Spoiler: There isn't much.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to stick Joss Whedon's Marvel's The Avengers at the top of my favorite based-on-a-comic-book movies or even at the #1 superhero movie spot (although it's damn near). It would have to share space with the first Superman movie (largely on Reeves' perfect nailing of Supes, and nostalgia), the second Spider-Man movie (great themes, the first perfect superhero movie fight scene, my love for Spidey), the second X-Men movie (better script, better acting, Nightcrawler), the first Iron Man movie (almost flawless) and Batman Begins (first version of Batman that villains might actually fear).

But it was far and away the most fun I've had in a movie theater in a very, very long time.

So why pick on it? Well, my love for Whedon is well-known. Many excellent reviews and essays have already been written — check FilmCriticHulk, and theonetrueb!X's look at sentiment as a theme — and I'm sure PopMatters is already gearing up for a collection. But I'm known for my amateur script-doctoring, so my self-appointed, unrequested task is to analyze this movie and see how it could have been improved, in my own unfair and uninformed way.

MAJOR SPOILERS ahead, probably, for those ten or twenty unfortunate people who were in a coma over the weekend and therefore did not see the movie. Doctors are, even now, feverishly working on ways to pipe The Avengers directly into their brains.

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE AVENGERS MOVIE

1. Um.

2. I'm thinking…

3. Oh! Here's one! How come it took days and days for Tony Stark to plummet from his tower, leaving his VII armor plenty of time to zoom after him and encant him, but the letters that got knocked off the same tower during the Loki-Thor fight hit the ground almost immediately. There's this experiment with differently-weighted falling things, see…

UPDATE: Answered in the comments. The letters didn't fall to the ground, but to a nearby rooftop. Fair enough.

4. Yeah, that was movie-time and not really a deal-breaker. Give me a few minutes.

5. The Galaga scene on the helicarrier. Yes, it was funny, but it was a bit too obvious. It's across his whole frickin' screen! How could anyone NOT have noticed that? I'd have preferred a more subtle version, with his Galaga-playing almost hidden among a sea of different windows and apps, with only the quiet music to tip off the observant viewer. (Also, the sound effect was wrong for the action, so, you know, that.)

6. Banner in India. The movie has already gotten some flack for the repetition of the If-you-want-slums-you-want-India trope, and frankly it deserved it. How about Sub-Saharan Africa, or Somalia? Even the second Hulk movie ended with Banner in British Columbia.

7. Hawkeye's bow. I'm sorry, there's no way a bow with any power at all can be "snapped" from folded to full-length. I kept thinking he was fighting with a Nerf Bow. Which, granted, would have been awesome.

8. Captain America's helmet. The WWII one was better. He's a soldier, dress him like one.

9. The attacking army. Which was not so much. I mean, yes, there were hundreds dropping through the big floaty hole, but I expected thousands just pouring out of there. Maybe the LotR movies have spoiled me, but when I hear "army" I think masses, waves of warriors. And they weren't so much an army as a marauding force. They didn't seem to have any tactics other than "shoot stuff."

Which was understandable, since no one was leading them. I thought that was Loki's role, but even after he got away from Thor he didn't do anything leadery. Might have been nice to see him try to direct the battle, only to find out there wasn't actually anything under his control, foreshadowing the stinger scene later on.

10. The resistance. There wasn't one. I'll grudgingly accept the lack of military presence — there were tanks, eventually, and one nuke-carrying jet, so maybe the shadowy council nixed the idea? — but no New Yorkers took any swings at invading aliens? Really? Have you been to New York? I'd rather have seen some indication of a civilian resistance that Cap could have guided before going back to the super stuff.

11. The big floaty snake things. I guess these were troop carriers? And we saw, as they went down, they were capable of a great deal of destruction, but before that they were mostly galumphing past for the heros to beat on. They should have had a clear agenda for the heroes to thwart.

