Which Avengers storyline is the most infamous?

[Orion101]

Many of you who have been to the Spidey message boards may recall a similar thread where I asked which Spider-Man storyline was the most infamous, well now it's the Earth's Mightiest Heroes turn. Which Avengers storyline was the biggest blight on the Avengers reputation. Which story is most universally known for being hated by fandom. And which story hurt your enjoyment and or memory of the book worse. For me the most infamous would have to be the Hank Pym wife beater storyline, it's the story I most revile. Mainly becuase it utterly destroyed a hero who was not only a founder but one of the oldest heroes in Marvel completly beyond repair.

No matter what the character does to reedeem himself some writer will always bring things back to that story. They just won't let it go, and their will always be some hack writer who will Hank as a target for their personal issues on the matter in place of actual good storytelling and character deveoplment. Anyway what was your opinion of the most infamous story pleas list the reason why you chose what you did it would be appreciated.

[Atom_basher]

disassembled comes to mind

[Scott Evil]

disassembled comes to mind
The only positive from Disassembled? Thor: Disassembled. Mostly because it had NOTHING to do w/ the main "Dissassembled" wreck, and it was (wait for it..) written well.

[Mr.America]

I think people are to hard on Chuck Austen's run. It wasn't horrible, I liked Lionheart of Avalon. It wasn't the best but it wasn't horrible. But that Invaders arc could have been left alone.

[Shellhead]

The only positive from Disassembled? Thor: Disassembled. Mostly because it had NOTHING to do w/ the main "Dissassembled" wreck, and it was (wait for it..) written well.

The best Avengers story of recent years was that issue of Thor: Disassembled where Thor, Cap and Iron Man fought Loki and his minions.

[Nevets F]

Austin's work was actually pretty good on this title.

I loved Crossing, haha, so sue me.

I went with Disassembled since it is generally despised.

[Albert]

For me, The Crossing. To this day I have no idea how it all ended, I dropped it when teen Tony showed up.

[Kirk G]

For me, The Crossing. To this day I have no idea how it all ended, I dropped it when teen Tony showed up.

I have no idea how it all ended and I even bought the damn thing. I think I lost interest when they mutated Jan into a wasp creature. Was that the same arc?

[Haunt]

The Crossing - just ignored it and read other books
The Hank Pym wife beater storyline - happily got me into reading comics
Chuck Austens entire run - beautiful artwork
Avengers Disassembled - utter piece of garbage that tainted the rest of Bendis' writing for me

[Albert]

I have no idea how it all ended and I even bought the damn thing. I think I lost interest when they mutated Jan into a wasp creature. Was that the same arc?

Yeah, I believe it was. She looked like one of the Micronauts to me.

[Will.S]

I'd say it was a toss up between The Crossing and Disassembled but I'd have to give it to Dissassembled.

The Austen stuff was only forgivable due to the fact that he was lucky to have great artists make his writing look less crappy and the Pym wifebeater thing doesn't get even a fraction of the venom as the Crossing and Dissassembled.

[The Shadow]

I have no idea how it all ended and I even bought the damn thing.

LOL

Same here.

[marshal99]

Dissembled and Crossing are equally garbage , at least all the effects of the crossing have been erased off after onslaught , unfortunately the effects of dissembled are still around.

Austen run is garbage but it's just something that can easily be ignored.

[Sam T.]

Too much Bendis hatin' in here...I picked the Crossing!!

[Mikl C]

Austen's run made me drop Avengers so yeh. that.

[Polarity]

I picked 'The Crossing'. The young Tony/Immortus/Kang stuff is just... too... confusing...

[Rahul]

Wait, is infamous=bad?

In recent memory Avengers Disassembled, but not in the bad way.

Heck beacuse its infamous, it attracted lots of readers....

[mattbib]

Wait, is infamous=bad?
in·fa·mous [in-fuh-muhhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngs]
–adjective

having an extremely bad reputation: an infamous city.
deserving of or causing an evil reputation; shamefully malign; detestable: an infamous deed.
Law.
a.deprived of certain rights as a citizen, as a consequence of conviction of certain offenses.
b.of or pertaining to offenses involving such deprivation.

[The M.E.]

I voted for The Crossing because it had a horrible reputation, but I actually enjoyed the beginning of it. I thought there were alot of good ideas there (the return of Mantis, the murders of Avengers by an unknown insider, the family dynamic of Crystal/Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch/Vision). But the follow through was horrendous. Mantis was merely Kang's girlfriend, Teen/Evil/Manipulated Iron Men made no sense, and the Lehnsherr offspring storyline kinda just got dropped. But now that we have Wiccan and Speed, I guess I'm kinda glad :)

[Babylon23]

I voted for Disassembled because I was actively collecting the book when this garbage was dumped on us. The Crossing is awful, but I'd stopped collecting Avengers when it came out, so I didn't read it until much later, when I already knew what to expect.

[Rahul]

in·fa·mous [in-fuh-muhhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngs]
–adjective

having an extremely bad reputation: an infamous city.
deserving of or causing an evil reputation; shamefully malign; detestable: an infamous deed.
]

OK, is bad reputation necessarily=bad?



