Just saw the Avengers as well, and it's not only the best Marvel film, it's the best comic book movie ever made. Easily. It's about as good as it gets, and they finally got the Hulk right. I like Nolan's Batman movies, Batman is my favorite comic book hero, by far over the likes of Captain America and Thor,etc.. But he tries to box the character into a real world environment and tries to make him realistic, something that could be seen as feasible. It's just not the right direction for it, not even for a human superhero. This movie is what comic book movies should be, not afraid to be a comic book movie. There is no shame in it, that doesn't mean you have to make it campy or anything, just make a Batman movie, don't try to make a practical Batman movie.
There was a sequence in this movie where Iron Man shot lasers deflecting off of Capt. America's shield, rocketed away and we pan to the Hulk and Thor battling ontop of the giant flying monster thing and Hawkeye sniping people left and right and all I could think of was : COMIC BOOK...UNFOLDING....ON SCREEN... and I never really saw that before then, not on as a huge and continuous scale as it was during most of this movie. There were glimpses of it in Spiderman and Batman Begins and Dark Knight and more notably in Capt. America, but this was on an entirely new level. It was amazing. Like watching Jack Kirby's imagination brought magically to the screen.