Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis: What is your verdict?

[Zen-aku]

His street level books are great, Bendis can have talent as a writer. But in a bigger verse with techology and magic and cosmic stuff happening he gets messy and to fix things he starts destroying characters just so a story plays out a way he thinks is cool.....and when he finally digs himself a hole that's too big.....then Bendis takes a character like Wanda or Sentry and does his whole Superboy-Prime pounding on the walls of reality, giving rise to the "Superboy Retcon Punch!" meme as a way of hand-waving his own continuity errors.

ummm he never did that, Sentry never retconed any thing and nether did wanda aside from the chaos magic thing, this hole you think he dug he never did

[Zen-aku]

I often wonder if posters such as yourselves actually read what others say about their dislike of Bendis's work, or do you just gloss over it as 'haterz gotta hate'? There have been many posts in this thread that explain exactly why Bendis is not a good writer and doesn't fit well with Avengers at all, and very little of those complaints have been 'petty' or 'people who don't like change' There are numerous well reasoned, and thoroughly explained reasons why his work is poor. You can choose to overlook those reasons and like it yourself, but that doesn't change the facts being pointed out about the quality of the work.

Except they aren't well thoguht out complaints they all come down to personal dislike, or a complete lie at worst.

[HaveAtThee]

[Will.S]

I've read those comments, like the "character assassination " crap (even though the times people acted out of character was explained) and the " chaos magic doesn't exist" (a good complaint, but I feel Dr. Stranges comment could've meant any number of things.) or even the "every one sounds the same " (which they don't) I still don't see the problem.

Well every writer can't bat 1000, personally I found his usage of Wonder Man to be pretty questionable as well as Sentry towards the end.

Wonder Man had a really sudden shift in personality that while I'm sure people can point back to Dark Reign, still seemed too extreme for the character for me to completely buy. Sentry became very one note after his tenure in Mighty Avengers, particularly during Dark Reign which had some fun and cool moments but ultimately did the character no favors in terms of development and potential. One can also say that his usage of the Hood became pretty excessive and that's coming from someone who generally liked his take on him.

[Zen-aku]

Well every writer can't bat 1000, personally I found his usage of Wonder Man to be pretty questionable as well as Sentry towards the end.

Wonder Man had a really sudden shift in personality that while I'm sure people can point back to Dark Reign, still seemed too extreme for the character for me to completely buy. Sentry became very one note after his tenure in Mighty Avengers, particularly during Dark Reign which had some fun and cool moments but ultimately did the character no favors in terms of development and potential. One can also say that his usage of the Hood became pretty excessive and that's coming from someone who generally liked his take on him.

I think the idea to turn the sentry into a tragic villain was allot better then the impotent hero that every one else used the sentry as.

Plus he mad for a a good deconstruction of what makes a superhero/Villian. The sentry is what happens when you give god like power to a waste of a human being instead of a Clark Kent or even a Maxwell Dillion

[Clark_Krunk]

I think the idea to turn the sentry into a tragic villain was allot better then the impotent hero that every one else used the sentry as.

Plus he mad for a a good deconstruction of what makes a superhero/Villian. The sentry is what happens when you give god like power to a waste of a human being instead of a Clark Kent or even a Maxwell Dillion

Im probably one of the few people on here who cant wait for Sentry's return... The entire Void Sentry idea was brilliant, both ultimate good and ultimate evil all in one...


and Sentry was messed up because of what happened to him in Dark Avengers. It was quite clear that Osborn was his puppet master and by doing so weakened the Sentry till his ultimate breaking point..


But how would any Bendis hater know of this unless they read Dark Avengers, but that would mean they are reading books they hate and that makes them look foolish. During that marvel era Dark Avengers was Marvels best title, that's my opinion at least

[Zen-aku]

Im probably one of the few people on here who cant wait for Sentry's return... The entire Void Sentry idea was brilliant, both ultimate good and ultimate evil all in one...


and Sentry was messed up because of what happened to him in Dark Avengers. It was quite clear that Osborn was his puppet master and by doing so weakened the Sentry till his ultimate breaking point..