Law.
a.deprived of certain rights as a citizen, as a consequence of conviction of certain offenses.
b.of or pertaining to offenses involving such deprivation.

I dont think Disassembled committed any criminal offences....but I think some old timers might disagree with me on that....

Granted, its not Bendis best work and Its not his worst either....come to think of it Bendis work for me is always in the ranges of excellent,really good,good, ok...never bad......

[firestarfan]

God, it's gotta be The Crossing. How bad does a story have to be for MARVEL to completely write it out of continuity? Even Spider-Clones "happened." I've never read a comic with anyone making any reference whatsoever to any of the crap that happened in The Crossing.

[Osiris]

The tough question here is, do you go with characters that you love being completely misused (Austen) or characters that were already misused being replaced by character that you have no interest in (disassembled)? Its a tough one.

[mattbib]

OK, is bad reputation necessarily=bad?Not necessarily; at least in my opinion. I rather like several of the stories in the poll, though they generally have a bad reputation.

[Phrozen]

The Hank Hits Jan storyline was good until everyone decided it needed to be brought up again and again.

Austen's run was simply forgetable.

The Crossing was trash.

Disassembled basically ended the old classic Avengers and ushered in the Not Quite Avengers who can't save the world without Guest Star Help.

[Den]

I went with Austen's run. When Hawkeye is rattling off about how sometimes you just GOTTA hit women as romantic advice...Blah.


Disassembled I avoided at first, and only saw bits of later and on another day, that might get my vote instead. Bendis does some great work sometimes, but the whole "There is no chaos magic" from Dr. Strange who's USED the darn stuff repeatedly in his own books and the slip with the writing forgetting that Wanda had already dealt with the loss of her children had me going "errr..."

I actually like many of the New Avengers (though I have my gripes) but the road to get to them wasn't a good one.

[DDM]

Although The Crossing is bad, Avengers Disassembled trumps it for the shear inept story. Avengers Disassembled comes together as if it is was thought out on the playground instead of a legitimate outline; the story ignores all the Scarlet Witch's character development & picks up where Byrne left with West Coast Avengers Darker Than Scarlet. Nevermind, Wanda's "madness" was long resolved in West Coast Avengers in 1990!

Furthermore, Bendis changes the Scarlet Witch's hex spheres from altering probability to altering reality itself on a cosmic scale. Brian Michael Bendis should be ashamed of the Avengers Disassembled garbage because it reads like terrible fan-fiction instead of a professional mature writer.

[Lochdale]

Austen's run made be stop buying all comics. All comics.

I even stopped reading Thor.

His run was muck. Worst Avengers writer ever.

[Agentum]

Well you mostly remember recent bad things, that dissassembled story used up a lot of trees for no good reason.

[Vic Vega]

The Crossing was in the end just inept and temporarily wrecked a long standing character (Iron Man).

Disassembled is similarly inept and also wrecked a long standing character (Scarlet Witch). This may in the end, also be temporary.

The major difference is Disassembled revamped the entire Avengers francise in its writer's image. The Crossing was only one story. Considering the last 5 or issues of Avengers haven't even had a team in it, I have to say Disassembled is a lot more damaging to the franchise overall.

However, it still sells, so I doubt anybody really cares about stuff like that....

[Polarity]

The Crossing was in the end just inept and temporarily wrecked a long standing character (Iron Man).

Disassembled is similarly inept and also wrecked a long standing character (Scarlet Witch). This may in the end, also be temporary.

The major difference is Disassembled revamped the entire Avengers francise in its writer's image. The Crossing was only one story. Considering the last 5 or issues of Avengers haven't even had a team in it, I have to say Disassembled is a lot more damaging to the franchise overall.

However, it still sells, so I doubt anybody really cares about stuff like that....

Damaging to the franchise isn't very accurate. It is Bendis who is making it a franchise again. After 'Disassembled' came the new book New Avengers, and a spin off: Young Avengers. And now after Civil War and 25 issues of New Avengers comes Mighty Avengers, The Illuminati mini, The Avengers: The Initiative mini.
More franchise than this, I don't know...

I liked 'Disassembled'. And New Avengers. Although it's a shame the New Avengers line up didn't get to do much as a team (except for New Avengers Annual #1 wich was way cool. Very old school. :p )

[DDM]

Damaging to the franchise isn't very accurate. It is Bendis who is making it a franchise again. After 'Disassembled' came the new book New Avengers, and a spin off: Young Avengers. And now after Civil War and 25 issues of New Avengers comes Mighty Avengers, The Illuminati mini, The Avengers: The Initiative mini.
More franchise than this, I don't know...

I liked 'Disassembled'. And New Avengers. Although it's a shame the New Avengers line up didn't get to do much as a team (except for New Avengers Annual #1 wich was way cool. Very old school. :p )

Rob Liefeld was seemingly very healthy as The New Mutants changed into X-Force; however, given 20/20 hindsight, Liefeld was bad for the book without a good writer (Louise Simonson) in control of the ship.

Brian Michael Bendis is the writer's equivilant of Rob Liefeld.

