers again and we are in chapter Fourteen., (page 95). This is a meeting between Tony Stark and Nick Fury.  All that happens is that Stark is told he’s not part of the Avengers Initiative.  He never was in the book so far.  This could have been put with the other meeting easily.  Here, it shows up as kind of random.

We pause here to peruse some centerfold photos that are billed on the cover as:

With incredible action shots.

Or actually:

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WITH INCREDIBLE ACTION SHOTS!

Because everything on the cover is in upper-case.

They are:-

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1) The Tesseract is guarded by Hawkeye at a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base.

This ‘incredible action shot’ is of Hawkeye, (who hasn’t been mentioned yet in the book and therefore means nothing to readers), and Fury, standing about doing nothing.

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2) Loki finds his way into the heavily-guarded  S.H.I.E.L.D. base and steals the Tesseract!

Whoever he is, we are now fully convinced of Hawkeye’s competence!  This is a shot of Loki kneeling on a grate, lit from beneath and with an expression like he’s just dropped his house keys through.  Why is 'heavily guarded' hyphenated?

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3) S.H.I.E.L.D. contacted Tony Stark about joining the Avengers Initiative, but Tony wasn’t interested in joining the team.

This comes right after the point in the book where Fury has rejected Stark from the Avengers Initiative.  Again, nice editing.  This is a shot of Tony Stark, doing nothing but looking surprised.

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4)Then Fury sent Black Widow to Calcutta to find scientist Bruce Banner.

Shot of Bruce Banner, arms crossed, looking smug.

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5) Fury then went to the last person to encounter the Tesseract - Captain America.

'Action shot' of Fury, holding a piece of paper and Steve Rogers, (Captain America), taking something out of a kit bag. Gasp at the sheer pace of it all!  It’s just a blur.

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6) The heroes soon assembled on the Helicarrier for their mission to retrieve the Tesseract and stop Loki.

Shot of Nick Fury, standing on the bridge of the Helicarrier, looking, frankly, bored.  Anyone who reads this book and hasn’t seen the film will have no idea, thus far, what a Helicarrier is.

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7) To battle against an Asgardian, Steve Rogers would need a new-and-improved Captain America combat suit.

And if he didn’t need it, he got one anyway, since Agent Coulson, in the movie, mentions the design of the suit and his input, which suggests it was made long before Loki showed up.  Photo is of the suit in the background and Rogers standing in slacks and a plaid shirt, looking over his shoulder at something else.

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8.)The heroes found Loki in Germany, and the First Avenger lead the charge.

Holy smokes!  An action shot!  Captain America is trying to punch Loki and Loki, (in full regalia, with silly horned helmet), is catching Cap’s fist.

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9) Just when Loki thought he had the upper hand, Iron Man flew in to save the day.

A shot taken from much earlier in the film, when Stark is returning to Stark Tower after cutting the power line.

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10) Working together, Iron Man and Captain America stopped Loki… but someone mightier had plans for the Trickster.

Shot of Loki, hands up in surrender, looking remarkably chipper for a god who’s just been bested by a man in a can and another in Lycra with a dustbin lid.  Black Widow was also in this bit in the film, but she didn’t do anything, so I can forgive her absence.

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11) Thor took his brother from the heroes so that Loki could face Asgardian justice.

Thor, standing with hammer, looking as if he’s about to do something.  That’s a bone, right?  Couldn’t they have got a shot with Thor and Loki together for this?

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12) Earth’s Mightiest Heroes battled among themselves to retrieve the Tesseract and stop Loki from escaping.

Shot of Thor and his Hammer, coming down on Captain America who is holding his shield.  It’s an action shot, which makes two of twelve so far, but  if you haven’t seen the films and are reading the book first, this is rather taking away the uncertainty over whether Thor is going to get his hammer back.  Or get home to Asgard. Oops.

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13) Thor, Cap and Iron Man finally worked as a team to defeat Loki and locate the Tesseract.

Looks like the person who typed these is as tired of having to type out Captain America as I am.  The picture is of Loki in the cell on the Helicarrier.  It’s as cool as hell, but Loki is just standing there, doing nothing.

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14) But Loki knew the cell was originally meant for something bigger and greener.

Bruce Banner, looking a bit cross.  There are no shots of the Hulk in this section except the last page.  The reason for this will become clear later.

And finally,

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15) Now, whenever there is a threat too big for any one hero to handle, the Mighty Avengers assemble to protect the Earth.

