The Avengers - Some Blu-rays may be censored
German BD censorship verified, SPOILER ALERT

WARNING, SPOILER

- important plot part is revealed -

As it was already reported a couple of days ago, a scene of The Avengers that was uncut in theaters, has been censored on Blu-ray. So far, there was no possibility for us to check this but since the German rental stores do now have the Blu-ray, we can now (sadly) declare: yes, it is censored. When Loki stabs Agent Coulson with his staff, German viewers do not get to see how the bloody staff sticks out of Coulson's chest. The shots were digitally altered.

According to a user of the AVS forum, the Italian Blu-ray is uncensored, as was proven by some screenshot. It remains to be seen what the scene looks like in the British and US releases that will be out in a few weeks from now.

It's unclear if this is real censorship, especially since Coulson's death provoked uproar and furious protests among fans. Maybe this change is meant to let room for a plausible return of Coulson in a later Marvel film. Especially comics are known for their "retcons" (retroactive continuity) that allow for a completely new interpretation of older stories (the most famous example here being the introduction of a new X-Men team in Giant-Size X-Men #1). But all of this is just speculation and can be scrapped as soon as the US or UK release is out and can be checked.

 

Screenshot 1+3 (cut, German BD) done by us.
Screenshot 2+4 (uncut, Italian BD) by Indiana Jones (via Blu-ray.com)