>Iron Man was considered a risk. Nobody was chomping at the
>bit for a movie about him or Cap. He's inarguably the most
>successful and beloved film adaptation of any comic book hero
>ever, and Cap isn't far behind at this point.

Yeah, but the the Avengers was much less of a risk than Guardians of the Galaxy or the Eternals. The Avengers were an A-list comic book franchise and consistently one of Marvel's top books. To the mainstream, it may have been a risk. But to those of us who followed the books, it made sense.

>B,c,d, all that is immaterial. Tell a compelling story about
>compelling characters, add layers of connective tissue, all
>processed through a highly refined machine that's proven to
>excute over and over and kver again, and it's a wrap.

I definitely agree with this. Like I said, I love a lot of C & D level characters. There are absolutely a lot of good stories to be told. I think my surprise is that Marvel seems to skip over some of the more popular characters and dig deep for some lesser known ones.