Photo, from left to right: Hawkeye, (who hasn’t done anything, or even been introduced, so far), Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and Black Widow, (who has compiled a report, thus far). It's her only picture too.  Agent Coulson doesn't show up at all. They are all supposed to look as if they are walking purposefully toward the camera together, but it’s obviously a cut and paste job of single photos.  They are all lit from above.  Behind them is the Hulk, (who so far, in prose, has become the Hulk and done nothing else).  He is lit from the side in fit of incompetence that I’m beginning to expect.

Soon to be continued...

Oh, we’re halfway there…

Oh, Whoa!  Livin’ on a prayer…

What age group is this aimed at?

Because if you're picking on a book aimed at eight year olds for over-simplifying several movie plots and not including every single aspect of Norse mythology, get a life.

If this is the book I think it is, it cuts off halfway through the movie. Very disappointing.

Cyberwulf wrote:

What age group is this aimed at?

Because if you're picking on a book aimed at eight year olds for over-simplifying several movie plots and not including every single aspect of Norse mythology, get a life.

It reads like uninspired fanfiction. That isn't good regardless of target demographic.

Cyberwulf wrote:

What age group is this aimed at?

Because if you're picking on a book aimed at eight year olds for over-simplifying several movie plots and not including every single aspect of Norse mythology, get a life.

Honestly, it's hard to say. The prose is not uncomplicated, just awful. My parent's have their neighbours kids come in and, helping with their homework, their books seem about the same level. Those kids are thirteen and fourteen. The books they seem to give at early teen stage seem basic at best, to my mind.

At that age I was reading Animal Farm, Wuthering Heights, Shakespeare. But I was top stream, I don't know what other streams did.

Any way it's cut, this book is for kids of early teen stage. And it's rubbish.

Chapter Fifteen, (page 99), is two pages long and deals with Erik Selvig getting Thor from S.H.I.E.L.D’s custody.  It’s fairly true to the film, but neglects to show that Agent Coulson knows that Selvig is lying and lets him go intentionally.  Which was the point of the scene in the film.

Chapter Sixteen (page 101), deals with the Earth-bound climax of Thor.  Sif and the Warriors Three - Hogun, Volstagg and Fanral - arrive via the Bifrost, tell Thor that Odin isn’t dead and Loki sends down the Destroyer, a sort of big metal man like an empty suit of armour, who can open his visor and send a beam of  great heat.

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Before anyone else could respond, a funnel formed in the otherwise cloudless desert sky and with it a whipping sandstorm that shook cars and cut anything in it’s path appeared as if from nowhere - just as Thor had when he arrived on Earth.

Thor did not arrive from a cloudless sky.  Jane Foster, Darcy and Selvig  went to where Thor arrived precisely because of the odd cloud formations.  That she was meant to be an astro-physicist is something we’ll pass over.  Hey, the film did.

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As if on cue, the dust lifted and revealed a huge, otherworldly humanlike figure covered in metal.  It was the Destroyer.

The Destroyer killed the Jotuns who attacked the vault in Asgard.  It was, in that part of the book:-

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A giant suit of armour known as the Destroyer.

Now its:-

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A huge otherworldly humanlike figure covered in metal.

There is nothing inside the Destroyer but fire.  It is a suit of armour, it is not a figure covered in metal.  Nice internal continuity, book.

Thor, through the Destroyer, asks Loki to stop destroying Earthlings and to take him instead.  The Destroyer delivers a fatal blow to Thor and Mjolnir, now finding Thor to be worthy, flies to his hand.  This makes him immortal again and he defeats the Destroyer and gets Heimdall to open the Bifrost and take him back to Asgard.  This bit is done quite well, weaving actual lines from the script, (and therefore the movie), into the narrative and moving the pace along, whilst showing character moments.  Which does make you wonder why the rest of the book couldn’t have been similar.

In a chapter all in italics and named ‘Bifrost’, we wrap up the Thor movie.  Loki brings Laufey to Asgard to kill Odin in his sleep, but Loki then kills Laufey.  Thor turns up and Loki flees to the end of the Bifrost where he sets the power used to transport between realms to destroy Jotunheim.  

