I've never once felt that Whedon's penchant for killing off characters was poor writing. On the contrary, I've always felt that it is great writing. His deaths were always so heartbreaking. He developed his characters and made the audience invest in them and then BOOM! takes the character away. I've always felt it was a great device to elicit emotion from the audience. Several deaths on Buffy and Angel hit me hard. I think his character's deaths were to show that life is unpredictable, anything can happen which is pretty accurate. On his shows, just when a character finds happiness is when they died making it heartbreaking and brutal. I'm cool with him killing a character in Avengers since it's based on comics, these characters never truly die.

 THANK YOU, death4sale...Joss Whedon is the only one in my world who can kill off main and side characters and make them great...the first episode of "Buffy" I watched the entire way through was the one where she comes home and finds her mother dead.  That was the episode that finally made me give in and let my sister loan me her DVD's.  Then on Angel, making Fred's death so tragic only to have her remain on the show as an unknown character was great and heartbreaking.  Joss is the man.

So basically he's saying the first one is all CGi, loud bangs and big explosions?? LMFAO

Another great kids party choice ;)

 @SarcasticCaveman - Dude, I thought Wesley's death was pretty amazing and still affects me to this day. What was so cool about Joyce's death on Buffy was that it came out of left field and it was really emotional. It also hits you hard because she didn't die by some supernatural means like everyone else. It was very real since it was just a natural death which occurred sparingly on Buffy or Angel. I also thought he was pretty ballsy killing Cordy off and Wes. They were major characters around since the start of the show. He showed early on in Angel that he had no problem killing off major characters like Doyle. I've always been a huge supporter of Joss Whedon and will continue to do so even though I was right in front of him at Comic Con last year and couldn't get my Angel Season 5 boxset signed because I didn't have a ticket. I have loved all of his shows except Dollhouse because Dushku sucks unless she plays Faith. I have complete faith that he will deliver a great Avengers film. If anyone can balance this many characters, it's him. Lets show some faith, he was nominated for an Oscar for writing the first Toy Story.

I thought Dollhouse had a lot of potential, and I really don't mind Dushku, but yeah, it fell really short...and yeah, Wes' death scene..."Lie to me..."...dear lord, so poignant.

Back to RDJ, I never read that he signed a 6 picture deal, heck I didn't ever read that he signed what's considered more standard in a 3 movie deal.Same thing with Ed Norton when he first played the Hulk, didn't hear anything about a multi-movie deal

I think when Marvel first launched IM and Hulk, their first 2 films from their own studio, they weren't planning 6 or 9 films down the road. I think that talk started only after IronMan blew everybody away. RDJ and Norton being the names they are probably wouldn't have signed those deals and Marvel didn't know what sort of success to expect. Now RDJ is basically the face of Marvel's films so I think they both know that each other had a big role in bringing both to prominence and seem to be keeping the money topics private and good will

Ok, I just read that after IronMan RDJ did agree to 2 sequels and the Avengers. So I guess we'll see what happens after IM3. Like it was mentioned before War Machine may be the replacement waiting in the wings if RDJ doesn't want to return or can't agree on the money

 War Machine is a drag.  So many more characters to pull from if they want to add to the Avengers roster.  So many more INTERESTING characters.  

If he killed off an Avenger, it isn't going to be the money makers....it will be a secondary character.  But, to be honest, I could let the BW go.  Not impressed with the casting or her character. 

I just don't see him doing another IM movie after IM3. Counting Avengers that'll make four films playing the role. As good he as is at the role I'd like to see somebody else take a crack at it.

 What I'm hearing...the villians are Skrulls, they just can't be called Skrulls do to legal issues.  Sounds crazy.  Anyway, what other alien presence would even matter?  They are said to be shape shifting multi colored aliens.  I'd say that is a Skrull by any other name.