In 2012, The Avengers grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide and was the first Marvel movie to make at least $1 billion in ticket sales.  The sequel, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, set to premiere May 1of this year, is expected to make $217 million in just the opening weekend alone; that’s almost $10 million more than the first movie made in its opening weekend! The new Avengers is predicted to make $2 billion overall, which would make it the first Marvel movie to do so.

All this interest in super heroes raises a question for VHS students: Who is your favorite super hero?

Junior Brendan Maranz, one of many students who likes Marvel super heroes, says his favorite super hero is Spider-Man who is part of Marvel comics – Spider Man is not a part of the Avengers; he’s an independent hero. He says this is because he said he really likes the person that plays him, Tobey Maguire.  “I like the new Spider-Man movies a lot, but nothing beats the originals with Tobey Maguire.” Maranz says.  He said he’s really excited for the new Avengers movie and his favorite Avenger is Black Widow played by Scarlett Johansson because “she’s hot!”  Then I asked him who his least favorite is and he said “I like them all because they all intrigued me.”

If he had to pick one to be his least favorite though, he said “probably Thor because he is the least realistic out of all of them.”  Maranz said his friends were really the ones who got him into super heroes because they would go to the movies to see them all the time.  “The first super hero series that I got interested in was X-Men and my favorite was always Wolverine because his claws are just awesome,” Maranz said.

Although Marvel comics have been really popular with making movies lately, DC Comics is still popular to some students.   Verona High School sophomore Matt Gautieri is a big fan of the famous Superman.  Everyone knows who Superman is because he’s your generic super hero.  He has super strength, super speed, laser vision, and he can fly.

Gautieri said “My favorite thing about Super Man is that he can do anything, which makes him a little unfair sometimes, but it doesn’t matter because he’s just so cool.”  Super Man isn’t indestructible though- the one thing in his world that can kill him is something called kryptonite.  Kryptonite is radioactive fragments of his planet Krypton that blew up.

Gautieri is especially excited the for the movie “Batman Vs. Super Man: Dawn of Justice”.  The movie premieres March 25, 2016.  “I can’t wait; it’s two of my favorite super heroes coming together into one movie!” Gautieri said.  There has been a lot of buzz this past year for this movie because the man, who played Batman for the past couple of movies (Christian Bale), will not be in this one.  Instead it will be actor Ben Affleck.

A lot of people are mad because they think it’s impossible to replace such a good actor, but others believe that Affleck will do a great job.

A little research reveals that the most popular Avenger is Iron Man, played by Robert Downey Jr.  VHS junior Jerry Robson says “I’ve loved Robert Downey Jr. for a long time and in 2008 when I saw he was in the Iron Man movie, I freaked out, because it was my favorite actor playing my favorite super hero!”

Robson has seen the midnight premiere for all Iron Man movies and he said he probably will for the new Avengers as well.  Robson said he really got into super heroes when he was younger because he had a bunch of comics to read.

But growing up he has never really been a fan of DC Comics.  “I’ve only liked Marvel because even though they’re all fake, Super Man and those comics are even more unrealistic.” Robson said.

When people think of super heroes and comic books, the first thing they usually think of is nerds, but that is a huge stereotype.  In the past five or so years, super hero movies have been bringing in a lot of money and new fans every year.  So don’t forget to see the new Avengers movie coming out on May 1, 2015, and try to see all the other super hero movies, you might get interested.