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Before Loki could flee Odin’s chamber in order to complete the final phase of his plan - to destroy Jotunheim and cement his place in the annals of Asgardian history as the great saviour of his people - he noticed that the other frost giants had been driven back.  Only one warrior in all of Asgard could possess such power - his brother, Thor.  But Thor was exiled to Midgard…

So that’s the motivation they’re giving Loki here.  In the movie Loki is trying to desperately remove anything that links himself to being Jotun.  At the same time he is trying to prove himself worthy of Odin’s love.  It seems to me to be a far more powerful motivator.  By the by, in the movie Laufey turned up with just three Jotuns.  Loki got them through the bifrost by freezing Heimdall.  When Heimdall breaks free of his casing of ice, he takes out both Jotuns left to guard him.  The other guard is killed by Frigga when he and Laufey enter Odin’s chamber.  Loki kills Laufey.  So clearly there’s more than one warrior in all of Asgard who possesses such power.

Anyway, the Bifrost overloads and Thor breaks the rainbow bridge with his hammer to save Jotunheim from destruction.  The blast sends both brothers into the air.  On the way down, Odin, who’s finally woken up, catches Thor and Thor catches Loki.

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Thor did everything he could to save his brother.  But Loki allowed himself to slip from Thor’s grasp and fell, screaming, into the depths of the void of space.

Loki, in fact, asks Odin to understand, to find him worthy as he finds Thor.  When Odin says, ‘No, Loki’, he realises there is no place for him in Asgard and he falls, silently, into the wormhole left by the destroyed Bifrost.

Chapter seventeen, (page110) and we’re back with the Hulk.  Remember him?  This bit is the climax of the movie, where Hulk faces down the Abomination.  The chapter is done like someone who has no idea of what’s going on, telling us what’s happening by watching news reports.

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The destruction was more widespread then it had been earlier.  There was more rubble and smoke everywhere.  And now for the first time, a camera fixed itself on the face of the monster that was causing the chaos.

This is the Abomination.

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Suddenly, a bright green beam shot out of the sky toward the monster followed by a thunderous impact.  What was the government doing - nuking the thing with gamma rays now?

This is the Hulk.  Nuking with gamma rays.  Herr, herr.  Yeah.

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The green flash was not a nuke - or any other kind of missile.  It was another big ugly thing.

Another?  Oh, man!

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This one was green and had hair, and was in no way as grotesque and distorted as the one tearing up the city.

Right, so big and ugly, but cuter than the other big ugly.

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The big green one pummelled the ugly one straight down 125th street, and it left a ditch in the asphalt where it skid.

Skidded, you hack.

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A ticker at the bottom of the screen read: CROWDS DESCRIBE RAMPAGING BEAST AS AN ABOMINATION.

So this chapter is telling us what the person writing is reading on a news report of what’s happening.  Doesn’t exactly get you in the action, does it?

The Hulk and the Abomination continue to duke it out along with such non-sequiters as:-

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Now the ticker read: HULK APPEARS TO HAVE UPPER HAND.

The Hulk finally wins and leaps away to prevent capture.

The next chapter, chapter eighteen, (page 114), has Tony Stark meeting with General Ross and asking him to join the Avengers Initiative.  Last we read Tony had been rejected as Iron Man and had refused to be a consultant, so why he’s doing this is anyone’s guess.   Actually, I can guess.  The scene where Tony Stark is trying to put together the Avengers Initiative, his idea, is from the end of The Incredible Hulk, which came out before Iron Man 2, where S.H.I.E.L.D, taking over the project, then reject Stark for it.  So the chronology makes sense in the movies, but not in the book.

Again, a decent author and a decent editor could have dealt with this.

We discover the body of Captain America in Chapter nineteen, deep frozen for seventy years in the Arctic Circle.  This reads like the film, so it’s not too bad.

Except for:

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‘BASE!’ the lieutenant called into his monitor, ‘Give me a line to the colonel’

Yeah, a full stop to that sentence would have helped.  Don’t you usually call into some sort of microphone?  The monitor might be equipped with a microphone, of course, but yelling in all caps into a monitor seems retarded.

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‘It’s three am for him, sir’

Really?  Three am?  It’s verbatim what they say in the film, at least they say, ‘Three a.m.‘ but surely, ’three in the morning,’ or ‘oh, three hundred hours,’ comes across as less stupid when written.

Chapter twenty, (page 121), deals with the end of the Hulk movie, with Banner going on the run from General Ross and S.H.I.E.L.D. because they want to trap him and study, maybe even replicate the Hulk.  The only difference from the film is that The Incredible Hulk ends with Banner in Central America and this adds him going to Calcutta so he can be there for the Avengers movie.

Avenger’s movie, you say?  Isn’t this supposed to be the book of the film?  Patience, young padawan.  Nearly there.

Then end of Captain America, chapter twenty-one, (page 123), with Steve Rogers waking up from his frozen sleep.  S.H.I.E.L.D. try to lessen the blow by making a fake, familiar world, but Rogers see through it and escapes to be confronted by Fury and told that he’s been asleep for almost seventy years.

