Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis: What is your verdict?

[XPac]

Well, I never said anything like that, though I hoped it. I also don't agree that Bendis will be remembered as this decade's Liefeld, but I still do not think he will be remembered as one of the greats either. I think he will be remembered as being very influential this decade, but I think in a few years we are going to see a return to more traditional comicbooks and move away from the type of writing he is known for and his influence will just be seen as a blip on the radar and not the definining run that people are thinking it is now.

If the Avengers remain the top franchise in the MU, that alone will make him more than a blip on the radar for me.

No offense to the X books, but I've always thought the Avengers SHOULD be the center piece of the MU. The Avengers Big 3 should be the MU big 3 at least storywise (even if guys like Spidey and Logan are still the mega superstars in terms of popularity).

And Bendis in a weird way made that happen. By disassembling the Avengers, he made them the top franchise. By ripping the Big 3 apart, me actually made that trinity more significant. Cap, Thor, and Tony standing side by side once upon a time was no big deal... now it's an event of importance.

If all this remains in place, even long after Bendis is gone, then I think he'll have forged a pretty descent legacy.

[Kasper Cole]

*Ahem*


Miller...

You know who I meant

[Alan2099]

If the Avengers remain the top franchise in the MU, that alone will make him more than a blip on the radar for me.

No offense to the X books, but I've always thought the Avengers SHOULD be the center piece of the MU. The Avengers Big 3 should be the MU big 3 at least storywise (even if guys like Spidey and Logan are still the mega superstars in terms of popularity).

And Bendis in a weird way made that happen. By disassembling the Avengers, he made them the top franchise. By ripping the Big 3 apart, me actually made that trinity more significant. Cap, Thor, and Tony standing side by side once upon a time was no big deal... now it's an event of importance.

If all this remains in place, even long after Bendis is gone, then I think he'll have forged a pretty descent legacy.

I wouldn't say that. Nobody talks about how great Stan Lee's run on Daredevil was because later writers managed to tell good stories with him.

[Rev. Calibos]

If the Avengers remain the top franchise in the MU, that alone will make him more than a blip on the radar for me.

No offense to the X books, but I've always thought the Avengers SHOULD be the center piece of the MU. The Avengers Big 3 should be the MU big 3 at least storywise (even if guys like Spidey and Logan are still the mega superstars in terms of popularity).

And Bendis in a weird way made that happen. By disassembling the Avengers, he made them the top franchise. By ripping the Big 3 apart, me actually made that trinity more significant. Cap, Thor, and Tony standing side by side once upon a time was no big deal... now it's an event of importance.

If all this remains in place, even long after Bendis is gone, then I think he'll have forged a pretty descent legacy.

That could go either way though. Consider the JLA. The creative team on Justice League International from the end of Zero Hour until the titles cancellation with issue #113 was pretty poor in my opinion. The tinkered 'Satellite' Hq in the form of the Overmaster's escape pod, the nuttiness of Power Girl's pregnancy, Nuklon's clumsy attempts to woo Ice Maiden, none of it really clicked for me, nothing in the book during this period made me think 'Justice League'.


But what it DID do was make Morrison/Porter's JLA that much more special. Seeing the Big 7 together on one team had more of an impact because of the unremarkable JLA stories that were being told up until that point.

Or even the Detroit years. I was really, REALLY glad to see a revamped Justice League after being forced to suffer through JLDetroit for so long.

[Kasper Cole]

I wouldn't say that. Nobody talks about how great Stan Lee's run on Daredevil was because later writers managed to tell good stories with him.

That's because Stan Lee created the character and told a few stories that basically had the character being looked at as Spider-Man knockoff. Miller came on board and totally redefined the character and how most people viewed him.

[XPac]

That could go either way though. Consider the JLA. The creative team on Justice League International from the end of Zero Hour until the titles cancellation with issue #113 was pretty poor in my opinion. The tinkered 'Satellite' Hq in the form of the Overmaster's escape pod, the nuttiness of Power Girl's pregnancy, Nuklon's clumsy attempts to woo Ice Maiden, none of it really clicked for me, nothing in the book during this period made me think 'Justice League'.


But what it DID do was make Morrison/Porter's JLA that much more special. Seeing the Big 7 together on one team had more of an impact because of the unremarkable JLA stories that were being told up until that point.

