A-list cast of 'Avengers' awes Comic-Con crowd

By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

SAN DIEGO — Want to know how seriously Comic-Con fans take their material? A man was stabbed in the face here Saturday night and more than a few attendees booed organizers for temporarily halting the show.
The incident, San Diego police say, turned out to be a scuffle between two men arguing over seating, resulting in one man getting stabbed in the eye with a pen.

Not that the rest of the 6,500 spectators who filled the convention's cavernous Hall H cared. The only showdown that interested them was the double billing Saturday of DC Comics' next cinema superhero, Green Lantern, and Marvel's upcoming films, Thor and Captain America:: The First Avenger.

Turns out, the Avengers trumped them all.

In a surprise wrap to the event's film panels, Marvel chief Kevin Feige called out the A-list cast of their mega comic book adaption, Avengers, due in 2012. The film, which will entwine the stories of Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow and others, has been a dream film most Comic-Conners thought impossible because of Hollywood egos and competing studio rights.

So when Feige called the entire A-list cast to the stage —Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) Samuel Jackson (Nick Fury), Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Mark Ruffalo (Hulk, a headline unto itself) — the place went nuts.

Game over.

"It was definitely Marvel's day," says James Gill, 23, dressed as a doctor in a blood-stained smock. He carried a digital camera with more than a dozen blurry, far-off shots of the Avengers cast, which included director Joss Whedon.

"But it's hard not to love Green Lantern, too," he says of DC Comic's morning panel, which featured Ryan Reynolds and a doe eyed boy, both of whom stole the collective heart of Hall H.

Reynolds, after some playful banter with fans, was asked by a young boy what it was like to recite the Green Lantern Oath.

(For the uninitiated, it's: "In brightest day, in blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, Beware my power — Green Lantern's Light!")

Reynolds initially did not plan to recite the oath on stage, but was overcome by the boy's innocent question. Reynolds gave the oath as if he were summoning power, never taking his eyes off the child. When he finished, he signed a book for the child — and fans erupted.

"I loved, loved loved loved seeing the Avengers on one stage," says Monica Simon, 25. "But how could you not cry with Ryan and that little boy? That's more touching than anything we'll see in movies."