I wouldn't be surprised considering the man helming it and the talent they've been able to pool to work on the other Avenger titles. Branagh is a great director, Miller and Stentz have grown very well after leaving behind Andromeda, Straczynski gave us one of the best Sci-Fi programs to date, and then there's Whedon... who I am sure will keep Penn from going too off and stay on point.

I do believe Iron Man 2 suffered greatly. I think Favreau wanted to at least get to the point of revealing The Mandarin but was nixed because they didn't want him going up against/setting up such a big foe that it might not make sense for Iron Man to flow into the upcoming Avenger movie. This is all my opinion, but the direction Favreau took in the second movie seemed too rushed and had absolutely no tie to the first other than further implementing more support for The Avengers.

I've never heard of the skrulls, why should I be excited for them? (Honest question) Because everything about 'army of green aliens with pointed ears' is screaming disaster to me.

I've been watching the new "Avengers" cartoon to kinda get familiar with the Avengers universe, and I thought Kang sounded like a great villain for this movie.

He's a singular villain with depth, and enough fire power to require all the Avengers and SHIELD to work together to save the world.

But like I said, I'm a novice when it comes to Avengers lore.