As a little kid growing up in the 80’s, I remember imagining the super heroes I so dearly loved from comics books and Saturday morning television coming to life on the big screen in full live action glory. I’d play with my Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars action figures on the playground at recess and dream up how maybe one day, there might be a Captain America movie, then maybe a kick ass Thor movie, and then everyone would meet up together in one big giant omigod awesome Avengers movie…wouldn’t that be like, totally radical?!?  Then I got older, and middle school and high school hit, and I realized that those fantasies were just playground pipe dreams. There was simply no way this would ever happen. Hollywood was just to lame to ever allow it happen. Hollywood’s idea of a comic book movie was Dick Tracy and Howard the Duck. Well, It took some twenty five years from those playground outings, but The Avengers movie has finally happened. And oh boy, did they ever happen. They happened hard.

Let’s just get the important stuff out the way here; The Avengers is freakin’ awesome. It is everything you could want out of both a Summer blockbuster and a super hero movie.  Marvel Studios’ grand experiment of building an interconnected Marvel “movie-verse” in much the same way as the Marvel comic book universe was built, which began four years ago in Iron Man and culminating with this movie, has payed off in spades. And they really saved the best for last. (well, not “last”– just the end of phase one I guess) Incredible kudos have to go to Marvel Studios for having the vision to pull this one off. They gambled big and the pay off was just as big. If any one of the solo movies for the main cast of Avengers has failed spectacularly, this movie wouldn’t have really worked. Remember, production on The Avengers started before either Thor or Captain America was even released; either of those movies could have tanked. This kind of gutsy, confident move from a studio hasn’t been seen since New Line Cinema greenlit The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And Marvel cast these films perfectly. From Robert Downey to Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans, I know I can’t imagine anyone else playing these parts now.

But good studio choices aside, so much of what makes Avengers work like gangbusters falls squarely on writer/director Joss Whedon’s shoulders. Everything about character, team dynamics, and blending together action and drama and comedy that he learned while working on television series like Buffy, Angel and Firefly is applied to Avengers with the polish of a seasoned film veteran. You’d never know the man had only directed one feature film before when watching this one. In fact, I kind of shudder to think what this movie might have been like under almost anyone but Joss Whedon’s hand; while there are plenty of fanboys out there with an intimate knowledge of super hero comics, there aren’t that many talented writer/directors out there who also happen to be big fanboys. But lucky for us, Joss Whedon is the whole package, which is why he was the ideal man for the job. Aside from just being able to create the structure of this thing and keep it from being unweildy, and getting amazing performances from his ensemble, Whedon knew just what aspects to draw on from the comics, and just what to ignore.

And not to knock the various Marvel solo films, but under Whedon’s hand almost all the main members come off better here than in their own previous solo movies. Captain America is the ultimate military leader here, something we only glimpsed towards the second half of his own movie. Thor is the fully powered God of Thunder from the moment he steps into frame in this one, a bigger bad ass than he was in the entirety of his own film, where he spent so much of the running time de-powered. And Black Widow is far, far more interesting and developed under Whedon. Her introduction scene alone in this movie is better than her whole role in Iron Man 2. I should have known uber feminist Joss Whedon would not have let her merely be just “the chick” on the team. Even Robert Downey Jr. is better here as Tony Stark than he was in much of the second Iron Man movie. And Mark Ruffalo’s take on the Hulk might be the best thing in the whole movie, period. And I’ve never been a particularly big Hulk fan, so that’s saying something coming from me.

Every single character in the Avengers has their moment to shine (or several.) This isn’t like X-Men The Last Stand, where characters like Angel and Colossus are introduced just to stand around and do nothing. Every single member of the Avengers has something to do here, has something to contribute to the team, not just in action scenes but in dialogue scenes as well.  And unlike so many so called “popcorn” movies, some of the best parts of Avengers is just dialogue and performances. I can’t stress enough how different that makes this movie from the current crop of summer action blockbusters, most notoriously the Transformers franchise.

As for that the movie is actually about, well…the plot of this movie isn’t complicated; if you’ve seen the trailers (and since you’re reading Geekscape, chances are you’ve seen it like a dozen times already) then you pretty much know the plot: Loki is evil, wants to use the Tessaract (also known as the Cosmic Cube ) and subjugate the Earth with his Alien army. Super Heroes are gathered to stop him. There’s your plot. There are no Dark Knight style “plans within plans” like with the Joker. This movie isn’t trying to say anything about society at large. Avengers is a classic straightforward Summer popcorn movie. But this movie reminds us that straightforward can be great too; it’s not like the plots to Raiders of the Lost Ark or Jaws were particularly complex, they were just incredibly well executed and had great acting, characters and action set pieces, all things this movie has in great abundance. To tell you anymore, about specific story and character beats would just ruin the movie for you, and I don’t wanna do that. Just trust me when I say they’re great. Especially the last act. And unlike so many movies where the trailer gave everything away…let’s just say that’s not this movie.

If there are any minor quibbles I have with The Avengers, they’re just that—quibbles. I wish that Alan Silvestri’s score was a lot better. I so wish it contained a memorable theme like Indiana Jones or Superman or even Tim Burton’s Batman. Like most of the Marvel Studios film scores, it merely gets the job done. I also wish Hawkeye was more developed as a character, something the plot mechanations kept him from really being for most of the movie. And finally, I guess I sort of wish that Avengers could have stood on its own more as a film, without needing to have seen the solo films for Iron Man, Thor and Captain America first. I’d be outright lying if I said that this movie wouldn’t be confusing for newbies without having done their homework first. But that’s not really a knock on the film; even The Empire Stikes Back doesn’t make sense without having seen Star Wars first, and that doesn’t keep Empire from being brilliant. Oh, and not once does anyone shout out “Avengers, Assemble!” I mean, how could they forget to do that? But when that’s almost your worst complaint, I think the movie is doing pretty ok.

For comic book fans, The Avengers is literally a dream come true. For non comic book fans, who remember when summer action blockbusters were good and not just big and loud and stupid, it is just as much a dream come true in its own way. The Avengers has raised the bar for comic book super hero movies for all time—I’m not sure that introducing a movie with this just one super hero fighting just one super villain is going to be enough anymore after this movie comes out, I can’t help but feel something like that will seem like slim pickings from now on.

I recently found an old issue of the now defunct Wizard magazine from 2005 in one of my comic book longboxes; in it there was an article called “55 Comic Book Movie Things We Can’t Wait To See.”  Interestingly, #5 on that list was a Joss Whedon directed super hero movie, and entry #34 was seeing an Avengers movie come to life. On the notion of a potential Avengers movie, the article stated  “Marvel zombies will know that moment has arrived, when Captain America , Thor and Iron Man stand tall on the silver screen, rallied to battle—we’re getting superpowered chills just thinking about it.”  Well, seven years later, I know I got superpowered chills seeing it, and unless you just plain hate fun, chances are so will you.