To start off, I'd like to say what we know about the movie:
-It will draw inspiration from the 616 and Ultimate universe.
-Bruce Banner is brought on the team to study the Cosmic Cube as it is giving off Gamma radiation.
-The movie will be told from Captain America's perspective.
-Loki will be the main villain and will lead an alien army against Earth.
-Loki will go toe-to-toe against each Avenger.
-The opening of the movie will be a montage, bringing viewers up-to-date with the basics of the MCU.
-Red Skull won't make a cameo.
-None of the supporting characters from any of the previous movies will appear.
-The movie will have an after-credits-scene.
-There won't be any cameos from other heroes.
-The movie will attempt to explore the cosmic side of the MCU.
Everything else we've heard has been rumors/speculation. This whole editorial is mainly based off of the first and second points that I listed. Yesterday, I read Volume 1 of The Ultimates (entitled Super-Soldier) and thorouhgly enjoyed it. The actor references and movie sub-plot could've been left out (and Hulk saying he was horny for Betty was just plain creepy) but other than that it was a good modern update for the characters. Bruce Banner is portrayed as a type of lost soul in the story, and not appreciated by his teammates and SHIELD in general, especially in the scene where the team are thinking of actors that could play them in a movie and Steve Buscemi is cast as Banner. There are more parts, but I won't go into detail. He has completely given up being the Hulk and wants to focus on his scientific job, as he has been tasked as creating a new super soldier for The Ultimates, until they fish Cap from the arctic sea.
He is desperately trying to get back together with Betty Ross (if you can call it that) but she thinks he is an idiot and a waste of space, angering Banner. When you mix up being blasted by your ex(?)-girlfriend, failing at the task given to you and being an outcast in your workplace, the result is a very, very angry man and we all know it's not good to make Bruce Banner angry, right? And if you don't then you should be IP-banned from this site. He mixes sachets of Cap's blood with the Hulk serum and injects himself with it, because he misses being The Hulk and he wants to give the team something worthwile to fight. When reading the final fight scene, it reminded me of a scene description that was posted on CBM a few days ago (from IMDB) showcasing the scene where Iron Man, Cap and Thor all have a go at trying to fight the Hulk, but ultimately fail.
When reading this I wondered, "
why is Hulk displayed as indestructible here?" and I think I've found the answer. As I said, the movie will take inspiration from The Ultimates and in Ultimates Bruce Banner was an outcast and will be that in the movie because he was Hulk and killed loads of people, blew shit up and is a threat etc. I believe that for some reason, SHIELD will have sachets of Cap's blood (the same blood used to turn Blonsky into the Abomination in
The Incredible Hulk?) and mix them with some of his blood and then inject them into himself. That is if he's been cured of course. If he hasn't then he'll probably just inject a re-created version of the super soldier serum into himself.
But you're probably wondering to yourself, "
if the article is about Hulk, then why is the title of the editorial Why Are The Avengers Assembling?" and I can answer that. It was suspected from when we first heard that Loki and his army would be the villains that SHIELD knew of the thread beforehand, and that's why they are assembling Earth's Mightiest Heroes. There was another theory that Nick Fury was assembling the team to control The Hulk, but from all the information we've gathered that clearly isn't the case. The real reason is actually a much simpler one: The Avengers are assembling to fight the fights that are too difficult and impossible for a regular human. In The Ultimates, Fury was worried that the whole project would be killed altogether as they were spending millions of dollars on a team that was just sitting around talking about who should play them in a movie. And that will probably be the same case in
The Avengers, without the whole movie sub-plot though.