The Studio Avengers

I'm sure you've seen all the memes by now – the cast of The Avengers if it was made in the 1980s or the 1990s, Civil War across the decades.

Not pictured: Michael Wincott as 90s Thanos

Folks, we can go so much farther back.

A few years ago, Bilge Ebiri wrote this Vulture piece about his exasperation with the Infinity Stones. Today it seems almost quaint in its conviction that the decade-long machinations of the world's most popular movie studio could be stopped by simple pique. (And happily, the payoff turned out to be a lot more interesting than the endless set-up.) But in the midst of his criticisms of Marvel's Maguffin mania, Bilge Ebiri tosses off this aside:

Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock had tried to make a movie in which the microfilm from North by Northwest, the uranium ore from Notorious, and the formula resin from Torn Curtain were all going to come together in some way. That’s right: You can’t imagine it, because it would be profoundly stupid.

Maybe, but I would've loved to see Cary Grant team up with himself to stop it!

Anyway, that led me to a fantasy casting for Hitchcock's Avengers and, well...

THE HITCHCOCK AVENGERS

Nick Fury – Leo G. Carroll
Iron Man – Cary Grant
Thor – Laurence Olivier
Captain America – Gregory Peck
Hulk – Jimmy Stewart
Black Widow – Ingrid Bergman
Hawkeye – Robert Cummings
Loki – James Mason

THE WILDER AVENGERS

Nick Fury – James Cagney
Iron Man – Tony Curtis’s Cary Grant impression
Thor – Horst Buchholz
Captain America – William Holden
Hulk – Jack Lemmon
Black Widow – Barbara Stanwyck
Hawkeye – Fred MacMurray
Loki – Christopher Lee

THE SELZNICK AVENGERS

Nick Fury – Orson Welles
Iron Man – Clark Gable
Thor – Douglas Fairbanks Jr
Captain America – Fredric March
Hulk – Joseph Cotten
Black Widow – Jean Harlow
Hawkeye – William Powell
Loki – Basil Rathbone

Art by Joe Phillips / Silver Screen Heroes

THE HAL WALLIS AVENGERS

Nick Fury – Barton MacLane
Iron Man – Humphrey Bogart
Pepper Potts – Lauren Bacall
Thor – Paul Henreid
Captain America – Gary Cooper
Hulk – Elisha Cook Jr/Rondo Hatton
Black Widow – Olivia de Havilland
Hawkeye – Errol Flynn
Loki – Claude Rains
The Collector - Sydney Greenstreet
The Grandmaster - Peter Lorre
Thanos - Conrad Veidt

THE KUBRICK AVENGERS

Nick Fury – George C. Scott
Iron Man – Sterling Hayden
Thor – Ryan O'Neal
Captain America – Kirk Douglas
Hulk – Vincent D’Onofrio
Black Widow – Leelee Sobieski
Hawkeye – Joe Turkel
Scarlet Witch – Susanne Christian
Quicksilver – Timothy Carey
Vision – Keir Dullea
Loki – Adolphe Menjou
Ultron – Douglas Rain

THE TARANTINO AVENGERS

Iron Man – Harvey Keitel
Thor – Sonny Chiba
Captain America – Michael Parks
Hulk – Lawrence Tierney
Black Widow – Pam Grier
Hawkeye – Robert Forster
Loki – Christoph Waltz
Phil Coulson – Quentin Tarantino
Nick Fury – no one comes to mind

"Motherfu--"

THE BERGMAN AVENGERS

Nick Fury – Fury is pointless.
Iron Man – No man is iron.
Thor – The gods are dead.
Captain America – America is a fiction.
Hulk – Every man conceals a monster.
Black Widow – Death comes to all men.
Hawkeye – Which one is he again?
Loki – Tom Hiddleston