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Steve was speechless. To the passersby in Times Square this was all ordinary.

People in Times Square are used to several military personnel aiming there weapons at a guy while another guy tells him he’s been frozen for nearly three quarters of a century?  Wow.  NYC really is a hell of a town!

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But to Steve, this was the future.

Actually, he’s in a time he thought would be far in the future, but he’s in the present, as are we all.  This makes me laugh, as it’s meant to be serious, but reminds me of Airplane 2, where Ted Striker says to Elaine, ‘We're not in the past anymore, Elaine. This... is the FUTURE.’

Chapter twenty-two, (page 126), and we’re really rocketing past these chapters now, huh?  This is the bit after the credits on Thor.  Erik Selvig meets Nick Fury in an industrial, underground labyrinth and Fury shows him the Tesseract, the blue square thing Captain America met in the hands of the Red Skull.  Defeating him, and it, is how Cap, (I really am tired of typing Captain America), ended up frozen in the ice.  Tony Stark’s father recovered the cube from the ocean floor and now S.H.I.E.L.D. has it.

Selvig asks what it is, Fury says it’s a source of  maybe unlimited power.  

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But unseen by Fury or Selvig, the spirit of something else looked on - something more powerful then either of them.  Something from another world - a prince of lies, a power-hungry god.  Loki.
‘Well, I guess that’s worth a look…’ Loki hissed, grinning, unheard by the mortals surrounding him.

How do you hiss, whilst grinning? Seems damn near impossible.

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‘Well, I guess that’s worth a look,’ Selvig repeated, not realizing the words were not his own - that he was simply captivated by Loki’s spell.

Aw.  Selvig’s in love. 

We end with Loki deciding he’ll find a way back to Midgard, body and soul, to rule Earth.

This sets us up, finally, for the events of Avengers, the movie!  More than two thirds of the way through the book.  Jeez.

To be continued…

Chapter twenty-three, (page 129), starts with a potted history of the Tesseract ending with the facts that Dr. Selvig is in charge of studying it and Agent Clint Barton is watching it.

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Agent Clint Barton, whose aim was so accurate he’d earned the codename Hawkeye.

Codename?  Not nickname?  Isn’t a codename supposed to add a layer of security?  If you make it that the guy who shoots most accurately is codenamed ‘Hawkeye’, aren’t you making it more obvious who he is?  I mean Black Widow isn’t black and, as far as we know, isn’t a widow.  For that matter, she’s not a spider, either.  James Bond isn’t expected to live to a hundred, nor is he currently seven years old.  007 is his codename.  Just seems odd.

Anyhow, the Tesseract is misbehaving and Fury turns up to find out what going on.  Loki arrives, takes over Selvig and Barton and uses his spear to kill lots of people.  As for the iconic opening line:-

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I am Loki, of Asgard and I come burdened with glorious purpose.

Here he doesn’t say it and is only introduced with:-

Quote :

One of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s best agents and a brilliant scientist had just escaped with the Tesseract, accompanied by a powerful being who could only be Loki, son of Odin, brother of Thor.

Also Hawkeye fires an arrow at Fury, in the film he was shot with a gun, but that might have been a script change.  Other possible script changes are that Maria Hill is stopped by Hawkeye who fires an exploding arrow near her jeep, causing it to tumble, when in the film she was trapped by a rock fall, and it being Hawkeye who brings down Fury’s helicopter when in the film it was Loki.

Although the story has the line:-

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Agent Hill estimated that they had thirteen minutes before the entire compound would be sucked into the portal’s vacuum,

We are never told that it does so.  Nor does Fury tell his people that they are at war.

Instead we go to Chapter twenty-four, (page135), where we catch up on Steve Rogers, (Captain America), who is struggling to deal with the twenty-first century.  He takes his frustration to the gym and Nick Fury arrives to get him on mission with finding the Tesseract.

Chapter twenty-five, (page 140), turns the fun, exciting introduction of Black Widow into a very dull, two-page nothing.  Even her final line is screwed up.

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‘No, I’ve got Stark,’ Coulson said. ‘The BIG guy.’
Natasha took a deep breath. ‘Oh boy.’

So much for the scene showing her speaking Russian.  Bozhe Moi, indeed.

Chapter twenty-six has Coulson meeting with Tony Stark and telling him about the Tesseract and its being stolen.  It also introduces Stark Tower, and it’s powerful arc reactor.  You know that bit in the film?

