Avengers: Age of Ultron (4½ Stars)

Aaron Johnson as Quicksilver.

Fans of Marvel films have probably noticed something strange in recent films. There are two different actors who play Quicksilver, Aaron Johnson in the Avengers films and Evan Peters in the X-Men films. Their secret identities are almost the same: Pietro Maximoff in the Avengers films and Peter Maximoff in the X-Men films. In the X-Men films he's an only child and his father is Magneto. In the Avengers films he has a twin sister called Wanda and his father is unknown.

The reason for this confusion is the legal ownership of Marvel's characters by film studios. 20th Century Fox bought the rights to the X-Men, while the Avengers and most of Marvel's other characters belong to Marvel Studios. Quicksilver and his sister, known in the comics as the Scarlet Witch, are a grey zone. They were first introduced as villains in X-Men #4, but they later became members of the Avengers in Avengers #16. For that reason they can be used in both film series, although 20th Century Fox has decided not to use Wanda as a character. Magneto can't appear or even be named in the Avengers films because his character belongs exclusively to 20th Century Fox.

Evan Peters as Quicksilver.

Now the problem has been solved, temporarily at least. Quicksilver has been killed in "Avengers: Age of Ultron". Yes, that's a spoiler, but I assume my readers all know about it by now. I say "temporarily", because there's a common saying that "In Marvel comics nobody stays dead except for Ben Parker". That's not just true of the comics. Jean Grey was also killed in "X-Men: The Last Stand" but returned in "X-Men: Days of Future Past" after Wolverine changed the past. Somehow it's easier to accept that in comics than in films.

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