The Avengers is one of the best superhero movies ever made. Like some other recent superhero movies, what made it so good wasn’t just the spectacular adventure, but the personal stories intertwined with that adventure. Real characters that develop as the story unfolds, adding a literary depth to the well-crafted adventure. In this case, a key theme was how a bunch of diverse and independent characters came together to battle something bigger than all of them, and how they ultimately succeeded. There’s was a success born not only from physical power, but from a paradox ultimately more powerful than even the tesseract. The seed for this paradox was planted near the beginning, during Loki’s speech. Continue reading →