12. The waiting army. When Stark flew the nuke through the portal, there should have been thousands, hundreds of thousands, of warriors waiting. The Earth should have been in dire danger of being swarmed. It should have made the audience gasp. Instead there were a dozen or fewer ships, with a big mothership thing in the distance. Ehh.

13. The 3D. I'm not a fan of 3D but I heard good things about this one, so, after seeing it in 2D first, I went back and ponied up the dough for my cheap glasses. It was… OK. I was impressed when it worked, which was a lot of the time. But the final battle looked worse, I thought. The flying warriors looked even more CGIish, and it was more difficult to make out what was happening. I think it's because in an active scene like that, the movie's choices as to what's in focus and what is not is just different enough from what I would naturally be focusing on made it jarring.

14. The death. You know the one I mean. I don't actually have a problem with this one on its own merits. Coulson's death makes sense in the situation (a guy against a god), it makes sense thematically, and it serves a purpose to the plot while giving him some good lines to go out on. But as part of Whedon's oeuvre it's getting too predictable, and he needs to start paying attention to that before it becomes too much of a joke, like M. Night Shyamalan's plot twists.

And that's pretty much it, really. The first hour dragged a bit with the necessary exposition, but I don't think there was a solid five minutes anywhere in the movie that didn't have something cool in it. Everyone got not one but several hero moments, with the Hulk getting even more (which makes sense, he's bigger). I can't count the number of ways Hulk was handled correctly, from the humor to the motion-capture to the easily-discernable Mark Ruffalo features to the pudginess. He was pudgy! And had chest hair! And a personality! And yet somehow looked more menacing than the weight-lifter cut of the first two movie Hulks. Oh, the humor and the action and the teamwork at the end and Black Widow and Steve Rogers vs Tony Stark and and and…

If it's not clear, I love this movie to an absurd degree and plan to see it again in the theater a few more times. Doesn't mean I can't poke at it…

It's in great condition, still shiny and crisp and clean, and it contains the basic 72-card "Firefly: The Complete Collection" set as well as the one-sheet promo ad flyer for the series, four promo cards (P-i, P-2, P-4, and P-UK), and even the box the cards came in (folded).

The binder was tough to find even before the company went out of business and it's near impossible now. Don't miss out!

If you haven't yet picked up Titan Books'  "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the Book" do so faster than immediately. Check it out at Amazon at a nicely discounted price, or look for it wherever you prefer to buy your books.

And if you didn't see it, go read the new York Times article on Joss and his future plans for more Horribleness (spoiler alert: he has some).

Or read this Wall Street Journal article on how "Dr. Horrible" changed the game for web shows.

Or check out this interview with co-writer and groupie Maurissa Tancharoen, or this one with co-writer and Western messenger boy Jed Whedon, or even this inspired and really disturbing Dr. Horrible and My Little Pony mashup.

Dr. Horrible is everywhere! Is it too late to make him the villain in the Avengers movie?

In Still Flying, we’ll be uncovering even more secrets from the series, stuffing the book full of unseen material, including new photos, props, behind-the-scenes secrets and much more besides.

The first two were excellent resources (reviews here and here), as all Titan tie-in books tend to be, with plenty of new interviews, insider tidbits, and full-color photos even hard-core fans haven't seen. I'm hopeful this will be a worthy addition.

Titan's on a roll this year. In addition to this they're also working on the official movie novelization and official Visual Companion for Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's upcoming movie "Cabin in the Woods." And the collection of Kevin Smith SModcasts, "Shootin' the Sh*t With Kevin Smith." And the movie book for Mark Millar's "Kick-Ass."

Good news! I can tell you about most of the upcoming Dollhouse DVD set!

Bad news: reviewers only get the first 3 discs with the aired episodes, but not the final disc with the extra goodies. So I can't tell you about the unaired episode 13 "Epitaph One," or the original unaired pilot, or the features, or the deleted scenes. FOX wants to keep those under wraps until the release date and I can understand that even as I secretly hoped their shipping department would mistakenly send me the wrong disc. But I did get to listen to the commentaries from creator Joss Whedon and star Eliza Dushku, and those were well worth it.

