The Avengers is Joss Whedon’s latest triumph. The heralded and beloved creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Cabin in the Woods, has struck gold with Earth’s mightiest heroes.

At first I was skeptical; the Marvel Universe is great in comic books but I just couldn’t see the diverse set of heroes that make up the Avengers filling out a summer blockbuster together. I was dead wrong. Marvel’s The Avengers is everything you want in a superhero story and more.

Whedon takes Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s “The Ultimates” and rectifies it with past Marvel films, throwing in a touch of classic quirky, quippy script writing that has become a real signature of a Whedon project. From the opening sequence I was hooked.

With most superhero movies I’ve noticed an imbalance between action and character development, however due to the subsequent Marvel films leading up to The Avengers a well rounded picture of each character was painted. I have to admit, every time Robert Downey was on screen I jumped for joy (metaphorically, of course) Tony Stark is just so bloody COOL.  The cast does an amazing job of not only representing their own characters but fleshing out and vitalizing each others. I thought that Thor could never appear in a believable manner with Iron Man but was pleased to be proven otherwise. Evans, Downey, Ruffalo, Jackson, Johansson, Renner,… the cast reads like a list of top box office talent and no one performance fails to live up the grandiose scale of this film.

Leading right out of the Captain America, film the plot places a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of Loki, adoptive brother of Thor and a real pain in Asgard. The Avengers are pitted against one another and some key scenes are dedicated to showcasing this. A serious moment of joy was watching Thor and Iron Man clear a forest while kicking the s#*! out of each other. Let’s forget the well-rounded characters, and hilarious and well timed script writing and focus on the special effects. (Insert 5 year old me, self admitted massive comic book fan) OH MAN, IT WAS SO COOL! THERE WERE THESE HUGE EXPLOSIONS AND EVERYTHING WAS GETTING BLOWN UP AND THE AVENGERS WERE TOTALLY KICKING BUTT! (Back to the present, grown up professional journalist me) Ahem, the latest technology of motion capture has really helped suspend the disbelief that Mark Ruffalo IS the Hulk. The main action scene played out like a video game, layering conflicts and explosions and super heroes using badass moves to destroy the enemy in the most satisfying way.