At the very end of last night’s episode of ABC’s Castle, Robert Downey, Jr. appeared with Castle star Nathan Fillion to trade barbs about the relative merits of Downey, Jr.’s Iron Man and Fillion’s writer/detective Rick Castle.  Always quick with a quip, Downey, Jr. wins the verbal battle, though Fillion gets in the last lick with a hard-to-top “stupid human trick” involving a very mobile scalp.

 

All things considered it adds up to an innovative promo for Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, which debuts on May 4th, and since both the ABC Network, which aired the promo, and Marvel Studios, which produced The Avengers, are units of the Walt Disney Company, it provides a good example of the oft-maligned “corporate synergy,” where various units of a mega corporation work together to mutually promote their wares.

 

As for The Avengers, Disney’s marketing appears to be spot on so far as the film has been ranked as the #1 movie to see in recent consumer surveys, which have analysts expecting the first major superhero team-up movie to achieve blockbuster status (see "'Avengers' Tracking Ahead of 'Dark Knight,' 'Hunger Games').