Joss Whedon

The ensemble of A-list actors starring in his upcoming “Avengers” movies makes a better team than the actual Avengers in the Marvel comic book that inspired the film, director Joss Whedon told fans at his Comic-Con International panel Saturday afternoon.

“What I find is that these characters mesh through these differences really well,” he told the capacity crowd at the Hilton Bayfront’s Indigo Ballroom. “And what I also find is these actors have a great time playing against each other, and they are, as a troupe, actually a much better team than the Avengers are.”

He said working on “Avengers” has been easier than he expected. “In fact, the only problem I’ve had with ‘The Avengers’ is: Where is the 14-year-old girl with superpowers?” he joked.

The creator of the wildly popular television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and its spin-off “Angel” gave a quick update on the Dark Horse comic book series featuring the same characters, then devoted the rest of the time to answering questions from fans. The new “Angel & Faith” series launches in August, and Season 9 of the Buffy comic series hits shelves in September, bringing the vamp-staking superhero back to the sort of world she inhabited in the TV show, Whedon said.

Season 8 took the “Scoobies” and new slayers out of a destroyed Sunnydale and made them part of a worldwide demon-fighting operation — a choice that ultimately “became an albatross,” Whedon said. “Kind of the point of Season 8 for me was, ‘Hey, we’re a comic, and we can do these things.’ People were more interested in her life than the fact that we could draw bigger things…. Having discovered that we can do more than the television show, I’ve discovered that I don’t really want to.”

Whedon also told fans he would love to take “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to Broadway.

“I can’t say that I will, or that by the time I try to, anyone would want me to, but yeah, I think she belongs there,” Whedon told a cheering audience. “In the theater across from ‘Dr. Horrible,’” referring to his popular Web series “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.”

He teased the “Dr. Horrible” sequel, saying that some songs have already been written and that they are “so good.” He also said he would love to do more with “Firefly,” though he has no projects on the front burner. “I’m waiting for someone to call me to make a ‘Serenity’ sequel,” he said, but after two minutes of thunderous applause, added: “… but they won’t.”

One fan asked Whedon whether he regretted creating or killing any of his characters.

“Every character that we had, we got to milk for some really interesting stories,” Whedon said. “If people didn’t like them, we either found a way to make them like them, or play that up as part of their persona…. I’m not big with regret. It’s not on my schedule.”