Assuming Black Panther is in Age of Ultron my vote goes to Dave Ramsey to be cast as the Wakandan King

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer is now live online. I guess Marvel decided to dump it early instead of airing it during Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. next Tuesday because it got leaked. Their loss and our gain. Embedded within the trailer is a lot of information. Intriguing to me is a shot of Andy Serkis who is rumored to be playing Ulysses Klaw. So what does that mean exactly?

This is Ultron's hand taking a vibranium bath. That's bad for people who
don't like Ultron. 

Well one, it means that vibranium is a big part of Avengers 2. According to the Marvel Wiki, "Vibranium is a rare, naturally occurring meteoric ore, theorized to be extraterrestrial in origin, and mostly comes from the country of Wakanda. It is capable of absorbing vibratory energy in its vicinity (such as sound waves) and it stores this energy within the bonds between the molecules making up the Vibranium. As a result, a chunk of Vibranium which has absorbed a considerable amount of vibratory energy would be exceedingly hard to demolish." Captain America's shield is made of vibranium, and the trailer suggests that Ultron (built by Tony Stark?) also takes a bath in it, making him essentially invulnerable. A foe for the Avengers indeed!

The scientist Ulysses Klaw is the guy that found all the vibranium in Wakanda. Chieftans (known as kings) had guarded the mound for generations. In order to get some, Ulysses kills King T'Chaka. His son, Prince T'Challa is the superhero Black Panther. So yeah, the idea that Ulysses Klaw is in the Avengers basically means that we are getting Black Panther, and this is very exciting.

WHO IS BLACK PANTHER?

Who should be cast to play Black Panther? I'd love to see David Ramsey (he
plays "Diggle" on the CW's Arrow). 

This is Dave Ramsey. As "Diggle" in Arrow, he's Oliver Queen's "Voice of Reason."

First off the name is a title. The "Panther" gets to eat a special heart-shaped herb which forges a connection to the Wakandan Panther God and grants superhuman senses, increased strength, speed stamina, reflexes, and agility. As king, the Panther has access to a vast collection of magical artifacts, advanced Wakandan technological and military hardware, as well as the support of his nation's wide array of scientists, warriors, and mystics. In the comics, the Wakandan military is one of the most powerful on Earth. In addition to all of this, Prince T'Challa is also one of the eight smartest people on the planet (Reed Richards is the smartest).

WHY AM I EXCITED ABOUT THIS?

This question is pretty easy to answer. Having Black Panther in the stories means that we're probably going to get a Namor storyline pretty soon. Plus, to be honest, I'm a little jaded with all the white washing that Marvel has. I mean these are great stories, but women and men of color or minorities in general have no "leading" roles. The big heroes are Thor (white), Captain America (white), and Iron Man (white). Black Widow is basically a footnote, although outcry over her super tiny role is starting to build momentum. Maybe Marvel will someday invest some money in a franchise actually starring Scarlett Johansson, but as of this writing I've heard of none. And I'm also pleased that Don Cheadle may have a guest star role in Avengers: Age of Ultron because he's pretty much a supporting character. The same goes for Falcon...supporting character material in Winter Soldier, and the pessimist in me says there's no way he makes the transition to the Avenger's movie despite having nailed the role.

Below is the embedded video for the trailer so you can watch it again and compare notes with me.

A survivor's guide to what you can expect from Marvel's Age of Ultron from a speculator's point of view

With Disney's announcement yesterday of the Avengers 2: Age of Ultron synopsis (you can read it HERE), I thought I'd talk about The Vision because he's one of three newly anticipated characters that we'll be meeting in the new movie next year (you got a taste of Quicksilver from Fox's X-Men: Days of Future Past).

The Vision looks human, but wears a green cap thing that matches his green "skin-tight" one piece (do they call this a onesy?). He has a red face, wears yellow gloves and boots, and sports a yellow cape. He's going to be played by Paul Bettany who's been heard and not seen in the Iron Man movies (as the voice of the computer J.A.R.V.I.S.) as well as being in a number of high profile films (DaVinci Code, Master and Commander). It's going to be puzzling to hear him as J.A.R.V.I.S. in Iron Man's helmet while he's also The Vision (I wonder if there's going to be a connection??). I say this last part in parenthesis because "The Vision" is an android (think Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation).

This poster for the Age of Ultron movie has way too many Ultrons.

The robot Ultron is who creates "The Vision" in the first place (keep in mind that Ultron was created by Dr. Hank Pym who is Ant-Man. The whole reason for "The Vision" was to lead the Avengers into a trap. Of course, the Avengers manage to convince The Vision to turn against their master and join their ranks.

The Vision is described as being every inch a human being except that all of his bodily organs are synthetic. The solar jewel on his forehead absorbs ambient solar energy to power his whole body, he can discharge energy as optic beams that include infrared and microwave radiation, and he can manipulate his density so that he can fly and phase with walls or the earth. This, or to gain superhuman strength, immovability, or the invulnerability of a diamond-hard substance. He could also phase a hand into your chest and then partially re-materialize it to put his hand literally around your heart. Honestly this whole "phasing" thing is as powerful as the writers want to make it. Vision can phase with other universes or other dimensions to pull in mass and essentially become as heavy or as gravity intense as he wants to be).

In the comics, Captain America teaches him unarmed combat. Aside from that, The Vision has the android mind capabilities of information processing. Nice, right? I'll take all the information available on Google for $100, Alex. So yeah, The Vision is really really smart. And from what I understand about the Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Vision may develop a thing for the Scarlet Witch (another new character). In the comics, he reproduced with her, so yeah, there is at least a precedence to my speculation. But I think Marvel loves it when we all speculate on things, hence the "broken shield" prop that was unveiled at San Diego Comic Con. What the hell does this mean?

I'm assuming that Ultron cracks it, but how Vibranium gets cracked is beyond me (it's indestructible). Now, the last time that this happened was also in an Age of Ultron comic book crossover. Here's a panel from it for you to examine: 

And then there's the image of Captain America without hope, sitting in a corner with his head down. This'll be a great scene for Chris Evans to do. I just hope Black Widow or Iron Man gets him to snap out of it. I can totally hear Robert Downey, Jr. picking up where Hudson left off in Aliens proclaiming "We're F*cked!" but meaning it in a fun way meant to drive someone who is obviously in a funk out of that hopeless funk.

What I'm hoping they DON'T do is get the Scarlet Witch to pull a "Twilight" esque vision where the Avengers see a possible future where Ultron rules everything and they see Captain America's shield all broken. That would be cheesy. But then again, stating that something is made of a material that can't be broken only to break it to demonstrate the power of something is the cheese from which all comics are made of. The thing is...we keep buying it in buttloads. Of course, we could get Thanos to pop in and destroy the shield. He's done it before:

Click to EMBIGGEN

However, if Cap's shield does get broken then there's only one place in the Marvel Universe where you can go to get it fixed and that's Wakanda, home of the Black Panther. This means (of course) that we'll finally get a black guy in a major starring role in one of the seriously white-washed Marvel films. Yay for diversity. Anyways, here's a toast to speculation in all of its wonderfulness.