The show

The Dollhouse is an illegal underground company spoken of in whispers, where you can hire an attractive young person for literally any purpose you can imagine. These people, known as "actives," have had their memories completely removed so that they can have new memories and new personalities imprinted in them to order. Actives can temporarily become perfect lovers, thieves, assassins, companions, detectives, whatever the very well-heeled clients want, and afterward their new identities are stripped away again so they're ready for the next engagement. Only, one of them is starting to remember…

Dollhouse stars Eliza Dushku as Caroline/Echo; Harry Lennix as Boyd Langton, Echo's handler; Fran Kranz as Topher Brink, the amoral genius behind the Dollhouse tech; Olivia Williams as Adelle DeWitt, the boss of the place;  Reed Diamond as her creepy chief of security Laurence Dominic; Enver Gjokaj as Victor; Dichen Lachman as Sierra; and Tahmoh Penikett as FBI agent Paul Ballard. Regular guest stars included Amy Acker as staff physician Dr. Claire Saunders and Miracle Laurie as Mellie. The series had an uneven start, with the first episodes being mostly standalones that simply showcased what actives from the Dollhouse are hired to do with only a passing nod to any ongoing story arcs or show mythology.

The commentaries

Now, there are three types of DVD commentaries. There's the one where the people talking get caught up in the show and forgot to comment on anything, but I've rarely seen that on a Whedonverse DVD. Talkative bunch, they are. Then there's the type where the commentators are just having a blast, reminiscing and cracking each other up and offering funny little behind the scenes moments. That's what Joss and Eliza do in their commentary on the aired pilot episode, "Ghost."

"Ghost" sets the stage for the series, with an active named Echo (Dushku) being sent out on various assignments while an FBI agent searches for the woman she used to be. Joss is in full goofball form, Eliza is keeping right up with him, and they joke about sexing it up for the network, Eliza's shirt-dress, Amy Acker's "mood scars," the problems of writing hostage negotiation scenes without the slightest idea how they go, why things seem to go wrong in the Dollhouse every week, and much, much more. I'm wildly tempted to just transcribe the whole thing but I'll control myself and stick with my favorite line from Joss about the broad strokes of the plot:  "Subtlety is for little men."

You don't get a lot of introspection about the complex themes of the show but it's great fun to hear them point out some of the same incongruities that the fans did. There's also a moment in the end when they say something about the people in the closing "Alpha" scene that I don't recall as ever being mentioned in the show, so watch for that and let me know if I'm right.

Then there's the third type of commentary, where the creator of the show tells us exactly what he was thinking, what effect he was going for, what moral questions he was asking, and how the show was crafted. That's what Joss gives us in "Man on the Street."

"Man on the Street" is the 6th episode and teh one where the show really took off. Joss wrote and shot it like a second pilot and it feels that way, giving us a very different show than we'd previously seen. From this point on every episode moved the plot forward with secrets and hidden agendas and wheels within wheels, and a headfirst dive into the moral complexities of using human beings.

The show itself is packed until you can't believe they fit it all into an hour minus commercials. Every moment contains a revelation or development, every action has several layers of meaning, and everyone involved has a story to tell. And so does Joss. I thought this was similar to his non-stop, detailed commentary on Firefly's "Objects in Space" in the way he explains how carefully they presented the story to evoke specific expectations in the fans which would be dashed to the ground moments later, such as the love scene between Ballard and Melli:

"They are clearly into each other," he said. "And he wants her to help him, and she believes him. This is a huge thing. What it is, of course, is me saying 'I'm going to kill her now.'"

And he talked about the moral aspect, the most troubling and interesting aspects of this show. Fans have been discussing the competing issues of the Dollhouse and its employees, clients, and enemies, and while he doesn't provide any answers, he does address the questions head on. Is it right to sell people if they've previously agreed to be sold? Once a person has agreed to let their body be used, does it make a difference who's using it? If you don't remember what happened to you, did it really happen? What makes a person want to rent another human being? What person would consent to be rented, and why? And when you take away a person's memories, is there anything left?

