Alan Silvestri

Or, as some wags would say, "the poundy guy!"

And yes, Alan Silvestre does love his brass section, like a lot of film composers. But in point of fact, he got tagged for the job because he had a long history of scoring cool science fiction films…and Marvel definitely knew what they wanted on that front.

Silvestri was born in New York, and he started soring films and TV shows at the tender age of twenty-one. (If you've ever watched an episode of CHiPs, you were probably listening to his groovy tunes.) He got a big boost when director Robert Zemeckis asked him to score his 1984 adventure movie Romancing the Stone, and when that film turned into a big success, Silvestri sort of became Zemeckis's go-to guy.

That included some of that director's heaviest hits, including Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

In between, he also scored notable 80s sci-fi films like Predator and The Abyss. They were brusque, upbeat, and sometimes even militaristic…in other words, perfect for movies where stuff blows up a lot.

And if you're doing a superhero movie, stuff is gonna blow up a lot.

Silvestri first joined the Marvel crew with 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger, and they dug it so much (it is very diggable music) that they asked him to come back for The Avengers. His theme for them is distinctive: upbeat and superhero-y, but very different from, say, John Williams' Superman theme, or Danny Elfman's Batman theme.

As of this writing, Silvestri continues to score movies in Hollywood, and we'll wager we haven't heard the last of them for a while. But The Avengers ranks among his best, mostly because we suspect you can sing it to us unprompted.