HYPE alert! The Avengers film

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Original Marvel Studios artwork for the upcoming film

Since S.H.I.E.L.D.'s appearance in "Iron Man" along with Nick Fury's, it was known: "The Avengers" film would be done for sure. Later the same year (2008), Tony Stark's scene in "The Incredible Hulk" confirmed it. "The Avengers" have always lived criticized as an answer to DC's "Justice League of America". Despite of this fact, they consisted on an ever-changing, but still strong and solid team, as well as a platform to launch some, more or less, unknown heroes.

During the last decades, Marvel's had the upper hand with more superhero movies than DC. Launching "The Avengers" film, is a huge step to place themselves even higher. This attempt comes together with huge risks that put in great peril both the overall reception along with the fan community's opinion. Although The Avengers have had many members since 1963, some members confirmed for the film might be a weak slink in the chain in popularity matters.

There are two major risks that will define the upcoming film as either an acclaimed or a harshly criticized one. First of all, fans like when new released media is canonical. Either adding new content or just recreating already stories to fit a universe so large is surely a challenge, but it pays off when fans like it. As of today there are four things that causes Marvel movies' canon to start falling off: Chris Evans already portrayed Johny Storm (the human torch) in the Fantastic Four movies. Now he will be taking the role of Captain America in his upcoming film. This means that either the Fantastic Four movies are just spin-offs or The Avengers will be. Also, Edward Norton won't be returning as Bruce Banner. This wouldn't be a problem if Robert Downey Jr. haven't appeared as Tony Stark at the very end, but he did, and now a new face for Bruce Banner will be a minor problem, but still a problem.

Adding up to this problems, two of Marvel's most popular and known to non-fanatics heroes won't show up along with the rest of the Avenger's team: Wolverine and Spiderman. Marvel decisions regarding the reboot of Spiderman are wasting which already has become a fully built hero that is fresh on people's minds. Together with the arachnid, Wolverine's franchise has been simply straying away from the official plot, wasting yet another strong figure within Marvel's all-star group. One more problem and challenge for the writers is trying to put more than seven major characters together along with a deep plot. 

Finally, the movie may succeed, it is known such projects are developed after considering every matter evaluating "pros" against "cons", but still there is another in-universe final problem: credibility. Regarding to superhero movies, the most successful ones in the last years have been both the Iron Man and Batman franchises due to their believability: multi-millionaires trying to do some good and developing expensive gadgets. As Downey Jr. said: it will be strange to put Iron Man along with the Thor's mythology for example.

What do you think: will The Avengers be the hero film of the decade, or yet another Marvel fail like "Hulk"?