Fans of Japanese manga and American comics alike have spent the past few weeks wondering what exactly the upcoming crossover between Attack on Titan and Marvel has in store for us. Spider-Man and the Survey Corps exchanging tips over the best ways to zip around cityscapes? Deadpool and Levi fighting side by side with a combined four blades, as the merc cracks wise and the manga heartthrob sighs in annoyance?
Actually, we’re getting a fight between Earth’s mightiest heroes and anime’s tallest pantless woman, as Marvel has announced the project is titled Attack on Avengers.
It’s hard to imagine now, but you don’t even have to go back a full ten years to get to a point where nobody knew about Attack on Titan and nobody outside of hardcore comic fans cared about the Avengers. Hajime Isayama started his phenomenally successful serialized manga in 2009, and it was only a year earlier that Robert Downey, Jr. made Iron Man, until then a decidedly B-rank member of the Marvel Universe, modern and cool enough to pave the way for Thor, Captain America, and then the assembled Avengers to get their own movies.
▼ No one completely forgave The Hulk until he punched out that giant alien ship in The Avengers.
Now, though, the Avengers and Attack of Titan are pretty much the reigning champions of pop culture on their respective sides of the Pacific. Since Marvel is bringing out a band of heroes for the crossover, Attack on Titan is countering with the anime’s most formidable adversary to date, the ferocious Female Titan.
▼ Seen here in a pensive pause between killing people.
Since Isayama plays things very close to the chest regarding Attack on Titan’s mysterious setting, the Avengers will be the home team, as the story sees them rumbling with the kickboxing giant in New York.
Marvel shared the details in the newest issue of Japanese lifestyle magazine Brutus. Also included in the publication’s special Attack on Titan feature were sketches from Isayama’s previous works and a psychiatric analysis of the themes in his runaway hit. Isayama also drew the issue’s cover, which shows the Survey Corps relaxing in Ueno Park while dressed in school uniforms.
▼ Wait, is that skirt-wearing figure on the far right Krista, or Armin?
The setting is a nod to the site of the Attack on Titan art exhibition, which opens November 28 at the Ueno Mori Art Museum.
Hmm…between Ueno, Osaka, and now New York, the Titans sure are doing a lot of traveling these days. Must be hard finding hotels with long enough beds.
Source: Cinema Today
Top image: Entravity, Wikia (edited by RocketNews24)
Insert images: Beyond Hollywood, Unleash the Fanboy, Cinema Today