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Edwin Davies: In all honesty, every part of The Avengers impresses me. Considering how many aspects of The Avengers project could have gone wrong and derailed the whole thing, right up until the release of the film itself. Had any one piece of this elaborate, many multi-million dollar endeavour fallen through, it could have been a fiasco. Instead, Marvel abd Disney have managed to pretty much flawlessly pull of a project on an unprecedented scale, and now they are reaping rewards that are suitably large enough to justify the effort.

Shalimar Sahota: That Joss Whedon directed a film which only just broke the record for the highest opening weekend ever. Since Iron Man, these Marvel Studios productions have resulted in inspired directorial decisions when it comes to who should call the shots on their films. Their choices have been pretty much spot on, and with The Avengers they obviously struck gold. I'm just happy for Joss Whedon.

Daron Aldridge: Yes, the marketing was stellar and the entire planet knew this was opening this month and yes, the film is pure, unfettered fun but something else stands out for me. In my opinion, the most impressive part of The Avengers is that it’s proof that Marvel and all the studios involved successfully created a cohesive universe in which all these characters could exist. To think that you had five different films (excluding Ang Lee's Hulk, which doesn’t fit this world so much) with four different directors and various screenwriters, yet they meshed the stories so well that when it came time for the Avengers to assemble, it worked and it worked unbelievably well. As a moviegoer, I just want to keep coming back to this world in all the sequels whether for the solo adventures and group outings.

David Mumpower: I'm always quite proud of the reviews written for BOP, ordinarily handled by Matthew Huntley and Tom Houseman. For The Avengers, Edwin wrote one of the best we have ever posted on the site. In it, he chronicled exactly what Marvel had accomplished in building to The Avengers. While I do not believe there is a wrong answer here, I am firmly of the opinion that the path to The Avengers is its greatest accomplishment. Making another baseball metaphor, this is the equivalent of Babe Ruth calling his shot by pointing to the fence before homering to that spot.

When Iron Man was released in 2008, I was among the skeptical who believed that the character offered little of interest. Fast forward three movies later and I am blown away by the manner in which Tony Stark's innovations have become highpoints of each movie. Just getting in the suit has become an event. Then, I was dubious about the international prospects of Captain America, the potentially cheesy nature of that story and the overall nuttiness of Thor. All of those titles were better than they had any right to be (Bruce, I'm going to have to ask you to step outside over your Iron Man 2 comments). The Avengers is the victory lap from those results. Ergo, this is not just a glorious moment for BOP's beloved Joss Whedon but also the directors who came before him, Jon Favreau, Joe Johnston and Kenneth Branagh. All four of them have done the impossible and that's what has made The Avengers mighty.

This never should have been possible. We're barely 15 years beyond Marvel's bankruptcy issues yet Disney's $4 billion purchase price looks like a steal now. If Hulk Hands justified the production of The Hulk in 2003, imagine what the toy sales are going to be like for the rest of 2012. The Avengers are so hot and in demand now that the movie's box office borders on being ancillary revenue just as was the case with Pixar and Cars. The Avengers is a perfect movie project. That's three of them since 2008 with the others being The Dark Knight and Avatar. We could probably include Paranormal Activity as well but it is of a much smaller scale. As Edwin enumerated, the fact that Marvel manufactured this project makes it all the more historic.

Kim Hollis: I think that the accomplishments attained by Marvel are all incredibly impressive, but I think the thing I keep coming back to is how each one of the Avengers in the film was a well-developed, sympathetic character. We're all always going to love Iron Man, but now we have a Hulk who smashes (and a Bruce Banner who is impossibly winning), a Thor who is more than just abs, a Captain America who has some gravitas and matches up nicely with Tony Stark, a Black Widow who is revealed to us in layers and finally Hawkeye, who is established as a serious badass with a hint of mystery. I enjoy every single one of these characters and I'm onboard for any future project where they might appear. Also, while I wasn't necessarily super fond of Loki as the villain in Thor, he was deftly handled for The Avengers. Joss Whedon knows how to write bad guys.

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