Avengers Disassembled is bad the The Avengers franchise because it was used as the basis for the fatally flawed House of M debacle which spiraled into other stories. When the roots are rotten, you have rotten fruit from the poisoned tree.

[brundlefly]

Brian Michael Bendis is the writer's equivilant of Rob Liefeld.


That's a pretty on-target analysis. Plus both their styles are very "trendy:" hot at the moment, but unlikely to age well over time. We've already seen it with Liefeld (when someone refers to "OMG so 90s" to refer to the worst aspects of comics from that time, we generally know who they're talking about :D ). Only a matter of time before Bendis' "hotness" with current audiences cools and is looked on with the same disdainful hindsight. "Geez, this is what comic fans thought was cool in the 00s?" or something to that effect.

I'm torn between Disassembled and The Crossing, just because The Crossing seemed like it was simply designed to destroy Tony Stark/Iron Man and invalidate all his prior adventures and accomplishments, diminishing him to "Kang's spy/sleeper agent" and replacing him with (ugh) "Teen Tony." They'd have been better off letting Rhodes take up the mantle again after killing Stark off in The Crossing instead of insulting Iron Man readers with "hey, we've wiped his history out and are starting over with a new teenage Tony Stark. Aren't you excited about this new creative direction?" Uhm, no. A truly wretched idea from start to finish. Then Bendis simply repeated the process (big event whose only goal is character assassination) with Disassembled and Wanda. I like Tony more, so I guess I'll go with The Crossing.

[Magneto Rocks]

The Crossing was absoloutely rubbish... but we could still go back to the Avengers afterwards, and it was over mercifully quickly.

Hank Pym wifebeater story I have no comment on.

Avengers Disassembled was HIDEOUS, but worse so because it was followed up with the New Avengers, or "Let's put Bendis' favourite characters on the Avengers and marginalise the ones who deserve to be there." The problem is that that did damage not just to the Avengers book of the time, but to the Avengers book of the FUTURE. Because after Bendis' loooooong (unfortunate) run on the title, if we get a BAD or even AVERAGE writer, we'll either STILL have the New Avengers or else we'll have a rubbish, pathetic attempt to heal the damage Bendis caused which is worse than before. We need a great writer, and even if we get it they'll still spend most of their run trying to sew up the colossal damage Bendis has done to the Avengers.

[marshal99]

After the crossing , avengers were wrecked - teen tony , bug wasp etc , the avengers were hard to salvage at that point. Then along came Onslaught and the chance to erase it all , and the relaunch a year later by Perez and Busiek was still one of the best avengers run in their long history.

[Expletive Deleted]

Avengers Disassembled comes together as if it is was thought out on the playground instead of a legitimate outline; the story ignores all the Scarlet Witch's character development & picks up where Byrne left with West Coast Avengers Darker Than Scarlet. Nevermind, Wanda's "madness" was long resolved in West Coast Avengers in 1990!And this is worse than "revealing" that Tony Stark was secretly Kang's unwitting pawn all along . . . how, exactly?

As bad as Disassembled was, it didn't capsize the entire franchise. It took a hard and a soft reboot, plus a twelve issue retcon, just to get back to status quo after the Crossing.

[jmc247]

Avengers Disassembled is bad the The Avengers franchise because it was used as the basis for the fatally flawed House of M debacle which spiraled into other stories. When the roots are rotten, you have rotten fruit from the poisoned tree.

I wouldn't say House of M was fatally flawed, overall I think it was a great idea with some execution problems. Hell, I think its biggest flaw was Woverine overkill. The book was supposed to be centered on Magneto and his family, but if you add up the lines for Magneto, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Polaris you don't get half the lines Wolverine got in the 8 book series.

As for Avengers Disassembled, yes it had its flaws, but it could have been worse. The biggest mistake of Disassembled was not making the Avengers pro-active. The big events like figuring out Wanda was behind it all, defeating Wanda, and taking Wanda away were all done by non-Avengers.

[Chris N]

This was a damn tough call. I actually like the fall of Yellowjacket story. It's just its use by writers like Austen that annoyed me.

Between the others was rough though, but Austen's stuff was the obvious choice.

Boy is Bendis darned lucky he followed Austen...

[DDM]

I wouldn't say House of M was fatally flawed, overall I think it was a great idea with some execution problems. Hell, I think its biggest flaw was Woverine overkill. The book was supposed to be centered on Magneto and his family, but if you add up the lines for Magneto, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Polaris you don't get half the lines Wolverine got in the 8 book series.

As for Avengers Disassembled, yes it had its flaws, but it could have been worse. The biggest mistake of Disassembled was not making the Avengers pro-active. The big events like figuring out Wanda was behind it all, defeating Wanda, and taking Wanda away were all done by non-Avengers.

House of M is fatally flawed for the following reasons:


Wanda's "madness" is long resolved in 1990, but Bendis brought it back out of the blue with no foreshadowing or character development to validate his flawed story for Avengers Disassembled & House of M.
Bendis changed the Scarlet Witch's hex spheres from altering probability to altering reality on a cosmic scale. Wanda's hex spheres can cause a house to catch fire, but she cannot turn the house into a stone statue.
House of M is a one issue story decompressed into eight issues. This story crossed over with several other titles while the primary story happens in House of M. House of M carries several deus ex machinas in Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, & Layla Miller, but the problems still exist in the heart of the story itself.

