One question about the movie:

when Stark and Loki face off at the top of Stark Tower, Tony slips a bracelet on. I figured that was what protected him from Loki's mind control, but don't have any confirmation. Anyone know exactly what the bracelets were? Were they referenced in a previous movie?

Based on the falling scene, I think the bracelet allowed the Iron Man Mk VII armor to home in on him.

That makes sense. And I did think it was pretty cool, how it mapped itself onto his body. In that case, though, how did he avoid getting mind-controlled? It can't just be that he hit the arc reactor, could it? You'd figure Loki can tell the difference betwee "poink poink" and "clang clang".)

I think that was it. The arc reactor blocked the scepter's mojo. It's repelling metal, after all.

A fanart drawing of my favorite scene: [link]

Spoiler, of course.

I have seen Avengers! I can now catch up with this thread!

I went in trying to keep my expectations low, since I'm not much of a comics person, and I was underimpressed by both Thor and Captain America. I also have issues with the Asgard types, because they just seem to break the world for me: superheroes made from science? Ok! superheroes who are demigods from another dimension? Nope!

Anyway, that was fun! And it felt so much like Joss, the way the lines were set up and then undercut. There was also a lot of great physical characterization: Steve paying off his bet with Fury, Stark & Banner's interactions in the lab, Pepper comfortable enough in her relationship to forego the towering stilettos. That's the sort of thing that not every director makes an effort to include: it's very Joss, and it really fills out the emotional context of the film.

I can't really list all the things I liked, because y'all have already done so. I did appreciate that Maria Hill got to be entirely badass, even if she was in a ridiculous jumpsuit. Don't costume-designers know how useless they are? It's one thing to wear a jumpsuit for an hour-long performance, but you can't put working soldiers in them!

I also loved Natasha: she was excellent, even if she never realized that maybe zipping up her kevlar costume would be a good idea, with all that shrapnel flying around. And her makeup was way too perfect, as was Hill's. I don't question that Natasha would wear makeup, but nobody's looks that good after thirty-six hours of fighting.

My other complaint is: why waste the opportunity to have Pepper in Stark Tower, helping defend the city? Instead she and Jane are safely off-site, even though they've been clearly established as women with both interest and an aptitude for getting involved.

I totally missed Enver, although I caught Denisof's name in the credits.

Anyway, like I said, way fun, and I'm kind of tempted to see it again. Now if only it had passed the Bechdel test...

Oh, oh, and I admit that I totally expected that Natasha would die to close the portal. All that set-up with the conversation about the red on her ledger, and Steve's argument with Tony about putting your life on the line, and so forth. It would not have surprised me a bit--although I would have been pissed off.

And the trailers did, in fact, spoil that one final rescue by Hulk. Bad trailers, no biscuit!

So, yeah. On the one hand I see everyone's anger about Coulson's death (or possible death, although he looked pretty dead to me): on the other, a battle that big needs a sacrifice, and as one of the folks I saw the movie with pointed out, we never saw any onscreen deaths, except for Coulson.

So it was oddly bloodless, for all the damage that was caused. Which I found kind of ridiculous, really: there should have been bodies all over the streets, and the movie really dodged that. At the end, you get the glimpse of a memorial wall, but that's it, when in reality all the press coverage should have started with: "In New York today, over seven hundred people were killed by an alien invasion, turned back by the combined forces of the nation's superheroes..."

I know it's Disney, and PG-13 and all, and yet.

My other complaint is:

Well, Joss wanted all the Avengers to be alone; that is, without any support from non-Avenger folk. Joss didn't even want Pepper in the movie, but RDJ insisted.

Also, they wanted to save Thor/ Jane scenes for the next Thor movie.

That makes sense, tommyrot. Except I end up blaming the comics industry for not having enough women superheroes to begin with.

Where is that Wonder Woman movie, damnit?

I do love that Chatty!co-worker is a huge comics nerd (he saw Avengers at 9:30 Friday *morning,* and again on Sunday). We have a shitton of work to do today, but every 15 minutes or so, one of us will say, "Oh! The whole thing with Banner saying he put a gun in his mouth! Pretty fucking dark, huh? I didn't expect that!" (Which I totally didn't, and it was.) And the other one will say, "Yeah, but the other guy just spat the bullet out, which is fairly badass." (Which it is.)

Our other co-workers might be ready to kill us.