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Bruce Hall: It seems pretty clear that ripples from the success of The Avengers are still being felt. There's a lot of goodwill out there toward these characters, and that's a good thing because the stand-alone entries in the Marvel Universe have more often than not been less large in scale yet just as narratively unambitious as The Avengers was. But the characters remain well liked, the actors who play them are very well cast, and their individual interpretations are pleasing enough to keep people coming back for the same hero-vs-himself-vs-conspiracy story again and again.

Like it or not, Marvel has found that sweet spot where similar stories can be recycled for the same audience again and again, as long as everyone likes the individual characters enough (I wonder if that's what attracted Disney...). It's kept the comic industry alive for the better part of a century, and for those who've waited their entire lives to see this happen on the big screen, it's a wonderful time to be alive.

Personally, I'm one of those idiots who keeps hoping for something more sophisticated to come out of the Golden Age of Superhero Films. A few titles have come very close (The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2 v1.0 and X2), but whether I live to see it or not I cannot deny - it's definitely a great time to be alive. I've got 96 million reasons why "super hero fatigue" is the least virulent affliction since "fans of Uwe Boll."

Felix Quinonez: I think this is an awesome opening for The Winter Soldier. I was hoping that it would see a similar opening to Thor: The Dark World so I am particularly impressed that it outperformed that movie. I feel that, even though I loved it, The First Avenger didn't really build a lot of buzz for Captain America. But thanks to the Avengers, I think that Cap is now entering A list territory.

Also its overseas performance is probably even more impressive. Let's not overlook the fact that in less than two weeks it has already outperformed its predecessor. If the movie has strong legs, and I believe that it will hold better than Thor 2, this could get close to $300 million domestically. And I also think that Marvel deserves even more credit for picking out the release date. If they had released this in May, they wouldn't been able to claim a "box office record." But instead they have the biggest opening of April and a whole month without any direct competition.

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