"Man on the Street" was the first episode to tackle these questions head on. Interstitial clips of a news feature on the "urban legend" of the Dollhouse tell us what the public  thinks of the idea, and we see a schlubby Internet mogul (played beautifully by Patton Oswalt) with a very good reason to hire an active. The episode mixes political correctness and layers of moral entanglement and the fact that they can do that is, according to Joss,  "what scares me about the show and is absolutely what makes it worth making."

The extras

As I said I haven't seen the extras so I can't comment on them. And I don't know if the screener copies I have are identical to what you'll be buying, so the fact that I couldn't find any easter eggs may not mean that you won't (I'm hoping for bloopers, me).

I can tell you that the final episode, "Omega," which aired without a promoted scene that was cut for time, is presented here just as it aired. Hopefully the deleted scenes feature will include the missing Sierra/November bounty hunter segment.

The stats

The regular Dollhouse DVD is presented in widescreen format with English and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital plus English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. The Blu-ray version is in 16×9 aspect ratio with English 5.1 DTS HD Lossless Master Audio.You get all 12 episodes, with the two commentaries I described above. Then you get the never-before-seen episode "Epitaph One" with commentary by writers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, the original unaired pilot "Echo," deleted scenes, and the featurettes  “Making Dollhouse,”  “Coming Back Home,” “Finding Echo,”  “Designing the Perfect Dollhouse,” and  “A Private Engagement.”

Dollhouse Season One goes on sale July 28. You can preorder it from Amazon now ($31.99 for the regular one, $48.99 for Blu-Ray), or if you're going to the San Diego Comic-Con you can get a limited edition copy with a note from Joss.

And there may be other ways to get one, he said foreshadowingly…

All photos (C) Fox Broadcasting Co.

Tomorrow is Joss' birthday, and there's lots of ways to celebrate! Many of us will be gathering at various Can't Stop the Serenity events around the world (check here for the list and schedule), some of us will be holding quiet ceremonies in front of our home Joss shrines, and some of us can boost the economy in his name. Which is now easier, because TFAW.com is holding a Joss' Birthday Sale!

This means you'll save 30% off cool stuff like Buffy Season 8, Serenity apparel, Angel variants, and even Joss' runs on Astonishing X-Men and Runaways. This is the perfect time for you to proclaim your allegiance to all things Whedon and complete your collection. Feels more like your birthday, doesn't it?

Our Happy Birthday Joss Whedon Sale starts now and ends at 11:59 p.m. on June 23, 2009, so make sure to visit our Joss Whedon Theme Page now to take advantage of some excellent deals. But be quick–your fellow Whedon fans are already there!

Click here to read (or listen!) to the interview.

You have a knack for attracting obsessive fans. What do you think they see in your work?

An obsessive fan…

This is an obsessive fan asking that.

Yes, I am one, too. That’s what I am, that’s what I grew up as. The things I love, I love very hard. And that’s the kind of… and it’s usually genre stuff, which also attracts that type. You know, the world of imagination; when people enter any world that’s not our own they’re working in a different way than if it’s just a straight drama, no matter how great. It could be the “West Wing,” it’s great but there’s a different level when you add an element of fantasy. Particularly when you add song. It allows people to lose themselves, and [in an exaggerated arch voice] “find themselves.”

Yes, I am a new-age calendar. But I’m not wrong.

- An extra Dr. Horrible story, filmed for the DVD

- Promos from the characters; Captain Hammer talking to schools, Penny talking about the homeless shelter, Dr. Horrible doing something court-appointed ("Kids! Don't do evil!")