[Will.S]

Bendis changed the Scarlet Witch's hex spheres from altering probability to altering reality on a cosmic scale. Wanda's hex spheres can cause a house to catch fire, but she cannot turn the house into a stone statue.
In Avengers Annual #10 she turned Pyro's fire into stone.

Her hex powers have always been very undefined and the whole "probability effect" is a just a tame way of saying that she can make anything happen although I'll give you that they amped up her hex to crazy high levels during House of M.

[jmc247]

House of M is fatally flawed for the following reasons:


Wanda's "madness" is long resolved in 1990, but Bendis brought it back out of the blue with no foreshadowing or character development to validate his flawed story for Avengers Disassembled & House of M.
Bendis changed the Scarlet Witch's hex spheres from altering probability to altering reality on a cosmic scale. Wanda's hex spheres can cause a house to catch fire, but she cannot turn the house into a stone statue.
House of M is a one issue story decompressed into eight issues. This story crossed over with several other titles while the primary story happens in House of M. House of M carries several deus ex machinas in Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, & Layla Miller, but the problems still exist in the heart of the story itself.


What actually caused Wanda's madness in the first place? The writers in 1990 simply put her under alot of stress for many different reasons and just had her sort of snap. The writers of Avengers Disessembled and House of M had the excuse about her babies and then they also had Professor X say her powers were slowly driving her mad. There is no way to prove or disprove that, which is of course why the writers did it.

It was actually during the Darker then Scarlet run that the writers first increased her power beyond its origional intent. Remember when she kills Simon and then bring him back to life.

[DDM]

In Avengers Annual #10 she turned Pyro's fire into stone.

The Scarlet Witch cast multiple hex spheres to turn Pyro's fire into stone; afterwards, Wanda was left fatiqued & could barely stand. This is not quite the same as using a hex to turn a tree into a rhino.

Furthermore, using this logic, she would have to cast billions upon billions of multiple hex spheres simulatnanously to make House of M happen, but not know the outcome. In other words, the Scarlet Witch does not have the ability to literally warp reality into anything she wishes.


Her hex powers have always been very undefined and the whole "probability effect" is a just a tame way of saying that she can make anything happen although I'll give you that they amped up her hex to crazy high levels during House of M.

Yes, but the Scarlet Witch still alters probabilities to make the odds change in her favor. Longshot, the deceased Hellion Roulette with her white "good luck" spheres & black "bad luck" spheres, & Domino all have probability powers of a kind.

Brian Michael Bendis gave Wanda Proteus mutant power or the Molecule Man's accidentally spawned powers to warp reality itself.

[DDM]

What actually caused Wanda's madness in the first place? The writers in 1990 simply put her under alot of stress for many different reasons and just had her sort of snap. The writers of Avengers Disessembled and House of M had the excuse about her babies and then they also had Professor X say her powers were slowly driving her mad. There is no way to prove or disprove that, which is of course why the writers did it.

Wanda's madness came as a result of her husband, the Vision, being dissected & put back together without any emotions. Her children were revealed to be living extensions of Mephisto. These two factors caused Wanda's mind to crack.

Brian Michael Bendis brought back Wanda's children for no other reason than to use her as a deus ex machina to make his pet New Avengers. There's no rhyme or reason to his story because Wanda's children had long been reabsorbed back into Mephisto in West Coast Avengers.

[FanboyStranger]

While Disassembled certainly sucked, it was nothing compared to The Crossing. At least Disassembled seemed to have a strong idea based in Avengers continuity behind it which failed miserably in execution. The Crossing was a bad idea basically stolen from Green Lantern wrapped up in bad Deodato-underling art over something like 25 total issue and two specials. Just absolutely terrible... until Liefeld did his Heroes Reborn Avengers, which is, by far, the worst Avengers run ever. (And I'm not one of those people who love to bash Liefeld all the time, even though I never enjoyed his art.)

[FanboyStranger]

Wanda's madness came as a result of her husband, the Vision, being dissected & put back together without any emotions. Her children were revealed to be living extensions of Mephisto. These two factors caused Wanda's mind to crack.

Brian Michael Bendis brought back Wanda's children for no other reason than to use her as a deus ex machina to make his pet New Avengers. There's no rhyme or reason to his story because Wanda's children had long been reabsorbed back into Mephisto in West Coast Avengers.

And that's why Disassembled was so flawed, but there could have been a lot more to the story if they brought in plot elements like Wanda being "touched" by Cthton as an infant, having the most dysfunctional family in the MU, facing abandonment every fifty issues or so, the very nature of her powers, etc. There's a lot to set Wanda over the edge, but it wasn't even touched upon. There was a logical story there, but it was so muddled in its execution.