Quote :

Pepper: How does it look?
Stark: Like Christmas, but with more… me.

Here, Tony’s reaction to the lighting up of Stark Tower is:-

Quote :

‘Woo-hoo!’

Yeah.  Moving on.

Chapter twenty-seven, (page146), has Natasha Romanov, (Black Widow), finding and recruiting Bruce Banner.   It’s a fairly accurate recap of the scene.

Chapter twenty-eight, (page 150) has Cap, Banner, Black Widow and Agent Coulson turning up on the helicarrier.  Coulson’s hero-worship of Cap is mentioned for, as we will see, no reason.  The helicarrier takes off and Fury asks Banner to find the Tesseract.

In the movie they link every security camera they can and use a computer to locate Loki using a programme they call ‘the face trace’.  Here, they find Loki in Stuttgart because Banner finds the gamma radiation signature of  the Tesseract.  Loki didn’t have the Tesseract in Stuttgart in the movie and doesn’t  in the book.  It makes no sense at all.  The book also misses out Loki’s talk with Barton and the need for an eyeball scan to get the iridium needed to stabilise the Tesseract, so that it doesn’t overload like it did the first time.  So really, here Loki has no need at all to even be in Stuttgart.

Nevertheless, chapter twenty-nine, (page 154), has Loki in Stuttgart.   

Quote :

In a square outside a museum in Stuttgart, Germany, an unassuming man carrying a walking stick strode by a string quartet. The man meandered about a bit, taking in the evening, enjoying the night and the music. He surveyed the museum and walked around it’s perimeter, admiring it’s architecture and expressing an interest in the evening’s event. He eventually made his way round to the rear. Once he was sure no-one was looking, he slipped inside through a back entrance.

I’m not sure why any of this is here.  Loki went to Stuttgart to attack a guy and get an eyeball scan, whilst Hawkeye and some of Loki’s other henchmen went to a vault to steal the iridium.  The eyeball scan is needed to open the vault.  In the book, there is no eyeball scan, or iridium, so Loki’s motivation is totally unclear.  He morphs into his battle armour, with silly horned helmet and his walking stick becomes the Tesseract spear.  He goes outside and makes everyone kneel.  In the film, Loki had just effortlessly taken out a security guard and thrown a guy down to get the eyeball scan.  Here, he’s walked into a museum via a back door, changed his clothes magically and walked out by the main entrance.

Our villain, people.

He commands everyone to kneel and they do, for no apparent reason.  Except the one guy who does the, ‘I do not kneel to men like you’. Speech.  From the movie:-

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Loki: Kneel before me. I said, KNEEL!
[Loki stamps his scepter on the ground, causing a shockwave that intimidates the crowd into silence as they all kneel before him]
Loki: Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end you will always kneel.

A brilliant, beautiful piece of characterisation.  Not in the book.  It’s ditched for Loki admiring the architecture.

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Loki: Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example.

Nope.  Instead we have:-

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Loki lifted his sceptre and pointed at the man in disgust.

 

Damn it, Loki was amused by the man’s challenge!  It gave him a reason to prove his power.

Anyway, he fires at the old man and Captain America shows up.  Interestingly, although we had Coulson and Cap in the quinjet, we didn’t get the bit where Coulson tells Cap about his new suit.  There’s no dialogue at all.  Nor here, do we get the scene where Cap sees the suit on the helicarrier.  The only mention of the new suit came in the photo section in the middle of the book.  Hilariously, we aren’t told that Cap is suited up at all in this scene.  For all we know he could have his shield and a pair of swimming trunks.

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Something swooped by and ricocheted off of the energy stream - deflecting Loki’s blast and keeping the old man from harm, then swiping Loki across the head as it swooped back toward its wielder.

Bloody hell, this guy can’t write for toffee.  Actually, Cap jumps down and deflects the energy blast, whilst holding the shield, the blast deflects back and hits Loki.

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‘Ah, the super soldier from the Great War.’ Loki said.
‘It wasn’t that ’great,’ Captain America replied, flatly.
‘Mine will be.’ Loki said evilly.

Evilly.  Really author, could you be less subtle?  Captain America was involved in the Second World War, the Great War was the First World War.  The sheer incompetence of this thing defies belief.

Above them Natasha tries to get a shot to Loki, from the quinjet, but can’t because the square is too crowded.  Cap and Loki have and fight and Iron Man shows up.  Loki surrenders and is taken prisoner.

Quote :

Loki threw up his hands in defeat, an evil smile on his face.

