&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/15106?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=The+Avengers+trailer%3A+are+some+superheroes+more+equal+than+others%3F%3AArticle%3A1647083&amp;ch=Film&amp;c3=GU.co.uk&amp;c4=Film%2CCulture%2CRobert+Downey+Jr+%28Film%29%2CComics+and+graphic+novels+%28Books+genre%29%2CScience+fiction+and+fantasy+%28Film+genre%29%2CAction+and+adventure+%28Film+genre%29%2CJoss+Whedon%2CMark+Ruffalo&amp;c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews%2CTV&amp;c6=Ben+Child&amp;c7=11-Oct-13&amp;c8=1647083&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=Blogpost&amp;c11=Film&amp;c13=Week+in+geek+%28Film+series%29&amp;c25=Film+blog&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FFilm%2FRobert+Downey+Jr&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;At least seven saviours will compete for screen time in Marvel&#039;s movie, but will, and should, it all hinge on the special sardonic powers of one Iron Man?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Regular readers of this blog might recall that I&#039;ve tended to vacillate between wide-eyed anticipation and benevolent concern when it comes to the subject of Marvel. The budding film studio&#039;s ongoing effort to revolutionise the comic book movie by successfully realising multiple superhero storylines on the big screen for the first time has always come across as a hugely admirable endeavour, which is unlikely to deliver an entirely satisfactory outcome. The vast majority of bad superhero movies are those which attempt to focus on too many characters, be they heroes or villains: I&#039;m thinking &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/118084/spider-man.3&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Spider-Man 3&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/106876/fantastic.four&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Fantastic Four&lt;/a&gt; for starters. Most of the really watchable films (Spider-Man, Superman, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/106557/batman.begins&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Batman Begins&lt;/a&gt;) tend to keep the focus tight and avoid introducing too many protagonists.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The honourable exception is, of course, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/122806/dark.knight&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Dark Knight&lt;/a&gt;, but even Christopher Nolan&#039;s sprawling, brooding tour de force wisely kept its main spotlight on the battle between Batman and The Joker. The Avengers, Marvel&#039;s forthcoming attempt to unite several of its comic book mainstays in a single movie, has at least seven heroes competing for screen time with each other and main villain Loki. Unless director Joss Whedon is planning to present a three-hour epic, someone&#039;s going to get squeezed out of the picture.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;By the looks of the debut full-length trailer for the film, which hit the web this week, it&#039;s not likely to be Robert Downey Jr&#039;s &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/123770/iron.man&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Iron Man&lt;/a&gt;. The great thing about Downey Jr&#039;s Tony Stark is that he&#039;s at his best when bouncing off other people, so there&#039;s no reason to think an ensemble setup should be to his detriment. While the action sequences in Iron Man and its sequel were spectacular, the films flourished due to the interplay between Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow&#039;s Pepper Potts, and &hellip; well, just about anyone else who entered his target zone. Everyone in sight was fair game for a flash of sardonic Stark humour, and it seems Iron Man&#039;s Avenger amigos are to be no exception. It&#039;s always hard to tell much from a trailer, but the snatches of dialogue here hint at a pretty polished script. Props, too, to the film-makers for avoiding giving away too much about the storyline (yet).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/downey-disappointed-by-iron-man-2-20111011-1lj73.html&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Downey Jr said this week that he was disappointed by Iron Man 2&lt;/a&gt; following the outstanding, career-altering success of the original film. I have to say I thought it was a pretty decent followup, but there&#039;s certainly a need for Stark to shine in The Avengers if the planned Iron Man 3 is to have any hope of building hype. The trailer hints that the film will be built around the man in the metal suit, which might just be an intelligent way to go. Marvel has done a great job of building origins stories for Thor and Captain America this year, but Downey Jr remains the studio&#039;s trump card.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;My main concern over The Avengers is that it will end up being a bit like one of those big screen transfers for a long-running successful TV show: the fans love it because they have an investment in the characters, but nobody else watching has got a clue why they should be remotely interested. Whedon and his team should have enough about them to avoid that outcome (the director, after all, shot a bravura standalone effort in the form of his excellent space opera Serenity, while also delighting fans of its source show, Firefly) and one has to give the benefit of the doubt to a studio that has produced at least three (four if you count Iron Man 2) good movies out of five since launching five years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of which, the hardest job in The Avengers must certainly belong to Mark Ruffalo, aka the new Hulk. Neither Ang Lee&#039;s Hulk from 2003 or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/124582/incredible.hulk&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Louis Leterrier&#039;s The Incredible Hulk&lt;/a&gt; in 2008 managed to capture the majesty of the comic books &ndash; both are even compared unfavourably to the hokey 1970s TV show starring Lou Ferrigno &ndash; so what hope does Ruffalo have of doing in limited screen time what neither Eric Bana nor Ed Norton could do in the previous films? Might he end up being little more than a target for Stark to fire wisecracks at? There are less demanding jobs in superhero moviedom, but not many since Cillian Murphy&#039;s Scarecrow managed all of a minute&#039;s worth of screen-time in The Dark Knight. And this is a character who will doubtless be in CGI mode as the not-so jolly green giant for much of The Avengers. Still, the film really ought to be all &lt;em&gt;about&lt;/em&gt; taking one for the team. I wonder if anyone has told Downey Jr.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/robertdowneyjr&quot;&gt;Robert Downey Jr&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/comics&quot;&gt;Comics and graphic novels&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/sciencefictionandfantasy&quot;&gt;Science fiction and fantasy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/actionandadventure&quot;&gt;Action and adventure&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/joss-whedon&quot;&gt;Joss Whedon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/mark-ruffalo&quot;&gt;Mark Ruffalo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/benchild&quot;&gt;Ben Child&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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