We contemplated dropping it off the roof of the Globe’s Morrissey Boulevard newsroom, to see if the case would spring open. Instead, we figured out the code on the first try.

Plastered to the side of the case: “Secret code to be provided on April 9th,” the day of an event at Gillette’s World Shaving Headquarters in South Boston that will help launch the new Marvel comics movie, “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

A “media kit” for a “top secret” Gillette event arrived Wednesday in the form of a locked metal briefcase that seemed to come from the set of a James Bond movie.


Inside were four plastic cutouts in the shape of a razor with Avenger character themes. A description described the items as “concept razors only” and not for sale.

For weeks, the razor maker has been frustratingly mum about what will go down at the event Thursday. Spotted earlier this week was a “Stark Industries” sign, referring to the business conglomerate owned by Marvel figure Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, hanging on the outside Gillette headquarters.

Under a bit of pressure, Gillette said the event is connected to the Avengers movie, that celebrities may attend, and a new product might be released. The briefcase was another tease.

It didn’t exactly take a safecracker to figure out the briefcase’s code was connected to the release date of the film: May 1, 2015.

For the uninitiated, the movie pits several Marvel superheroes — Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye — against the villain Ultron, who is “hell-bent on human extinction.”

For Marvel fanatics, however, the meaning of the contents isn’t exactly clear. Is this just an expensive ploy to promote the film? Or can we expect Gillette to reveal real Avengers razors on Thursday?


“It’s whetting the media’s appetite for what’s coming [Thursday],” said Kurt Iverson, a spokesman for Gillette. “Just take the box for what it is.”

The marketing materials in the briefcase riffed off the Avengers superhuman powers. One of the faux razors, the Gillette Thunder, “scorches hairs to the follicle with micro-lightning and eliminates borrowing by utilizing an honor based gyro-gravity field.” Another, the Repulsor 1, with Exoblade’s “arc reactor technology generates a perpetual energy supply to obliterate face hairs with uni-beam pulse bolts.”

Expect more heroic marketing stunts at Thursday’s event.

Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff

Taryn Luna can be reached at taryn.luna@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @TarynLuna.