Scarlett Johansson, Tony Stark and the AVENGERS Band Together

The Avengers are assembling once again for the mighty Marvel marketing machine with a pair of new banners for the movie, but it’s really sad that they apparently can’t really assemble for a photo op. Instead, Photoshop has to be used to bring the band of heroes together.

If a first glance makes you think you’ve seen these banners before, it’s because they’re incredibly similar to a set of promo pics that were rolled out before, with the main differences being a couple of the characters being in slightly different poses and the Avenger’s ‘A’ logo not masking most of the characters this time around.

The photos, recently unveiled on IGN, do a decent job of showing off Iron Man, Bruce Banner, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the rest of the gang, but I guess all the hype over The Avengers has me wanting more. I know people like Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson have more to do than stand around for photo shoots all day long, but isn’t it possible to get a photo that really has all the characters in the same place at the same time? All the previous photos, including their magazine cover, are just a bunch of random images stitched together with photo-editing software… and that cut-and-paste look makes all the promos start to look the same.

I’m excited about The Avengers and looking forward to the film arriving at theaters on May 4, 2012, and I’m really hoping for another trailer to hit the web before the movie’s release, but the endless parade of blah pics just has me flat-lining whenever a new photo promo comes out. I’m also getting a little concerned with Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner always being in the promos instead of his mean and green alter-ego occasionally making an appearance. Is the studio worried that CGI Hulk isn’t good enough for a close-up critique?