The Crossing was worse. Everyone was out of character, particularly Kang himself, the art declined quickly, everything seemed like a string of ill-concieved "cool" moments, like wow, this giant-headed blue guy with a staff is powerful to take down an Eternal or Hawkeye in his new "cool" uniform has to take on Iron Man in his "cool" new armor (I actually kinda like that armor, though) on a boat! It was the worst '90s excesses in one poor storyline. And it ran over about 25 Avengers-family issues!

You do have a point when you say that Disassembledwas followed by Non-Avengers, but while not being the Avengers book I might want, it's light years ahead of Heroes Reborn Avengers. That was the utter bottom of the barrel.

[phantom1592]

Off the choices given.

The Crossing: This was stupid. Fortunately has been almost completly forgoten. Doesn't quite fit the "infamous" catagory for me.

Hank pym's beating habits: This is close. Everytime anyone mentions hank its brought up. HOWEVER. A lot of people have mentioned that it was a decent story. Its just the repetitive nature of what happened AFTER that is stupid.

Chuck Austens run: I have never heard anything good about this run. All I have heard was that everyone was out of character and it was dumb. Now what I DON"T know, is WHAT the run was ABOUT! I didn't read the crossing either, but I knew all about the Teen Tony crapfest. Considering that the whole run isn't worth mentioning, I don't give it "Infamous" either. I rank it "forgetable" ;)


Disassembled: This is the one I have to go with. It was universally BAD! AND it has been the backbone for everything else that has happened since. We arent' ALLOWED to sweep this under the rug. We're forced to accept it and keep dealing with it. It gets the infamous rating :p

[Babylon23]

Wanda's madness came as a result of her husband, the Vision, being dissected & put back together without any emotions. Her children were revealed to be living extensions of Mephisto. These two factors caused Wanda's mind to crack.

Not disagreeing, but there was even more to it than that. There was also Wonder Man's refusal to have his brain patterns scanned to recreate the Vision's emotions, which Wanda saw as a betrayal by a close friend. She's also just come off being possessed by That Which Endures, and being mind controlled by Ghaur during Atlantis Attacks. Plus let's not forget Immortus manipulating her all through that period.

Overall, Byrne spent a year building up to Wanda's eventual breakdown.

[marshal99]

And that's why Disassembled was so flawed, but there could have been a lot more to the story if they brought in plot elements like Wanda being "touched" by Cthton as an infant, having the most dysfunctional family in the MU, facing abandonment every fifty issues or so, the very nature of her powers, etc. There's a lot to set Wanda over the edge, but it wasn't even touched upon. There was a logical story there, but it was so muddled in its execution.

The Crossing was worse. Everyone was out of character, particularly Kang himself, the art declined quickly, everything seemed like a string of ill-concieved "cool" moments, like wow, this giant-headed blue guy with a staff is powerful to take down an Eternal or Hawkeye in his new "cool" uniform has to take on Iron Man in his "cool" new armor (I actually kinda like that armor, though) on a boat! It was the worst '90s excesses in one poor storyline. And it ran over about 25 Avengers-family issues!

You do have a point when you say that Disassembledwas followed by Non-Avengers, but while not being the Avengers book I might want, it's light years ahead of Heroes Reborn Avengers. That was the utter bottom of the barrel.

Ah but those heroes reborn avengers are not in continuity and doesn't affect the 616 MU so you don't have to collect them at all and you wouldn't miss anything important.
The Crossing was dire but the effects have been retcon away and probably will never be mentioned again.
Disassembled on the other hand is crap in a bucket and the effects of it is still resounding till today , and that event was 2 years ago.
Bendis is by far the most overrated writer in Marvel , he's the marvel equvalent of DC's Brad Meltzer. They should team up and co-write a DC/Marvel crossover - Identity crisis disassembled.

[John Nowak]

What bothered me most about Disassembled is that, well, I'm really not clear why they disassembled. Funding problems and a major multi-fatality crisis (a contrived one, but others here made that point better) are admittedly awful problems to deal with, but it just seemed that Captain America said, "Hey, we've got two pages left and I just noticed that the title of the story is Disassembled, so I guess we have to split up the team."

"Right," said Tony, "and since that makes no sense whatsoever, we can start it up again in a couple of months."

"So that's it?" Cap asks. "Avengers Disassembled is just a roster change?"

"Looks like it," Tony agreed.

[DDM]

What bothered me most about Disassembled is that, well, I'm really not clear why they disassembled. Funding problems and a major multi-fatality crisis (a contrived one, but others here made that point better) are admittedly awful problems to deal with, but it just seemed that Captain America said, "Hey, we've got two pages left and I just noticed that the title of the story is Disassembled, so I guess we have to split up the team."

"Right," said Tony, "and since that makes no sense whatsoever, we can start it up again in a couple of months."

"So that's it?" Cap asks. "Avengers Disassembled is just a roster change?"

"Looks like it," Tony agreed.

Brian Michael Bendis ignores reality that the Maria Stark Foundation is a separate entity from Tony Stark's other assets. It's another reason why Avengers Disassembled makes less sense the more anyone who knows The Avengers history.

Bendis thinks if he says something is true, it must be the truth, although he gives nothing to substantiate his claims in the story.

