What if all the Avengers were Ant Man-sized? This is the challenge Savithru Muthu set for himself, carving 13 figurines of different Avengers out of graphite. It’s his way of paying tribute to the studio and gearing up for Avengers: Endgame, which released worldwide on 26 April.
The 24-year-old miniaturist from Thanjavur says on the phone that he has seen each Marvel movie “at least five times”. He took a week to carve the Avengers figures; the tallest stands at 1.5cm. “Iron Man was toughest. It’s difficult to do the sharp edges.” He hoped to display them at cinemas in Coimbatore and Chennai, but an eye infection has ruined his immediate viewing plans.
The massive pre-bookings represent a huge pay-off for Marvel’s India initiatives, like director Joe Russo coming down for a fan event to Mumbai earlier this month. At the event was IT professional and Chennai-based artist Pon Balaji—though he probably didn’t tell the others his primary allegiance is to DC. Balaji, 24, was one of 15 people selected for the event through a Marvel fan art competition. He was already working on an idea at the time—Doctor Strange as Kali, in his trademark pose with hands crossed, but with the addition of several arms. There’s a time-lapse video of the sketch, which Balaji did with the Wacom sketchpad, on YouTube.
An older generation of fans has also been gearing up for the film. Kolkata-based Anindya Mukherjee, the 44-year-old managing director of audio solutions company Sonodyne Industries, is an amateur musician and long-time Marvel fan. He composed and sang on a heavy metal tribute to the Avengers series, When Titans Collide (the video is on YouTube). He told us he had first-day tickets for Endgame, and was wondering if it could live up to expectations set by the last film.
