The Avengers (5 Stars)

This is the sixth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, released in May 2012. It finally unites all of the Avengers to battle Loki and an alien race called the Chitauri. The members of the Avengers are:

Iron Man – first seen in "Iron Man" (2008)

Thor – first seen in "Thor" (2011)

Hulk – first seen in "Incredible Hulk" (2008)

Captain America – first seen in "Captain America" (2011)

Black Widow – first seen as a supporting character in "Iron Man 2" (2010)

Hawkeye – first seen as an unnamed supporting character in "Thor" (2011)

Whoever first conceived the slow, steady build up to the release of "The Avengers" is a marketing genius. Was it Avi Arad? Was it Kevin Feige? Was it someone else? It was an ambitious plan to map out a series of 22 films from 2008 to 2019.

Maybe the original plan wasn't for exactly 22 films. The first film ("Iron Man") and the last film (the as yet unreleased final battle between the Avengers and Thanos) were planned, but the route between the two points has been changed on the way. Iron Man was more popular than expected, which is the reason a second Iron Man film was released so soon. Another change concerned Spider-Man. It wasn't agreed until 2015 that he could appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Stan Lee has a 4½ second cameo at the end of the film. After the Chitauri have been defeated there are a series of television interviews showing the public's reaction. Stan Lee appears as a sceptic sitting in the park playing chess with a man who looks suspiciously like Ian McKellen. The words he speaks are

"Superheroes in New York? Give me a break!"

How many people recognise the irony in this interview? There's a subtle in-joke that only fans of the early Marvel comics would recognise. In the early 1960's DC Comics were the market leaders in superhero comics. All of the DC heroes were located in fictional American cities, for instance Batman lived in Gotham City, Superman lived in Metropolis, the Flash lived in Central City, Green Lantern lived in Coast City. When Stan Lee began to write superhero comics in 1961 he didn't want his stories to be set in a far distant Marvel Universe, he wanted them to be accessible by being set here in our own world. With the exception of the Hulk (New Mexico), all of his superheroes lived in New York. That's the real meaning of the ironic interview in the park. Until 1961 it was considered impossible that superheroes could be in New York. Then Stan Lee changed history by putting dozens of superheroes in the middle of a city that everyone knows and can relate to.

Here are the six members of the Avengers staring upwards at the Chitauri attack. If you can't name them all you have to stay behind after school and watch all the MCU films. Although that's not much of a punishment. I would consider it a reward.

Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff aren't referred to by their customary superhero names. They're called Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff, since they're both members of SHIELD.

We see them called Hawkeye and Black Widow on a computer screen in the SHIELD helicarrier. This is the only time Clint Barton is called Hawkeye in the film, although on one occasion he's called the Hawk. Natasha Romanoff states early on that she carried out a mission with the codename Black Widow, but it's not used as her standard name.

In this film Phil Coulson was killed by Loki. That was a mistake. The fan backlash was immense. He had to be brought back from the dead for the TV series "Agents of SHIELD". They did it in a much too complicated way. They could merely have said that Phil Coulson was revived in medical treatment shortly after Loki's attack, but Nick Fury didn't tell the Avengers because he wanted to motivate them.

Loki is the best film villain ever, with Magneto a close second. Yes, Loki is evil, yes, Loki is a murderer, but he's still so cool and charismatic that it's impossible not to like him. That's what makes a villain good. Clear-cut confrontations between black and white are boring. Interesting heroes are ones with flaws, and interesting villains are ones we can admire or feel sorry for.

Success Rate:  + 4.9

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