I sometimes abuse ampersands

Back on the US side of the pond, questionably enriched by the experience of having tried to watch Avengers on the flight. I got as far as... 1/3 of the movie, maybe? At which point I realized that an obscure work of litcrit in a language I barely understand is way more engaging than this, which says a lot. It would probably have been more watchable had I known more (or, well, anything) about any of the characters, because by the point when I got bored out of my skull the movie did not even try to establish any sort of characterization. So, all it had to rely on is 40-years-outdated notions of geopolitics (ok, I get it, comic books got their growth spurt during the Cold War era, but it's maybe time to get over it?), comic book technobabble the actors could not pronounce with a straight face, and a really badass eyepatch of one of the characters. I fully endorse the eyepatch! But that was not enough to make the experience of watching it rewarding. I watched and liked the last installment of the X-Men, which had the same problems re:Cold-War&technobabble, but it also had characters that were not cardboard cutouts. Maybe Avengers got drastically better in the latter 2/3? I will never know, and will continue to miss out on loads of good fanfiction. (Maybe it was meant to be a parody of the genre from the very beginning, and I am just too serious?)