[Mister Mets]

I'd go with the Crossing, as it led to the crappy sales which led to the Heroes Reborn revamp, and did bad things to Iron Man.

Chuck Austen's run has largely been forgotten.
The Hank Pym as wife-beater story has been critically acclaimed.
And Disassembled remains in print in TPB form, and led to the series's current incredible sales, so I don't think it counts.

[John Nowak]

It's another reason why Avengers Disassembled makes less sense the more anyone who knows The Avengers history.

Yeah, he's not the worst writer out there, but he's really weak on continuity.

[Leebenhouse]

Well, it's time for me to bust out my newfangled rant...

Starting with Geoff Johns on the Flash, the retconning/revising of history/ignoring history became acceptable so writers followed his model into their own paths. This is the Anti- Roy Thomas, who would write entire stories to explain coloring errors in one issue, and is probably the founder of comic book continuity as we know it.

Back to the topic at hand, I'd really say, with the exception of the Hank Pym wife beater, these stories have all been hated until the next one comes along. Crossing was the most despised until Chuck Austin, and he was the most (recently) infamous until Disassembled.

Now, as for that travesty. Others have already pointed out the Maria Stark flaw. Now, for my big issues with it.

1.) Hawkeye.

Bendis made the grevious error that Hawkeye doesn't actully carry the special arrowheads in his quiver. Unlike Ollie Queen, he has been consitantly smart enough to have the arrowheads placed all over him, with the otherwise headless or standard arrows in his quiver. That way, your backpack can't start on fire and you blow up. Plus, unlike Ollie, Hawkeye can ditch his quiver. It's not built into his costume like GA's.

Just to further be a dick, folks that have it, look at pg 38-39 of issue 5 of the '88 handbook. It states that his explosive arrows are made from plastic explosive. Funny thing about plastic explosives. They dont blow up, unless you use a detonator on 'em. Hell, you can throw a brick of C4 in a fire and it won't blow up on ya. Now, someone might say "oh, well, what about his rocket and flare arrows?" As for those, I doubt he'd end up worse off than some nasty 3rd degree burns on his back. That is, if he had the damn things in his quiver!!!

Let me quote the damn book.


Hawkeye has recently developed a modular arrowhead system whereby certain custom arrowheads can be attached to the shafts of any targetpoint arrow to convert them for special use. These arrowheads are stored on his tunic belts.

2.) Vision

Okay, they've rebuilt him from just being an upper torso, and from him being sperated into his every individual component. Okay, I dunno about you, but if you're taking something apart to study it, and then you try and put it back together, you catalog the parts. Now, even if half of Vision is busted, you can still re-create the parts, rebuild him. Especially when you consider that the government has created at least one other syntehzoid/android, Tara, the female Human Torch, and the fact that several others, such as Jim Hammond and Adam II have existed.

3) Dissassembly

The Avengers have had massive crap happen to them before, and didn't break up. Teammates die? yup. Teammates betrayal? The Crossing mess and Dr. Druid. This wasn't even as bad as Onslaught. C'mon guys.

As for the business with Scarlet Witch altering reality, I'm kinda with Bendis fans on this one. It does make sense, since although the stuff she pulled off was nigh-infinitely possible, it was still a possibility. And in recent years she's brought people back from the dead, and had gradaully been gaining more control of her powers, so the likelyhood of her gaining the capability to alter reality itself isn't too much of a stretch.

My POV on this stuff? Try giving stuff a read before you knock it like everyone else. The only one of these I havn't read was the Crossing, and even that I've read enough stuff regarding and books from that period to know it was kinda... not so great.

I'm suprised nobodys put the "Jacket-era" Avengers on here!

[Phrozen]

The only person she "brought" back from the dead that I recall is Wonder Man and that has a lot more to do with his Ionic Powers. Wanda altered probability so that he would come back to help her but the coming back from the dead was all about being an ionic being.

[Chris N]

...

Bendis is by far the most overrated writer in Marvel , he's the marvel equvalent of DC's Brad Meltzer.

...



Just so it's clear. Bendis is a good writer. If he'd only written Goldfish, his talent would be evident. Throw in Jinx, Torso, Powers, Ultimate Spider-Man, Alias, Daredevil... he know what he's doing. What he knows how to do is write dialogue between 2 characters he understands, or do a story focused on a single character he understands. What he does not know how to do is tell epic stories featuring iconic characters. He has no ability to write Avengers. But he's not a bad writer. Just a bad Avengers writer.

And, I may have voted wrong. I think Austen's Avengers are the worst ever written, but Disassembled is probably the most infamous. I am sold by recent arguments, including the best recap of the story I've ever heard above.

[John Nowak]

But he's not a bad writer. Just a bad Avengers writer.

I've got to agree with you here. I'm going through his Daredevil run in trades, and it's hard to believe they're written by the same guy who wrote Disassembled.

...Okay, the bit about a major corporation making an amphetamine for the teen market was hilarious, and not in a nice way (Maybe they were going to stock it next to that chewable, fruit-flavored heroin in tablets shaped like little dinosaurs) but it was a minor plot point and not mentioned more than once.

[Blind pugh]

Missed Austen's run so have to go with the Crossing.

