AVENGERS... ASSEMBLE!!

Stern Pinball unveiled their latest table today...

AMERICA NEEDS YOUR HELP!

Just like we did for Stern's announcement of X-MEN, ya gotta start off with this...




OK... GOOOOOOOO!

A few weeks ago, Stern revealed a teaser on their Facebook page for their latest pinball machine, THE AVENGERS. Unlike this summer's X-MEN, The Avengers is based on the movie rather than the comic series. Just today, Stern put out a news release on their site and posted pictures on their Facebook page.

This is BIG NEWS. The Avengers movie this past summer was HUGE and everybody saw that damn movie. I saw it twice, geeze louise! (I bet a lot of people did) There is no doubt I'm excited about this machine. The good news for pinball fans is The Avengers table is designed by George Gomez! Just coming off of another big summer blockbuster, Transformers, it seems that Stern has given Gomez the reigns for all the Hollywood Heavy Hitters, like The Lord of The Rings and Batman, which was reviewed just this week! It's a good thing too, as Gomez is no slouch when it comes to playfield designs. Dig The Avengers playfield for the Pro table and Limited edition table respectively.

DANG this looks like one WILD table! There looks to be only one ramp shot, that being the one that crosses in front of the Hulk. The rest of the shots seem to be loops and targets. I'm really happy that there are drop targets on both the Pro and LE editions. If you look to the left of The Hulk, there's a Hulk Smash target tucked away behind the drop targets. This table looks TOUGH. In a good way though! I feel that shots are going to be tough to make but not unforgiving. You're not going to get punished and drain if you miss a shot.

There's a lot of speculation going on about The Hulk toy. I wonder if it will punch the ball off the ramp. I wonder if that will be the ball lock mechanism. It looks like there is a ball deposit right next to the ramp so perhaps Hulk hits the ball into the ball deposit and it launches into the ball lock.

Shades of Williams' Tales of The Arabian Nights with the Cosmic Cube! It looks like you can hit the Cube and spin it around, sort of like the spinning Lamp on ToTAN.

Image from IPDB.org

Stern is making some neat use of the space below the backglass. Instead of just having a picture stuck up there, they have lights for each Avenger. Most likely they will light up once you complete each Avenger's mode.

The modes seem easy. Light each Avenger shot to Assemble the Avengers. The ruleset probably follows the "Hit X 3 times to light Y mode" which I can't complain about. I don't mind that sort of ruleset at all.
 
The big difference I notice between the two is pretty hard to miss! On the LE table, there's a big ol' ramp that crosses the playfield, sort of like the LE edition for X-MEN. There also looks to be a different sort of ramp set-up on the upper playfield between the two as well. The ramp that sits in front of the Hulk has a different cut on each of the tables too. The playfield below the Cosmic Cube looks a bit different too. Perhaps there are some more lights installed underneath it on the LE machine. Speaking of the LE Machines, Stern is releasing two LE versions...

Avengers Limited Edition

HULK LIMITED EDITION

 OK, I can't help it... but the Hulk LE looks like a much angrier Shrek machine. Nonetheless, it looks awesome with the green trim and Dot Matrix Display! I bet the green DMD is gonna look sharp. It looks like most of the playfield lights are replaced with green ones as well. That will look pretty neat with LEDs.

That's all the news so far for THE AVENGERS! Stayed tuned to Bright Lights Bumper City. I will be sure to keep you updated on the latest happenings for Stern's THE AVENGERS!