To coincide with the DVD and Blu-ray release of this year’s biggest comic book movie – Avengers: Age of Ultron, of course – we thought we’d take a look back at the Marvel Studios offering and reflect on how it could have been better.

Don’t get us wrong, it was a great movie and rightfully smashed it at the box office – pulling in $1.4 billion, it currently sits as the third highest-grossing movie of 2015 (behind Jurassic World and Furious 7) and the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time (behind Avatar, Titanic, Jurassic World, The Avengers and Furious 7) – but the more we look back on it, the more we realise it might not quite have lived up to its hype.

So what could have been done to improve it? Well, there are a number of things, but one of them could have been to include certain characters who were missing from the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. This article will list five of them who would undoubtedly have made it better.

Hank Pym

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, it was Tony Stark (with a little help from Bruce Banner) who inadvertently created the evil robot Ultron. In the comics, however, it was Hank Pym.

An older version of Hank Pym is being played in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Michael Douglas – and he didn’t actually appear in the franchise until Ant-Man, which came after Age of Ultron, but it would have been a nice nod to the comic books (and something for the fans to acknowledge) if he had at least made a cameo in the Avengers sequel.

Having Tony Stark consulting Pym over the building of Ultron and subsequently seeing Pym telling him it was a bad idea would be a funny Easter egg to have included – and one that would have given the movie that little bit of something extra.

Spider-Man

The confirmation that Spider-Man was joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe – he will be played by Tom Holland – was the biggest thing to hit the world of comic book movies since the announcement of an Avengers movies.

The announcement came in Feburary of 2015 – a full three months before the May release of Avengers: Age of Ultron – and that meant that there was definitely time for a Webbed Wonder cameo to be placed into the final movie.

Audiences were convinced there would be one – and there was even a fake post-credits scene with Spider-Man in it doing the rounds that had people further convinced – but it wasn’t to be. Including the characters somewhere in the movie – even if it was merely during or after the credits – would have had a massive impact on audiences and would definitely have improved their experience of the movie overall.

Loki

It’s very easy to overuse characters to the point that audiences get sick of them and, while Tom Hiddleston’s Loki has been and will be the go-to villain for several movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, his absence in Avengers: Age of Ultron was disappointing.

Not only can audiences not seem to get enough of him, the fact is he filmed a scene for the movie – as part of the dream sequence Thor experience under the influence of Scarlet Witch’s power – but it was cut from the final version.

Having been led to believe that Loki would be in the movie, to discover that he wasn’t upon watching it took something away from it. The events in Thor’s dream were foreshadowing the events of Thor: Ragnarok – a movie in which Loki will play a massive part – and therefore it would have made more sense for him to have been there (and, let’s face it, any time Tom Hiddleston is on screen in the MCU, audiences around the world tend to swoon).

Phil Coulson

Phil Coulson was brutally killed by Loki in the first Avengers movie and his death was used as a motivational tool to get the titular team to band together in the final fight against the Asgardian villain’s alien army.

Of course, since then, Coulson has been revived using alien DNA and is now the star of the brilliant Marvel Cinematic Universe television show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – but, as far as the Avengers are aware, he’s still dead.

Given that he was their friend, it seems unfair that they don’t know he’s actually alive and it would have been great to see him appear in Avengers: Age of Ultron – perhaps when Nick Fury arrived in a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier to assist in the final battle (especially since he was said to have orchestrated the whole thing). Audiences would have loved it, given Coulson’s popularity with fans, and the reactions of the likes of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers would have been wonderful to see.

Jocasta

Ultron was a great villain – of that there is no doubt. James Spader’s eerie performance as the robotic bad guy was the next best thing to Tom Hiddleston’s performance as Loki as far as Marvel Cinematic Universe antagonists are concerned – but a little bit of extra motivation on his part would have made a big difference.

In the comic books, Ultron creates Jocasta to be his robotic mate (using Wasp’s brainwaves, who could easily have been replaced by Helen Cho or Black Widow, for example, in the movie). Of course, ultimately, she ends up siding with the Avengers (which, in itself, would have made the movie better), but having him fighting for the survival of a metallic loved one (in addition to simply wanting to extinguish mankind) would have certainly added an extra dynamic to the movie.

In the end, once he was defeated, there would have been another “female” Avenger character to add to the movie roster as well – and that could only have been a good thing.

What do you think? Would these characters have improved Avengers: Age of Ultron? Which other characters would have made it a better movie? Have you say below.