It made jesus cry!!

[Siddon]

It's very hard for me to say anything bad about AD because I think of it as sort of a meta-arc. Most of the complaint's we hear about the story where fairly cheesy and ultimately mitigated by following stories. AD was kind of the bad medicine you had to swallow so you could get to all the great stories that came out of it.....

Alot of great stories came out of AD from the best Excailibur run to Young Avengers to Captain America to She-Hulk to Amazing Spider-man to X-factor. My only regret to this whole thing was that Bendis didn't get to finish his trilogy of AD, HOM, and Civil War. Damn Joe Quesada for screwing with Bendis!

Anyways I voted The Crossing, the art was good to crap but the story was way to hard and way to stupid to follow. They didn't kill anyone important and it was to much of a "mystery" first a locked door then a murderer. I still think that Iron Man and Kang will never recover from this story.

I am troubled that most of those options are from the last 10 years. For instance I would think that the Druid/Inferno years should have made the list, or even the first year which was godaweful and unreadable.

[Whirlwind Dinamo]

The massive shake up after Dissembled
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2010/12/the-sentry-fallen-sun012.jpg
even Jenkins got involved in the disasters





Furthermore, Bendis changes the Scarlet Witch's hex spheres from altering probability to altering reality itself on a cosmic scale. Brian Michael Bendis should be ashamed of the Avengers Disassembled garbage because it reads like terrible fan-fiction instead of a professional mature writer.

Dissassembled is the worst run largely because Bendis had a blueprint for Wanda, a blueprint for Sentry and probably ended up mixing up both blueprints and didn't know what direction to drive the plot next


http://ragnell.blogspot.com/2010/05/forget-death-character-needs-to-be.html

" For those of you not following the current Marvel metaplot, the Sentry was created years ago as an April Fool's Day joke that actually wasn't too terrible to read left alone, but that went horribly awry when a writer who shall remain nameless rescued the character from the annuls of Marvel Imaginary Stories (I mean, Imaginary-Imaginary not Real-Imaginary like we've been reading) and brought him into the Marvel Universe in all his insanity. To be fair, I suspect this writer brought him back because he originally intended to write the Scarlet Witch in a tragic fallen hero trilogy where the Marvel Universe mourns the death of someone who as once a friend who had to be destroyed for the good of the universe. Then sometime after Part I was published (and he'd committed himself to Part II) someone pointed out to this writer that the Scarlet Witch had fans (and possibly that the way he drove her insane didn't really fit into continuity but that may be giving Marvel too much credit), so he handed off the Scarlet Witch (and Part III, now her redemption arc) to a television writer who would put her at the bottom of his priorities list, and dug up the f*cking Sentry as the new centerpiece."




Her hex powers have always been very undefined and the whole "probability effect" is a just a tame way of saying that she can make anything happen although I'll give you that they amped up her hex to crazy high levels during House of M.

The Witch could have worked but his other pet toy Sentry never worked, Sentry created infamous fan outrage
http://allthingsfangirl.blogspot.com/2010/05/dear-marvel-writers-who-arent-mike.html
"When? When, exactly, in their long involved history of being such dear friends and teammates, did Rogue and Sentry- OH WAIT THEY WERE NEVER THOSE THINGS. Hmmn. Back to the drawing board.


It's this sort of irresponsible b%*11$**! that clutters up a canon to the point where Peter David has to be hired to come in and fix it. I am stunned that in the middle of Mike Carey's extraordinary work with the character, the years, now, he's spent bringing Rogue back to a place of real characterization after she was drowning in a sea of muddled unhealthy 'romance' plots, Paul Jenkins (with the influence, I would image, of one Brian Michael Bendis) would pull a bush league move like this. It's *%*$.


I want a timeline. I want a backstory. I want citations. How dare you make something as important to Rogue's character as physical intimacy a punchline in a book that has nothing to do with the X-Men or their lives. It is so disrespectful to the fans, and to the writers who actually love and are writing the character. This is nonsensical. This is LAZY. This is stupid. This is detrimental to both of their characters. This is sloppy, thoughtless retconning at its worst. And you should be extremely disappointed in yourself. "


Even the animated toon writers made a joke of his run
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y192/valechan/bigbendistrolling.jpg


NOT LIKE THIS!!!!

[Nomads1]

Austen's run, with Dissassembled comming in close second. Pym's fall from grace and recovery was a very well done story and it's biggest failing is other writers inability of letting it go. I liked the Crossing. A great premise with an abismal execution, but it had its fun moments, and most of it is no longer valid anyway.
Austen is IMHO, the worst Avengers writer ever, and that ridiculous unearthing of Pym and Jan's problems right after Busiek and Johns had finished setting it to ground, resulted in some of the most OOC and absurd developments in Avengers history. Bendis was the one that made me quit reading Avengers, however, had he remained a little bit longer, I could see Auten having done so, much faster.
Dissasembled is pure crap, no doubt, but I can see it as it was, a story designed to shake things up and clear board for Bendis' team. Could it have been done better? You bet, but I don't think it ever had much thought given to it. It was just seen as means to an end. Had Bendis whole run been an option, my vote could have been different, seeing that my biggest problem with it was it's seemlessly endless length.

