RUMOR: Baron von Strucker Added To THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Villain List

First, let’s just say that this rumor originated from El “Almost always wrong” Mayimbe over at Latino Review. However, the much more reliable Drew McWeeny also ran with it over at HitFix, so perhaps we should take this one a little more seriously.

The rumor? That in the opening scenes of The Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Avengers will be fighting HYDRA, now led by Baron von Strucker.

Baron Wolfgang von Strucker was a Nazi officer who would face off against Nick Fury, Wolverine and Captain America. He was influential in the formation of HYDRA in the comics, and often served as its leader. He stayed relatively young by use of serums created by Hydra to retard the aging process. His main weapon is something called “Satan’s Claw,” a red gauntlet that increases his strength and delivers electric shocks to his opponents.

According to the rumor, Strucker will be leading HYDRA against our heroes only in the opening scenes.The idea is that he will be defeated quickly and the film will then begin to go about its Ultron business. Of course, this doesn’t mean that he won’t be showing up somewhere else later on.

The rumor also states it will be there where Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch will be introduced, but doesn’t say how. Could they be Interpol agents fight against Strucker? Are they undercover, infiltrating his organization? Or, maybe, has Marvel found a replacement father for the pair to replace Magneto? Strucker also has a twin son and daughter with superpowers in the comic books. Could Joss Whedon be swapping out Fenris, aka Andreas and Andrea, for Pietro and Wanda? Just an idea.

The casting announcement for the role calls for a physically imposing man, 40-50, and Caucasian for the role. El Mayimbe says that Marvel is looking at Marton Csokas (Lord of the Rings) and Dougray Scott (Mission Impossible II) for the role. Just based on looks alone, I think either would be a good choice. And both have geek cred (Csokas, in addition to LOTR, also has roles in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, and Scott infamously was originally cast as Wolverine in X-Men before conflicts with MI2 caused him to drop out).

Now is the part of the post where I list the warning flags. First off, it will be good to see HYDRA back in the movieverse, but they were barely a threat for Captain America in the first film. I can’t see they’d put up too much resistance against Thor, Hulk and Iron Man. Speaking of which, Iron Man was left as being retired at the end of Iron Man 3. So his return would need to be explained. Personally, if this rumor is true, I think that Baron Strucker and HYDRA will be facing off against a skeleton crew of Avengers–Black Widow, Hawkeye, maybe Cap, maybe Falcon–and not the whole team.

We shall see, won’t we?