That’s one evil and one evilly in two pages.  I suppose telling us saves the author from doing anything to show us.

Chapter thirty, (page 158),  sees them all on the quinjet, headed off to the helicarrier.  Fury calls and tells them the whereabouts of the Tesseract isn’t important, it’s important that Loki doesn’t have it.  This doesn’t make sense, but we’ll move on.  Cap is surprised that Loki was so easily taken, but this comes to nothing.  Then Thor shows up, boards the quinjet and takes Loki.

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‘We thought you were dead. We mourned. Our father -’
‘Your father’ Loki replied. ‘Did he not tell you my true parentage?’

No, but neither has the book so far, so what’s the beef?

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‘Loki, we were raised together, fought together. Do you remember none of this?’
‘What I remember is growing up in your shadow.’ Loki said bitterly.
‘You must return to Asgard. We will talk to the Allfather…’
‘I am not going anywhere. If Asgard can’t be mine, I will rule over Midgard,’ Loki said, becoming increasingly incensed.

This is that same conversation from the film:-

Quote :

Thor: I thought you dead.
Loki: Did you mourn?
Thor: We all did. Our father...
Loki: Your father! He did tell you my true parentage, did he not?
Thor: We were raised together, played together, fought together. Do you remember none of that?
Loki: I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness. I remember you tossing me into an abyss, I who was and should be king!
Thor: So you take the world I love as recompense for your imagined slights? No, the Earth is under my protection, Loki!
Loki: [laughs] And you're doing a marvelous job with that! The humans slaughter each other in droves while you idly fret. I mean to rule them. And why should I not?
Thor: You think yourself above them?
Loki: Well, yes.
Thor: Then you miss the truth of ruling, brother. A throne would suit you ill.

You see how much better it reads?  Instead of a sulky brat, the shadow, living in the shade is about Loki‘s misery about being the lesser-loved son.  The fact that Loki, deliberately or otherwise, blames Thor for the fall into the abyss.  Loki’s reasoning, that if he rules Earth he can prevent wars, that painful self delusion. It’s not evil for evil’s sake, Loki believes, in his madness, that his rule will make things better.  Thor’s realisation, from his exile on Earth, that he isn’t above the people he leads.  His insistence on still calling Loki, ‘brother’, despite everything.

All gone for a boring fraternal spat.  Shit, I hate this.

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Something shot through the air and plowed into Thor, knocking him clear out of the scene: it was the Invincible Iron Man.

I’ll forgive the,’plowed,’ although my spellchecker hates it.  For some reason it’s the American way to spell ‘ploughed’.  But, since when was Tony Stark the Invincible Iron Man?  Why is invincible capitalised?  Banner becomes the Incredible Hulk.  Putting aside the fact that, in the movies, Iron Man gets ‘vinced’ quite a bit, is it just poor authorship/editing?  Or at some point was the comic called, ‘the Invincible Iron Man’?

Actually, yes it is.  The comic book character is called the Invincible Iron Man.  There is also a direct to DVD animated movie called The Invincible Iron Man and a computer game of the same name.  The Marvel moves, Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Avengers do not mention this at all.  So it’s a nice shout-out to the fans of the comics, but adds nothing to the book of the film/s.

Iron Man and Thor have a fight, as they do in the film.

Quote :

Thor wailed upon Iron Man with Mjolnir, rocking Tony with blow after blow.

So, I went and watched the scene again.  After Iron Man takes Thor away from Loki and they have a brief chat:-
1) Thor hits Iron Man with Hammer, once, and Iron Man is knocked back into tree.
2) Iron Man hits Thor with an energy bolt that knocks him back into another tree.
3) Thor recovers and uses Mjolnir to attract lighting.  He hits Iron Man with the lightning.
4) Iron Man is frazzled but is told that his suit is now at 400% power.  He uses this power to fire Thor clean through a third tree.
5)They both take off and hit in mid flight, they fly off, scraping each other down a cliff.  As they land, Thor drops Mjolnir. They also destroy a fourth tree.
6) Thor hits Iron Man, then prevents him from hitting back by holding his forearms. Thor is strong enough to crush Iron Man’s armour.
7) Iron Man head butts Thor to no real effect.
8.) Thor head butts Iron Man and knocks him back twenty feet.
9) Iron Man comes back and throws Thor into yet another tree.
10) Thor gets up and gives Iron Man a smack down.
11) Thor calls Mjolnir to him and is about to hit him, when Iron Man fires the rockets on his feet and he skids away.  Mjolnir hits the ground instead.
12) Captain America stops the fight.