Peace

[MonteMike72]

Disassembled was pure drek. Nothing comes close.

[Mechano]

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/6/63658/1516725-thunderbolts150__super.jpg

[Corey W]

I would vote "other", Avengers 200 is hands down the worst and most infamous Avengers story ever.

Of the choices listed:

The Crossing: The Crossing was horifically bad. Plot points were just dropped mid-story, the art was 90's style, and like Disassembled, someone was apparently convinced that the only way to improve the Avengers was to destroy the core team. So the Wasp was turned into an actual Wasp and Tony was villainized and killed. And WTF with Mantis? that just came out of nowhere. As someone else pointed out, the Crossing was so bad that it took a hard reboot, a second reboot, one of the great Avengers runs of all time, and a 12 issue mini-series to get the bad taste out our mouths. Even at that, it is probably best if the story is simply never referenced again.

Wife-beating Hank Pym: The original story is one of the best Avengers stories ever and easily the best Hank Pym story. Both his descent and his rise were well done. With the coda of Lost in Space-Time securing the redemption of Pym, I couldn't imagine anyone really disliking the story. It shows how using past hints of charecterization to write a believable snapping under pressure (something that should happen to superheroes more often) is done. The problem is that it is such a great story that no one will leave it alone. First Shooter revisted it in WCA (which was fine). Then it was more or less forgotten until Busiek brought it back up. IMO, it was one of the few misses of KB's run becuase the issue was resolved and there was nothing that needed to be tied off, but he handled it o.k. so no one really cared. Then Johns dealt with it further in the next run. Dealing with it in a second consecutive run may have been the point of no return after which every subsequent writer needs to give it his or her own take. Following Johns, Austen badly mishandled the issue in his run--throwing out both characterization and continuity to deal with it. Then Bendis dealt with it (reasonably well and subtly, I thought) in his run. Then Slott continued to deal with the Pym redemption arc even if he left the wife-beating per se out. The same was true in AA. But then, at that point, the issue had been brought up in six runs in a row including every run involving Pym for more than a decade. Now, it is just there.

Disassembled: Confession: I thought that despite the flaws Disassembled, Housse of M, and the early NA arcs were a lot of fun. In fact, I really enjoyed them. The problem is that unlike the Crossing, the toys were never put back in the box. Nearly a decade later, Wanda is only just returned and is being redeemed, the Vision is just returned and hasn't done anything, Ant-Man is just returned and hasn't done anything, Hawkeye is probably irretrievably ruined (but the new one is fine, so to me it is a wash) and the major fallout to the mutant titles is still being felt. Basically, the story and its aftermath permanently blew up the entire MU. If you liked the old MU (and I did) that is a problem.

The other problem is that the execution of Disassembled was not well handled. Maybe no one understood how important it would wind up being. Probably they couldn't. But it needed to be more thought through. Others have hit upon the flaws, but the big one is that Wanda had already dealt with the loss of her children. And editor needed to catch that and they a better hook. Same with Dr. Strange and the "there is no such thing as Chaos Magic." I get that we needed an explanation of the Witch's off-the-scale power-up that began under Busiek, but it needed to be better than that. Hawkeye's "not like this' was silly, as was the fact that he was apparently killing Kree, but I could have lived with either (who knows if the Kree really died) if he came back quickly and in character.

Still, it was not a great story but it was a fun one. That prevents it from being the worst Avengers story.

Austen: This gets my vote of the four listed. His mishandling of Clint and Jan, Hank and Jan, and Clint and Hank was bad enough. The bizarre "gotcha" that Captain Britain and Meggan played on Lionheart is impossible to explain. And the Invaders arc wasn't good. There is little positive to be said about the run and I am not shocked that Marvel thought they might need to blow up the Avengers and start fresh after it.

[strathcona]

Disassembled, not only because it was a poorly written and planned arc, but because it also set the tone for how Marvel would tell big stories for the next 8 years. Writers no longer had to actually try to work their plots to fit into the existing history of the MU, now they could just cram whatever characters or selective continuity they needed into their story... who cares if it makes sense when looked at as part of the MU, as long as the story itself is good. That may work for new readers, or for some who just don't care about characterization or continuity, but for those of us who do, it makes a huge difference. Marvel realized with Disassembled, they could throw out the research a good writer would put into a story, and just have any old writer throw together a story in a few minutes, cram in the needed characters and it would sell. That was a horrible precedent to set, and it really hurt the MU in the long run, even if Marvel the company profited from it.

[The Black Guardian]

The rape of Carol Danvers needs to be up there, too.

But I'm going with Pym's story. It took the character many years to get past that, and just when he did, it was needlessly dragged out again.

Crossing and Disassembled were nothing.

[Filip]

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070915173756/marveldatabase/images/a/a5/Avengers_Vol_1_200.jpg

[Nomads1]

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070915173756/marveldatabase/images/a/a5/Avengers_Vol_1_200.jpg

IMHO, it does have some redeeming qualities. That great cover is one of them.

Peace