Kamala Harris Did What Even Doomsday May Not: Reassemble the Original Avengers

Most of the original Avengers cast assembles in a new PSA video championing Kamala Harris against what they perceive to be a greater threat than the Infinity Gauntlet.

The Avengers 2012 Cast
Photo: Marvel Studios

In 2012, they assembled to confront Loki and hordes of Chitauri aliens who were attacking New York City; in 2019 they assembled again to give Thanos and his extreme form of population control the spanking it deserved; and now in 2024, to many’s surprise—including perhaps the Disney executives who ran Scarlett Johansson’s name through the mud three years ago—the Avengers are back. And as they see it, they are confronting the gravest threat to America they’ve seen in their lifetimes: Donald J. Trump.

That is at least one way to read the pointed, if light-footed and humor-leaning new political video released on social media by Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, and others. Those four of course are two-thirds of the O.G. Avengers cast from the 2012 film that changed the bent of Hollywood filmmaking, with the movie stars having played Black Widow, Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk, respectively. However, this quartet was also joined by later additions to the Avengers roster, including Don Cheadle (War Machine), Paul Bettany (Vision), and Danai Gurira (Okoye).

In the video, which you can watch below, the Avengers icons debate how they can be of best service in the upcoming 2024 presidential election in the U.S. And it is Downey, Mr. Tony Stark himself, who volunteers that the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, needs a new catchphrase. Chris Evans, seizing the opportunity to harken back to one of Cap’s most quotable one-liners, suggests the vice president use “I can do this all day” as a slogan. On brand with Downey’s nonchalant humor, the Iron Man actor responds, “Shut up.”

The Avengers-descended catchphrase that seemed to get the most support in the end was Gurira’s tweaking of Black Panther’s most celebrated line: “Kamala Forever.”

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It’s a fun bit of PSA-ing about the importance of the upcoming election, even as it clearly is putting its finger on the scale in favor of the Democratic nominee. It also is striking considering it seemed unlikely we’d see so many Avengers actors sharing the screen again, even if in this case it was over FaceTime. After all, Avengers: Endgame concludes pretty conclusively with not only the death of several of their onscreen characters, but with a credits sequence which acts as a curtain call for each actor, whose signature was emblazoned across IMAX screens around the globe.

While Downey famously was convinced to return to the Marvel Studios umbrella for 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday, it is as an entirely different character (he now plays Doctor Doom from somewhere else inside the multiverse!). It also remains unclear if any more fan favorite Avengers actors from the 2010s will be reprising their iconic characters in either Doomsday or 2027’s direct follow-up, Avengers: Secret Wars. And since Disney had a particularly tense conclusion to Johansson’s contract due to 2021’s Black Widow being released day-and-date in both theaters and on Disney+ (but behind an additional paywall), it would seem unlikely we will have this kind of an Avengers reunion within the Mouse House anytime soon.

So getting most of them back together for this election perhaps speaks to the stakes of the current contest between former President Trump, a candidate who yesterday publicly mused what it might be like to have one of his critics, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, lined up against a wall in front of a firing squad, and the current vice president.

We won’t tell you how to vote, but if you are an American of eligible age, please do make a plan and make sure your voice is heard.