New Avengers Portraits Online

There's a set of new Avengers pics and some choice morsels of information from the cast setting the interwebs a-buzz this morning, courtesy of a new cover story from Entertainment Weekly. Look: Mark Ruffalo is doing Blue Steel!

Much of what's revealed is unremarkable: Chris Evans says that the newly future-arrived Captain America is "lonely" and "a fish out of water"; Scarlett Johansson worries that she doesn't look cool enough with guns rather than something more super.

But Chris Hemsworth teases an interesting dynamic for Thor within the larger group: trying to protect his brother Loki while at the same time joining the fight against him. Jeremy Renner claims that Hawkeye is the only member of the team who can take down The Hulk "with his tranq-tip arrows", and says he has a particular bond with Johansson's Black Widow.

And Ruffalo has some amusing material about Bruce Banner's relationship with Tony Stark: "Banner’s the most mild-mannered guy, but a total loose cannon. No one wants to set him off except for Iron Man, who just wants to see him pop. It’s funny, there’s a really cool dynamic between Tony Stark and Banner. Banner actually enjoys it, and finds it really refreshing. They’re a lot alike in a strange way. They’re both these kind of scientists who are mavericks, kind of renegades. Banner, for all his mild-mannered mythology, he’s still the dude who was testing some pretty crazy shit on himself, so he has that rebel streak in him.”

Robert Downey Jr meanwhile says that his on-set demeanour has been "just fucking aggressive and hurtful... whatever... the usual." Head over to EW for the full interviews. The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon, is out on May 4 next year.