After going solo with their respective hit movies since 2008, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America along with Nick Fury, The Black Widow and Hawkeye finally comes together the form Earth’s mightiest superheroes, The Avengers.

To prevent the Earth from destruction against enemies greater than any of them alone, they must combine forces to prevent such thing from happening.

The Avengers is scheduled for release on May 4, 2012 in the United States and on April 25 worldwide.

[RELATED: The Avengers complete release dates]

Here are the characters from the movie as pulled off from the pages of Marvel Comics and given to life in the silver screen.

Tony Stark / Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) – A billionaire playboy, industrialist and ingenious engineer, Stark suffers a severe chest injury during a kidnapping in which his captors attempt to force him to build a weapon of mass destruction. He instead creates a powered suit of armor to save his life and escape captivity. He later uses the suit to protect the world as Iron Man. Through his multinational corporation ― Stark Industries ― Tony has created many military weapons, some of which, along with other technological devices of his making, have been integrated into his suit, helping him fight crime.

Steve Rogers / Captain America (Chris Evans) – A World War II veteran, Captain America was the alter ego of Steve Rogers, a frail young man who was enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental serum in order to aid the United States war effort. Captain America wears a costume that bears an American flag motif, and is armed with an indestructible shield made from an experimental alloy of steel and the fictional vibranium that can be thrown as a weapon.

Dr. Bruce Banner / Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – The Hulk is cast as the emotional and impulsive alter ego of the withdrawn and reserved physicist Dr. Bruce Banner. The Hulk appears shortly after Banner is accidentally exposed to the blast of a test detonation of a gamma bomb he invented. Subsequently, Banner will involuntarily transform into the Hulk, depicted as a giant, raging, humanoid monster, leading to extreme complications in Banner’s life. As the Hulk, Banner is capable of significant feats of strength, the magnitude of which increase in direct proportion to the character’s anger. As the character himself puts it, “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets!” Strong emotions such as anger, terror and grief are also triggers for forcing Banner’s transformation into the Hulk.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) – As the Norse god of Thunder, Thor can summon the elements of the storm (lightning; rain; wind; snow) and uses Mjolnir as a tool to focus this ability, although the hammer cannot command artificial weather, only natural. Thor possesses a very high resistance to physical injury that approaches invulnerability. Thor also possesses keen senses that allows him to track objects traveling faster than light[and hear cries from the other side of the planet and has the ability to travel through time. Thor is a superb hand-to-hand combatant, and also skilled in armed combat, excelling in the use of the war hammer, sword and mace.

Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) – A highly trained spy working for the international peacekeeping organization, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Black Widow is a world class athlete and gymnast, expert martial artist (including karate, judo, aikido, savate, various styles of kung fu, and boxing), marksman, and weapons specialist as well as having extensive espionage training. She is also an accomplished ballerina. The Black Widow has been enhanced by biotechnology that makes her body resistant to aging and disease and heals at an above human rate; as well as psychological conditioning that suppresses her memory of true events as opposed to implanted ones of the past without the aid of specially designed system suppressant drugs, attempts to do so result in extreme biological reactions, indicated as vomiting and black-outs.

Clint Barton / Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) – A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and master archer known in the comics as the “World’s Greatest Marksman”. While Hawkeye has no superhuman powers, he is at the very peak of human conditioning; he is an exceptional fencer, acrobat and a grandmaster marksman, having been trained from childhood in the circus and by the criminals Trick Shot and Swordsman. Hawkeye has also been thoroughly trained by Captain America in tactics, martial arts, and hand-to-hand combat. Hawkeye excels in the use of ranged weapons, especially the bow and arrow, and carries a quiver containing a number of customized “trick-arrows”.

Loki (Tom Hiddleston) – Thor’s adoptive brother and archnemesis based on the deity of the same name. He is the “God of Lies and Mischief”. Loki is a member of the race of Frost Giants of Jotunheim, although not a giant in stature. He possesses physical attributes equal to a fit average member of the race of superbeings known as Asgardians, such as superhuman strength; stamina (his Frost Giant metabolism grants him superhuman levels of physical stamina in practically all activities); durability; and immunity to all known diseases and toxins, as well as some resistance to magic. Loki has extensive training in magic, and possesses the ability to manipulate magical forces for a variety of purposes: energy projection, creation of force fields, temporarily increasing his own physical strength, granting superhuman abilities to living beings or inanimate objects, flight, hypnosis, illusion casting, and inter-dimensional teleportation. Loki is an adept shapeshifter and can change into animals (examples include transmogrification to a salmon, horse, etc.) or impersonate other people, such as Thor or Captain America. However, he does not necessarily gain the abilities of whatever he turns into, although minor natural abilities such as flight in bird form tend to work.

Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) – The director of S.H.I.E.L.D., who was revealed in previous films to be coordinating the “Avenger Initiative”. Nick Fury’s aging has been slowed greatly by the Infinity Formula in the 1940s. Fury took the serum annually for many years. Due to its cumulative effect, Fury no longer needs additional doses to prolong his life span. Nick Fury is an athletic man despite his advanced chronological age. Fury’s injured left eye, though initially minimally affected by a grenade blast during World War II, has over the decades resulted in a 95% loss of vision in this eye. Fury is a seasoned unarmed and armed combat expert, was a heavyweight boxer in the army (during World War II), and holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a brown belt in Jiu Jitsu. He has honed his unarmed combat skills sparring with Captain America. As the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury has access to the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. highly advanced arsenal of weaponry; various air, land, and sea craft provided by S.H.I.E.L.D.; and numerous S.H.I.E.L.D. paraphernalia, including a radio-link tie and a bulletproof suit

Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) – A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who works closely with Jackson’s Nick Fury.

Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) - In the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Agent Coulson is generally depicted as a supporting character of the protagonists and used to represent S.H.I.E.L.D.’s presence in the plots of the films, to the point that Clark Gregg has described Coulson as “the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent”. Despite Coulson being called “the most recognizable face in the Marvel Comics movie universe”, he is depicted as an “everyman” in a universe full of superheroes–”the glue that binds” the characters together.

Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) – A scientist doing research in New Mexico who encounters Thor. In the Thor post-credits scene, Selvig has been taken to a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, where Nick Fury opens a briefcase and asks him to study a mysterious object, which Fury says may hold untold power. An invisible Loki prompts Selvig to agree, which Selvig does.

Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) – Tony Stark’s personal assistant and budding love interest. In the first film, Stark, notes that she is virtually the only real friend he has at the company. In the second film, Potts is promoted to CEO of Stark Industries, though she later resigns.

Watch The Avengers starting April 25 worldwide and on May 5 in the United States.

UPDATE:

Thanos (CGI but voiced by Jeffrey Wright) – the most powerful member of the race of superhumans known as the Titanian Eternals appeared during the mid-credits scene as the Chitauri leader tells his shadowy master that attacking Earth “would be to court death”. The master turns and smiles.

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