- A karaoke version

- A fan commentary, with notable fans giving their reactions (your assistant has my e-mail, Mr. Whedon)

- Features on the people involved, fan reaction, media reaction

- Video of the Comic-Con panel

- A RiffTrax commentary, already bundled in

- A feature showing the making of the Making Of feature

- A small comic book (a la the Serenity comic that came bundled with the Best Buy version of the Serenity Special Edition DVD) of “Captain Hammer: Be Like Me”

- The original storyboards, possibly in napkin form

- A feature on the already-existing mad science apartment that was used

- The entire run of "Apartment 4B" by Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, including the 1st episode

- A feature on the special effects, done with all the gravitas and detail as anything about Gollum on the LoTR DVDs. "Here we had to sync up Nathan leaping off a chair into frame just as the van careened by, so it really looked like he was jumping off the van. Timing was critical for it to really feel right, so we were there, oh god, almost 7 minutes before we were finally happy with it, but that's the kind of dedication we put into it. Then we had a Snickers."

And most importantly:

- Previews of the sequel

What do you want to see?

"I'm deeply psyched to be able to offer 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog' on iTunes," Mr. Whedon said. "It's a way to reach way more potential viewers than I can personally call and harass into watching it. The idea that people can carry our little opus around on their iPods and iPhones is thrilling."

Click here to hear it!

This is Chris Bridges with the Daytona Beach News-Journal, and I’m talking with Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” the show “Firefly,” the movie “Serenity,” the upcoming FOX show “Dollhouse,” and now an original online musical mini-series, “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.” Thank you for talking to me.

Thanks for having me.

Go ahead and give me the elevator pitch for “Dr. Horrible.”

There’s an elevator pitch?

I hope so.

I’ve never heard that phrase. Basically it’s your typical Internet musical about a super villain who’s trying to make his bones in the super villain community and get some respect, and maybe even work up the nerve to talk to the girl at the Laundromat.

So, like every other Internet serial musical.

Yeah, you know, I mean it’s a tired genre but I thought I could wring a few bucks out of it before it dies.

How did this get started? What made you decide to go straight to the Internet?

You know, there’s been a lot of talk about that during the (writers) strike, I’ve been interested in doing things that were smaller, lower budget, more filled with my friends, and sillier than I’m allowed to do in the normal course of Hollywood, so I decided I’d just fund a little something myself. It kind of ballooned, in terms of the amount of talent that we were able to attract, but it’s been true to its tiny roots of “Let’s just put on a show.”

A “my dad has a barn” sort of feeling.

You know, when I was a kid, he did. And we put on shows.

How did you choose the cast? Does Nathan Fillion have pictures of you, or–

You know, you’re not the first person to ask that so I’m beginning to wonder. After I passed out, what happened…?

You know, who wouldn’t cast Nathan Fillion in absolutely everything. I mean, he can play the hero, he can play the idiot, he can play the ingénue, he can play the ficus and be the most interesting thing in the room. He’s amazing. And you know he’s a dear, smart, centered guy, so that’s a no-brainer. And he’s so great as that character, you know. It very much reflects some of his own humor that the moment he signed on Zack and I were writing a bunch of his scenes, we raced to our typewriters. No, we use computers, we’re not that old.

But you know, Neil was… I wasn’t as sure Neil would be interested in it and he said yes faster than I had the question out. But he’s, you know. Just incre.. I’ve seen him do everything, including, you know, sing on Broadway, so I knew he had the chops. He still brought more to it than I even imagined he could. And Felicia, you know, has been a friend since she was on “Buffy.” Her show “The Guild” has been kind of an inspiration for this and I suspected she had some singing pipes as well and she also blew me away. The first time she and Neil sang together, I may have cried a little.

Will there be a soundtrack?

Yes there will! Although I’m not positive when.

Making it up as we go along?

There is no truer statement of this entire endeavor than that.

Has it been more… I’m not sure “relaxing” is the right word, but has there been a different feel to it because you’re totally in control of everything?

