The Avengers, or How the Yacht Club Saved the World

I'm a well-read lady with several fancy degrees, and yet I love superhero movies. If Marvel has a hand in making it, you can bet I'll be there opening weekend. He-Man was my favorite cartoon when I was little, and X-Men took over the Saturday morning first place when I got a teeny bit older. So today I went and saw The Avengers, and it was a pretty great superhero movie--witty banter, snazzy outfits, and some pretty phenomenal explosions. And I certainly give huge props to Joss Whedon, who wrote a fantastic screenplay and directed well.

But.

I have two complaints to make. The first is that one of the jokes that got the loudest laugh was when one of the superheroes explains the villain's villainy with the quip, "He's adopted." I had been warned that line was in there, but I still sat in silent, seething outrage. Number one, that is a horrible thing to say. Number two, I hate the culture we have that believes people who have been adopted are at best "other" and at worst the bad seed. Number three, the idea that a person is evil because they happen to have been orphaned goes against the grain of a lot of what makes superhero stories great. Which brings me to my second complaint:

The 'Avengers' team may be the A-Team of superheroes, but only if the A stands for A-hole. Much of what is great about superhero stories is the fact that they chronicle the trials of gifted underdogs, social misfits, and misunderstood geniuses. The Avengers crew? Not so much.

Tony Stark (Ironman): billionaire playboy who invents a suit that makes him nigh on invincible, with an ego to match.
Bruce Banner (Hulk): brilliant scientist who creates his own inner monster through a science experiment gone wrong.
Thor: other-worldly demi-god with a ridiculously dinky looking super-hammer (I admittedly haven't seen the movie of his backstory, because it just seemed so downright silly).
Captain America: a once-puny soldier gets a hit of super-steroids and becomes super strong. Just say no to drugs, kids, except when they come from the government.
Black Widow: she seems to have a pretty fascinating backstory, but we never get to hear much of it. And she also doesn't actually have any super powers, she's just good at fighting. Kind of lame, Marvel.
I-don't-even-know-his-name-archer-guy: I think it has something to do with a Hawk? But I wouldn't know because the movie tells us practically nothing about him. Also, I don't think he has super powers either, though he is good with a bow and arrow. Would I pay $7 to watch a movie about him? Yep. But until then, he was really just along for the ride on this one.

This is no X-Men-like tale of people who are tremendously gifted and struggle with the joint power and vulnerability that comes with those gifts. It's a story about a bunch of ego-maniacs who sort of band together to combat a problem that they kind of created in the first place. I will give Whedon credit that he cleverly incorporates critical reactions at the end of the film from the people who have been saved, and some of them wonder if the superheroes aren't just as much of a problem/liability as the forces that attacked (as I said, he did a good job with the movie-making). But all in all? The rich guys with the fancy powers save the day. And I guess that's good.

But it's also a little boring and unlikely, don't you think?