The Avengers (live action movie) - at the movie theater

I just saw the new Avengers movie - thankfully, I had also previously seen both Iron Man movies, both Hulk movies (the one featuring Eric Bana, which kind of sucked, and the one with Edward Norton, which was better), and the Captain America movie. What can I say, I like superhero movies. Anyway, the movie was full of backstory dialogue that might have been intended to help out those who hadn't seen all the superhero movies leading up to this one, but I'm guessing that anyone who went to this movie without having seen any of the other movies was probably a little too lost to enjoy this one. It'd help to at least know the basic backstories of all the characters. I'd also probably recommend watching the first Iron Man movie, the Captain America movie, and maybe the Thor movie. The Thor movie was the only one I hadn't seen, although I picked up a copy and plan to watch it soon.

The Good:

• It was funny. Surprisingly, most of my favorite funny bits featured the Hulk, who has never really been my favorite Avengers member. The Hulk and Thor had what might have been a bonding moment, had it been Thor and any other character, and I loved the bit with the Hulk and Loki. Oh, I laughed so much. Hulk smash, indeed.
• Black Widow. I vaguely remembered seeing her in one of the other superhero movies (according to IMDb, it was Iron Man 2). I mostly remembered being underwhelmed by her. In this movie, she was actually pretty awesome. If the Black Widow movie I heard is on the horizon really does come out, I hope that it features both her and Hawkeye.
• Big, flashy battles between the superheroes. I have a feeling these came about after a few "Who would win?" conversations. As in, "Captain America vs. Thor - who do you think would win?" Anyone who's ever wondered things like that should enjoy the bulk of the movie's battles. Just don't expect any answers. Mostly the movie's answers boil down to "I'm not sure, but the damage to the surrounding area would be considerable."
• Agent Coulson. His fanboyish excitement around Captain America was both cute and embarrassing.

The Bad:

• I was never a big fan of the Avengers in general, because I enjoyed some characters and not others and hated it whenever the series wasn't focused on the characters I enjoyed. While I actually liked most of the characters in the movie (the only exception being Captain America, who annoyed me a tad), I still had problems with the cast feeling like it was too large. I don't know if the problem was too many main characters, or lots of characters but no main character.
• The death of one particular character. My hope is that a future movie will reveal that Nick Fury lied about his death in order to give everybody more motivation to fight, but somehow I think that hope is futile.

This movie had some really great, fun moments, but, now that I'm out of the theater, I kind of think it was not anywhere near the best of the superhero movies I've seen. My first "bad" bullet point is a big part of the reason for that.

I choose not to list any watch-alikes or read-alikes for this. Go watch some superhero or action movies and read some superhero comics/graphic novels. If you really, really need some recommendations, ask me for some in a comment - otherwise, I think I'll take a break on this one.