What About the Avengers?

So it's begun.  Marvel has given us the first teaser for the Avengers, and even though it has almost no real content, it's still exciting as hell.  I mean, just look at it!

All I see are four chairs with names on them and thousands of nerds crying tears of joy.

That just sent tingles down my spine.  I can't imagine how much I'll freak out once we see the team all together.  Marvel also released more information about the cast, and we have final confirmation that Tom Hiddleston will be appearing as Loki.  A year ago fans assumed he would be making life hard for the team, but recent developments had given us more reason to doubt that assumption.  Now we can rest easy knowing out favorite God of Mischief will be wreaking havoc as one of the villains the team will have to face, although he almost certainly won't be "the" villain.  I'm assuming that honor goes to the Skrulls and/or Kree, or some other ugly beast the Hulk can beat into the dust.

But why the Avengers?  Why is this project in particular getting so much interest?  Sure, the media puts more emphasis on Batman 3, but the buzz and anticipation for the Avengers is like nothing I've seen before.  The Justice League and X-Men have always had more mainstream exposure, so how is a team no one really knows about capturing so much awe?


The secret is in the execution.  Think of how many crossovers you've seen in movies.  Alien Vs. Predator comes to mind, and that's about it.  Marvel is combining four separate movie franchises and putting it all into one world.  They're saying each of these characters is big enough to carry their own movie, and trying to turn each of them into superstars.  And after we've been introduced to them and realize how awesome they can be, they're going bend all these genres and concepts into something no one has ever seen before.  In the X-Men trilogy, we got to see how awesome Wolverine was, but characters like Cyclops and Storm were just there for support.  Every member of the Avengers is being treated as an All-Star, and it's hard to imagine that same mentality if the team had come together before they all had solo movies.  And unlike the Justice League, each hero is undeniably distinct.  While each Justice League member has their own rich mythology, most of them are fairly classic superheroes and fully decked out in spandex.  But the Avengers?  You have a rampaging green personification of Id, a WWII super soldier, a billionaire playboy/modern day knight in shining armor, and an actual God of Thunder.  There's some wonderful about how little sense that makes.  It's such a wild mash up that somehow comes together, and is all the better for it.  Marvel's made a huge risk on this project, relying on three completely unknown heroes to win over the public before challenging what I assume to be an unstoppable alien invasion.  And in 2012, we'll be there to see it happen.