Yeah, you know, “relaxing” is definitely not the right word? Because being in control of everything means being responsible for everything, including signing all the checks. You definitely learn, oh, this is really complicated. I understand why it’s so hard to settle contracts of studios and things. But… And I got very nervous, before we had line producers on, I just thought “This is never going to happen!” But the flip side, the creative side, yeah, it is like a warm bath. It’s just the sweetest, the most delightful, relaxing thing, just in terms of “This is just us, this is what we want to do with our time. Everybody is having the time of their lives.” That’s something that’s hard to capture.

What time will the episodes be posted?

We’re planning to post them pretty much at 12:01 in the morning.

Are you ready for the entire Internet to land on you?

You know, if we don’t crash it, we’ve failed.

No, we only have the bandwidth to support 17 viewers at a time.

No, none of those things are true, we do hope that a lot of people will show up, ‘cause we think it’s kind of an event. But we’re also prepared for the numbers to be even smaller than anybody thought, for everyone to go “awwww.” Because, you know, you have to be prepared for that and the great thing about it is I don’t have anybody worrying about it. We don’t have anybody we’re beholden to, to be like “You failed us! We loved the musical.” We think the people who see it will love it as well, and how many people see it, well, that’s not really up to us.

You have a knack for attracting obsessive fans. What do you think they see in your work?

An obsessive fan…

This is an obsessive fan asking that.

Yes, I am one, too. That’s what I am, that’s what I grew up as. The things I love, I love very hard. And that’s the kind of… and it’s usually genre stuff, which also attracts that type. You know, the world of imagination; when people enter any world that’s not our own they’re working in a different way than if it’s just a straight drama, no matter how great. It could be the “West Wing,” it’s great but there’s a different level when you add an element of fantasy. Particularly when you add song. It allows people to lose themselves, and [in an exaggerated arch voice] “find themselves.”

Yes, I am a new-age calendar. But I’m not wrong.

Your fans are also the type to know the ins and outs of the Internet and how to grab videos before you’re ready for them to. Are you concerned about the likelihood of piracy?

They got the teaser before we were ready for it. You know, we sort of, the inevitability of some piracy is something we’re prepared for. We also know that true fans do tend to, you know, if something is, you know, available to buy and the buying of is part of being in the community because it supports the people who have created it, you know, i.e. letting us pay our crew, it’s, you know, you take the one with the other.

I mean, we’re giving this thing up for free on the Internet for a week because we want to give the fans something that they can just have. But we want to make it an event that goes away, so that it feels more special.

Has there been any reaction from studio execs that you still work with, about the kind of end run around the industry?

All the response from everybody involved with the studios has been positive. Has been interest in, do you want to develop this in another way, do you want to partner in this kind of distribution, there’s… nobody said (in crotchety old man voice) “Say, what are you kids doing?” and tried to chase us off like a cop in “The Little Rascals.” So—

Well, they’re also interested in seeing if it works so they can try it.

Yeah, I mean, nobody’s out to… this isn’t a zero-sum equation. Everybody can win here, you know, and if it wasn’t for some of those studio people I would never have been able to make this. Andrew Finneday, the Universal executive who let us have the lot for a song, for a day, you know, who are the people in the industry that I deal with, they’re people, they’re a part of the community. The guys at the very tippy-top that I pretty much never see, they have a different agenda but they also can see this as “Well, why don’t we let them jump in the pool and we can find out if it’s too cold that way?”

So, again nobody loses. Nobody’s cranky about this. That I know of. Maybe the Grinch, who doesn’t love Christmas at all, is up on his hill going, “Oh, the noise noise noise noise,” but I don’t know him.

If everything came true the way you wanted it to be, what would you like to see happen because of “Dr. Horrible”?

I would like to be a gagillionaire.

I would like to see more of this kind of content, I would like to make, but even if I can’t I’d like to see more people sort of stepping up between the home-made and the studio-made and putting things on the Internet that are truly strange and personal and yet accessible to as many people as possible. I’d like the Internet to be a viable economic framework for a sort of, a world of “B” pictures. A new, strange, surreal “B” studio, the kind they don’t have anymore. That’s what I’d like to see.

And I’d like to run it.