Mark Ruffalo: 'The Avengers' Like Occupy Wall Street

A bunch of individuals learning to work together to save the nation from a ruthless overlord who believes in his divine right to rule absolutely. The plot to a superhero film -- or the mission statement of a sprawling protest group?

How about both.

Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo is a member of both "The Avengers" and Occupy Wall Street, and as he told the Wall Street Journal (of all places), he sees major parallels between his upcoming Marvel film and the economic protests that have swept the world.

"You have all these disparate egos, superheroes in this and that, and they refuse to give up some of their positions in order to make a more perfect union and to join the team," Ruffalo says of the film's early plot line. In an interview with The Huffington Post last year, Chris Evans, who plays Captain America in the film, hinted at trouble amongst the super team.

"He's in modern day, he has troubles," he said of his Captain America character. "He actually gets to have things that he might have be able to shoulder, you know what I mean? He can't just put it on his back. He's a fish out of water. Everyone knows he's dead, and he's in a foreign time, and 'The Avengers,' he gets to be a little bit darker, which is nice."

Once Ruffalo's The Hulk, Evans's Captain America, Chris Hemsworth's Thor, Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man, Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow are all thrown together by Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury to fight Tom Hiddleston's evil Loki, they have to somehow put aside their outsized egos to form a cohesive group capable of saving the world.

" didn't know it a year ago that it was going to speak to so many of the issues we're having here in the United States and throughout the world, the same kind of theme," he said.

Ruffalo has an Avengers-mate when it comes to social advocacy; Johansson is an activist on behalf of global poverty issues.

For more, click over to the Wall Street Journal.