Ever since I left the screening of “The Avengers” last week, I’ve been trying to figure out exactly why liked the movie so much. The answer started to materialize recently when I was explaining to someone why I liked “Iron Man” better than “The Dark Knight” when both films premiered in 2008.

I wrote up a column for IFC about why “The Avengers” is essentially the photo-negative of “The Dark Knight,” and why that’s such a good thing for both comic book fans and movie audiences alike.

Here’s an excerpt:

In Nolan’s series of Batman films, the character’s status as one of the DC universe’s greatest detectives is scrapped in favor of making him, well… what’s essentially a bully in a bat-suit. Favoring intimidation and brute force over the keen observation and technical expertise his comics counterpart is known for, even the character we see when Bruce Wayne is out of costume is only slightly friendlier than Batman himself.

In director Joss Whedon’s vision for “The Avengers,” we get a team of heroes who haven’t spun very far off center, despite their more unique attributes. Collectively, the team’s members are generally depicted as funny, polite, and “warm” when they’re not in mid-brawl, and even Whedon’s version of Bruce Banner seems well-adjusted and emotionally stable when compared to Nolan’s take on Bruce Wayne.

You can read the rest of the column at IFC.com, and I encourage you to do so — if only so that you’ll then comment here with your thoughts on what I wrote. I’d love to know your response to the column.