But how would any Bendis hater know of this unless they read Dark Avengers, but that would mean they are reading books they hate and that makes them look foolish. During that marvel era Dark Avengers was Marvels best title, that's my opinion at least

Most People Will say Dark Avengers is great actually.

While i liked the sentry for the most part he needs to stay in the drawer for a while.

[Will.S]

I think the idea to turn the sentry into a tragic villain was allot better then the impotent hero that every one else used the sentry as.

Plus he mad for a a good deconstruction of what makes a superhero/Villian. The sentry is what happens when you give god like power to a waste of a human being instead of a Clark Kent or even a Maxwell Dillion

I got Bendis's intention but I preferred Jenkins more layered approach to Sentry/Robert Reynolds.

Granted, Paul referred to the Void an awful lot throughout the second mini series but throughout Dark Avengers Brian focused too much on either Sentry or the Void without getting much deeper into the psyche of Robert so it always became about counting down to the moment where Robert will unleash the Void rather than focusing on the character and his struggle and trying to develop the hero side of himself as well. This is why I preferred Brian's usage of the Sentry during his initial run of New Avengers since it felt a lot closer to the Paul Jenkins Sentry in concept than the latter appearances towards the end of Mighty Avengers and throughout Dark Avengers/Siege.

It also seemed like Paul Jenkins had more to say with the character before being put back on the shelf after Siege which is a shame because I don't think we would have gotten such a poor epilogue Siege Sentry issue from Paul otherwise.

[Zen-aku]

I got Bendis's intention but I preferred Jenkins more layered approach to Sentry/Robert Reynolds.

Granted, Paul referred to the Void an awful lot throughout the second mini series but throughout Dark Avengers Brian focused too much on either Sentry or the Void without getting much deeper into the psyche of Robert so it always became about counting down to the moment where Robert will unleash the Void rather than focusing on the character and his struggle and trying to develop the hero side of himself as well. This is why I preferred Brian's usage of the Sentry during his initial run of New Avengers since it felt a lot closer to the Paul Jenkins Sentry in concept than the latter appearances towards the end of Mighty Avengers and throughout Dark Avengers/Siege.

It also seemed like Paul Jenkins had more to say with the character before being put back on the shelf after Siege which is a shame because I don't think we would have gotten such a poor epilogue Siege Sentry issue from Paul otherwise.

Personally i thought the epilogue issue was inline with Jenkins earlier writings of the character which is probably why i didn't like it.

[Will.S]

Personally i thought the epilogue issue was inline with Jenkins earlier writings of the character which is probably why i didn't like it.

Fair enough.

[hysang]

Daredevil, Spider man and Moon knight would like to have a word with you.

I doubt it, since they aren't real.

[z1co80]

Just finished Mighty Avengers: Ultron Initiative and thought that after reading the New Avengers Vol. 1-6 i'd give my opinion so far.

I'll start by saying that i absolutely loved Secret War and it is a book i'll definitely read again, I also thought House Of M was good but since then i think his Avengers has been very average. There is something about his dialogue in New Avengers and Mighty Avengers that really irks me, I don't know how to really describe it as i have only been a comic reader for around a year but it feels like it lacks flow and there have been more than a few moments when i just though eh? None more so than in Ultron Initiative which i really didn't like and it's for that reason i decided to post my opinion so far.

I am hoping that i enjoy Dark Avengers more when i start on that.

[Saku]

I don't even know what I think of Bendis anymore. I hate a lot of his Avengers work, but I loved his Daredevil and am enjoying his X Men so far.

[Saku]

I went with "ok, but not near best". There were parts that were ok, but a good 70% of it was crap. Pretty much the entire post Siege Bendis Avengers/New Avengers has been terrible.