By Ryan Blaney | Follow on Twitter

By Ryan Blaney

There are two things that the internet is thriving on these days: the hype around the Avengers film, and Kony. Marvel has yet to release a comic based on a Ugandan warlord who decided to take Pokemon to the next level – to catch them was his real quest, to train them was his cause – but they have brought out a limited series called Avengers Assemble, featuring the characters seen in the film.

That's right, you may, possibly, just by chance recognise us from The Avengers film

At some point, Marvel figured there might be people out there who, after checking out the film, might want to buy an Avengers comic, but they’ll probably get confused because there are four different Avengers titles, and the cast of the Avengers movie are spread out amongst them.

It's the Movie Avengers

Their answer was a small, not quite-in-continuity series written by Mr Avengers himself, Brian M. Bendis, which puts Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, Hawkeye and Black Widow and even Hulk together to fight somebody.

The first issue of Avengers Assemble is a bit strange. It isn’t really connected to anything in recent Avengers issues. For the past few months the driving force behind recent storylines has been about the public turning against the team, but in one of the first pages of this comic, they’re having a street party to celebrate the construction of the new Avengers Tower, which looks almost identical to the Stark Tower we’ve seen in a lot of the movie’s trailers. There’s also no Nick Fury or SHIELD, which fans of the film might find odd.

You may recognise me from The Avengers trailer....well now I'm in Avengers: Assemble too. Coincidence? I think not

The Avengers themselves seem to be doing impersonations of their movie selves: Tony Stark is full of Downey-esque quips, Hawkeye’s costume resembles Hawkeye’s movie costume, he and Black Widow share a moment on a mission like they did in the trailers and Hulk, who was recently quite an articulate fellow, is suddenly reduced to four or five words at a time. We know that in the upcoming film they’ll face Loki and some mysterious aliens. In this comic, they’re fighting the Zodiac, a weird super-cult that nobody’s heard of lately.

Zodi...Who?

There’s even a character called “General Whedon.” Seriously.

Hulk cannot believe shamelessness of this movie cash-in!

All in all, the books not that bad, it just can’t decide whether it’s an honest to god movie tie-in or a part of the Marvel canon. Readers of Avengers titles really don’t need to buy it, and they can’t be blamed for thinking it’s a shameless attempt to cash in on the movie’s hype.

If it works, and it does attract more readers, then great, but a comic set in the Avengers movie universe seems like a much better method.

Editors note: See The Ultimates Books 1 & 2