That’s one hit and one miss for Thor.  He really, really doesn’t ‘wail’ on Iron Man with ‘blow after blow.’  Not at all.  To be fair, it does mention some of the above list in the book, but  in the wrong order.  

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As the two superpowered beings faced off again something shot down between them, blocking any further aggression.

Actually, Cap was on a nearby rock and threw his shield at them, trying to knock some sense into their heads.

Thor hits Cap’s shield with his hammer and we find that irresistible force hitting immovable object lays waste to a large area of pine forest.  Funnily enough, in the movie Thor only attacks Cap after he’s used Mjolnir to knock Iron Man out of the way.  The book tells us Stark is hit by the hammer lots of times when he wasn’t and omits one of only two times when he was!

Recovering from the blast, Thor, Cap and Iron Man recover Loki and take him back to the quinjet to return to the helicarrier.

The Avengers are about to assemble.  This is where it gets exciting, folks!

To be continued…

No it doesn’t.  Get exciting, I mean.  Sorry.

We are at chapter...  Nope, we’re at the Epilogue.  Page 165.

Quote :

Back on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, Bruce Banner watched as Loki was locked up in a huge glass cage.

Banner was watching, along with Black Widow, Thor and Cap, from the bridge of the helicarrier, whilst it was Fury who was physically there when Loki was imprisoned.  Though straight after the book says Bruce is watching via video, that’s not clear in this sentence.  Nor is Fury’s position.

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‘This wasn’t meant for me, you know,’ Loki taunted Bruce through the video surveillance. ‘It was constructed for someone angrier and greener.

Jeez, could this make Loki sound more childish?  The actual lines?

Quote :

Loki: It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me.
Fury: Built for something a lot stronger than you.
Loki: Oh, I've heard. The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?

Whedon’s Loki.  Smart, quick witted, always thinking three steps ahead.  Macri’s adaptation of Loki.  Snotty dumbass.

The scene where Loki enters the helicarrier is missing.  As he walks past the lab, surrounded by armed guards, Loki sees Banner with the Tesseract spear.  Loki smiles and Banner puts his hand to his head, as though dizzy.  This is because Loki is using the spear to get to Banner, or more accurately, the Hulk.

Quote :

Loki hissed at Colonel Fury.  He wouldn’t be held so easily.

He’s a Norse god, for crying out loud!  Not a pantomime villain.

Quote :

The colonel showed there was no way out of the cell’s sides.

Apart from the door Loki just entered.  Then the colonel showed there was nothing up his sleeves.

Quote :

Then he flipped a switch and the floor slid open, revealing a glass enclosure over a 9000 metre drop.

Loki is already standing in the glass enclosure.  In the movie, Fury says 30,000 feet.  I haven’t a clue as to why it’s been converted to metric here.

Quote :

If Loki tried to escape, the doors of the glass floor would part and Loki would plunge to Earth.

The whole glass enclosure falls.   We see this, with Thor inside, in the film.

Quote :

Agent Coulson radioed in that the Tesseract, Agent Barton and Dr. Selvig had been located.  The two men had been brainwashed by Loki.  With Loki defeated, the effect of his hypnosis were wearing off.

The effects of his hypnosis were wearing off.  The effect of his hypnosis was wearing off  Pick a bloody tense, you jerk.  And it should be, ‘the’ hypnosis or, ‘their’ hypnosis.  Or, if you prefer, ‘his hypnotism.’ Loki’s not under hypnosis.

 

Quote :

…and the Tesseract was on it’s way to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s carrier.

Loki was trapped and the world was safe, at least for the moment.  Thor stood aboard the helicarrier, waiting to return his brother to Asgard to face Odin’s strong arm of justice.

Bruce, Steve, Natasha and Tony each looked at one another and then over at Thor.  None of them could have captured Loki alone.

Thor did.

Quote :

It was only together - despite their rocky start - that they were able to prevent certain disaster.

This was the first, but surely not the final time that the great Super Heroes of the world had come together and assembled into a team.

They did that?  When did they do that? 

Quote :

It was the start of something incredible, invincible… and mighty.

That’s the Incredible Hulk, the Invincible Iron Man, the Mighty Thor.  Oh, plus Cap and Natasha.  And Barton, when he shows up.

Quote :

It was the beginning of an initiative that Nick Fury had tried to assemble for years, despite facing obstacles every step of the way.

