'Avengers' vindicates geek community

BY AARON SAGERS

So yeah, I loved The Avengers.

Let’s simmer on that word for a few: love. Love for a movie is a pretty significant emotion, and yet I stand by it. While not perfect (the gripes are ridiculously minor), the film was a pure joy. It delivered on the promise of a Marvel-ous adventure with Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and (finally) an awesome, Incredible Hulk.

But this isn’t a movie review.

Instead, it’s more of an “I told you so,” to Hollywood power brokers locked into the philosophy that audiences crave dark heroes and sober plot lines, and that the geeks who grew up loving the source material could not be trusted to make a blockbuster.

Nerd favorite writer and producer Joss Whedon assembled The Avengers, who stormed the box office last Friday. There was a sense by Sunday that everything had changed for superhero movies.

On Sunday night, Walt Disney Co., which owns the Marvel Comics characters, announced the new flick had debuted to $200.3 million (later updated to $207.4 million) – the largest all-time opening weekend for a movie (and yes, a sequel is coming). But for fanboys and comic geeks like me who had been tracking the super-group superhero movie, this was no big surprise.

OK, so it was a little bit of a surprise - a pleasant one - but we geeks had been waiting for this.

In fact, we’ve been debating, discussing and having fantasy casting sessions for the movie for years. Geeks have been so patient, waiting for a movie that could pit Earth's (and Asgard's) mightiest heroes against themselves before teaming them up to battle a common, villainous threat.

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