Joss Whedon takes a crack at Captain America’s script too

I was more than satisfied with Marvel’s decision to put Joss Whedon in the director chair to assemble their AVENGERS, as he’s proven his qualifications with ensembles and comic material (great as his “Astonishing X-Men” run may be, I consider his show “Angel” to be perhaps the best genre/pseudo-superhero series ever to hit TV).

It’s also not a surprise that Whedon is taking a pass at the existing AVENGERS draft — he’s a writer first and foremost, after all. But Pajiba hears that he’ll also probably be tapping at the script for CAPTAIN AMERICA (THE FIRST AVENGER!).

Although Cap is going to start filming in just a couple of months, and Whedon is just getting started on AVENGERS, it makes sense that he would at least put some shine on the shield. He and Marvel surely have an idea how to handle the superhero team-up, and they’ll want to make sure that it and Joe Johnston’s Cap solo/intro movie have a cohesive tone and story threads.

While details on AVENGERS are unknown, it will involve Nick Fury bringing together Iron Man, Thor and Cap — plus a few other heroes — to battle a new threat (which may or may not involve villains from the solo movies). The movie is due in May 2012.

CAPTAIN AMERICA has Chris Evans wearing the forehead ‘A’, with Sebastian Stan as his sidekick Bucky Barnes and the just-announced Hayley Atwell as Cap’s squeeze Peggy Carter. Previous rumors of Hugo Weaving as villain Red Skull have yet to be confirmed by Marvel.