Like Cap being frozen, thought dead, Fury washing Stark out of the programme himself and no-one having the first idea how to contact Thor?  Those obstacles?  He just had to make do with a flying aircraft carrier, seemingly unlimited personnel and budget and endless, sometimes experimental hardware and weaponry.  Poor man.

Quote :

But with the fate of the world, perhaps the universe, hanging in the balance, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes had come together to protect, to serve, to defend… and to avenge.

They haven’t avenged anything or anyone, yet.  And, since when was the universe in danger?

Quote :

And as Colonel Fury watched Loki contemplate his cell and Thor ready his brother for a trip back to Asgard, he realized that if the would ever again needed them, they would band together again.

One of those again’s needs to go.  Sloppy writing, sloppy editing.

Quote :

Whenever duty called, the Avengers would answer - for now and forever…

One of those for’s needs to go.  Sloppy writing and sloppy editing.

Quote :

…fighting for the greatest good and never relenting till the battle was won.

Until, or ‘til.  Not till.

…

Hang on. Hang on! What?  Wait! I mean, what the heck….?

That’s it?   That’s the end of the book?!

EileenK98 wrote:

If this is the book I think it is, it cuts off halfway through the movie. Very disappointing.

Damn, isn’t it?  We never got, or get to see the council to whom Fury reports.  Never saw the Chitauri, the Other or Thanos.  Loki’s link to the Other and the threat that if Loki fails, Thanos will find Loki and make him pay.  Loki’s plan to turn the Avengers on each other using the Tesseract Spear and the release of the Hulk.  His escape and the opening of the portal.  Coulson’s death and that... THAT…being the thing that needs avenging.  The event that brings them together as a team.  Natasha’s defeat of Hawkeye and the breaking of Loki’s enchantment.  The realisation that Loki’s using Stark Tower, both to taunt Stark and use it’s arc reactor energy.  The final battle and the return of the Hulk.  Natasha using Loki’s spear to close the portal after Selvig is also released from Loki‘s spell.  Iron Man taking the nuke the S.H.I.E.L.D. council sent to defeat Loki and taking it through the portal in a sacrifice play to save New York and defeat the Chitauri.  Defeating Loki and Thor using the Tesseract to take Loki home.

None of this is in the book.

Our super heroes.  From page 129 to 167, the Avengers part.

Iron Man:  Fight’s Thor. Threatens Loki.

Captain America:  Fight’s Thor, Fight’s Loki.  Has a coffee.

The Incredible Hulk:  Well, Banner was brought in to find the Tesseract through it’s gamma radiation signature.  Inexplicably finds Loki with it instead.  Someone else finds Tesseract.  Banner never Hulks out in the Avengers part of this book.

Thor:  Fights Iron Man and Captain America.  Has a chat with Loki.

Black Widow:  Fought off three ‘goons’ in Russia.  Couldn’t get a clear shot in Stuttgart.  That’s it.

Hawkeye: Got hypnotised.

All of them to fight Supervillain Loki: Arrived through the Tesseract.  Stole Tesseract.  Went to Stuttgart for no reason.  Got captured and sent home.

Puny god.

A brilliant movie turned into a godawful book.  That it’s for kids is no excuse for turgid writing, sloppy editing, character assassination, or half the plot being missing.  Usually, when a film like the Harry Potter ones, or the Hobbit come out, people moan at the stuff that was in the book being left out of the film.  Here, more than half the film is left out of the book.

What makes it so damn stupid is that the Avenger’s never actually assemble in this story.  It is only in New York, when Banner shows up, that Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow are together, in the iconic 360 degree shot.  In the book of the Avengers Assemble movie, the Avengers never assemble.

What a pile of crap.

Sometimes I leaf through junior novelizations in the bookstore (since I'm a children's librarian, it's useful to get an idea of what books to order for kids). One thing I have noticed in recent years is that junior novelizations have been leaving off the ends of movies. The Captain America novelization, for example, ends with him leaping aboard the HYDRA plane, with a line like "he was ready for his final confrontation with Red Skull and he'd win or die trying."

It never used to be like that, but I guess they don't want kids knowing the ending going in.

What a strange phenomenon. I suppose it's possible that a book might be out first and the film company don't want the ending spoilt, but I feel it short-changes the reader terribly. Besides, anyone who wants to find out the ending of a movie is one Google click away from dozens of movie spoiler sites.

When I was a kid, (I'm showing me age now!), I had both the black book and the white book for Grease. The white book was the novelisation of the film, the black book was the movie script. Both had the endings, but I still went and saw the movie. I'd have been less likely to see the Avengers movie if the ending to the book had been as lame as this.