What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

Anonymous asked: This is a comment on your piece about the Avengers from a comic book fan. I view the Avengers as a gift to comic fans around the world, a love letter to those have loved and defended the medium. It can't be fully appreciated by a non-comical reader, and that's why I loved it. Joss Whedon didn't make a superhero movie for the casual viewer, he made a superhero movie for the comic fan, that is rare and I can't thank him enough for it. But I do agree with you on Maria hill, that is a valid point.

I can see that, and I definitely understand why comic fans like it. In a sense, I’d liken it to the Harry Potter films, in that they make vastly less sense if you haven’t read the books: so much is cut out that a lot of the time, the plot only works because of what the audience already knows about the characters. That doesn’t make them bad adaptations, per se - it just means they’re not great stand-alone films. But then, so many people have read the books that the percentage of people who saw them cold was minuscule - but with Avengers, I don’t think its unreasonable to imagine that a large part of the audience, like me, aren’t comic readers. Even so, I seem to be in a comparative minority in terms of not liking the film, but I can definitely appreciate that, insofar as I haven’t read the comics, it wasn’t meant for me.