Or even the Detroit years. I was really, REALLY glad to see a revamped Justice League after being forced to suffer through JLDetroit for so long.

Yeah, but while Bendis was disassembling the Avengers he was also making them the number one on-going title in the entire industry. So it's not exactly comparable to JLA Detroit here... he made them MORE significant than they were before.

[rawhidekid]

Dark Avengers is the greatest Avengers story ever told. It looks like its going to end but at least its going out on top.

[XPac]

Dark Avengers is the greatest Avengers story ever told. It looks like its going to end but at least its going out on top.

It's currently my favorite Avengers book.

I'm still a bit bugged that DA was basically derailed for Utopia. That should have just stayed in the X books.

[Rev. Calibos]

Yeah, but while Bendis was disassembling the Avengers he was also making them the number one on-going title in the entire industry. So it's not exactly comparable to JLA Detroit here... he made them MORE significant than they were before.

This is true, JLDetroit never got the kinds of sales they were hoping for but that entire era is pretty signifcant, although not for reasons that most would be happy about.

And that's where I think you and I may differ in opinion. I don't consider total sales to be any indication of a books significance. JLDetroit tanked and led to the cancellation of the Pre-Crisis JLA book but it's still a far more 'significant' period of the team's history compared to the time after the shakeup due to Breakdowns.

[rawhidekid]

It's currently my favorite Avengers book.

I'm still a bit bugged that DA was basically derailed for Utopia. That should have just stayed in the X books.

I didn't like Utopia either. I like X-Men and I like Dark Avengers but every time I see X-Men and Avengers in the same book it feels odd.

[strathcona]

I'd probably agree with you if not for his work on Daredevil and Ultimate Spider-Man. His Daredevil work in particular very well might go down as the second best work on the character behind Millar.

Possibly, but we are talking about Avengers here. Bendis will probably go down as one of the greats on Daredevil and Ult. Spider-Man (not that I read either book), but not as an Avengers writer. He will be remembered as a long-term, high sales writer, but the stories he is writing will not have a large impact on the MU for years to come.

[strathcona]

Yeah... Gruenwald rocked. His continuity and characterization was as close to zen perfect as any human writer could be.

It's an utter crime that Squadron Supreme isn't looked upon the way people look at Kingdom Come or Watchmen.

Absolutely agree. Personally, I would rank Squadron Supreme on the same level as Watchmen, and well above Kingdom Come (wasn't that impressed myself). I have probably reread that mini (I have the original issues) more than any other comic in my (quite large) collection.

[strathcona]

If the Avengers remain the top franchise in the MU, that alone will make him more than a blip on the radar for me.

No offense to the X books, but I've always thought the Avengers SHOULD be the center piece of the MU. The Avengers Big 3 should be the MU big 3 at least storywise (even if guys like Spidey and Logan are still the mega superstars in terms of popularity).

And Bendis in a weird way made that happen. By disassembling the Avengers, he made them the top franchise. By ripping the Big 3 apart, me actually made that trinity more significant. Cap, Thor, and Tony standing side by side once upon a time was no big deal... now it's an event of importance.

If all this remains in place, even long after Bendis is gone, then I think he'll have forged a pretty descent legacy.

I agree that the Avengers should be the biggest team in the MU... but I think I have figured out what the disagreement between us is here. I have no interest at all in sales. I don't care if a book is the best selling book in the history of comics, or if I am the only person that buys a copy... I want the comic to be good... that is the end of the arguement for me.

You are talking about Bendis having made a legacy on the sales of the book, I am talking about him making a legacy with the characters and the Avengers name within the MU itself. I do not believe Bendis's stories will have lasting impact beyond his time at Marvel. Sure, some things will be continued like Luke Cage and Jessica Jones's child (a good thing) or Wolverine and Sentry being at all the 'every Avengers gets together meeting' (bad thing)... but overall, it will mostly fade away.

[matthewaos]

Bendis' avengers made me care for them. It may sure not be the best there is though for various reasons but I enjoy the book pretty much.

[Will.S]

And? That makes his doing it better?

No, but then again I don't think he consciously does it to annoy you. He simply developed his own style of writing through various influences which brings out more "movie style" type of panel transitions.

Sometimes I think it works, sometimes it doesn't. Many writers have written books using that "uncompressed" model and some have succeeded and some have failed. But there is no right or wrong way to write a comic, it all depends on whether you like the execution so obviously his style doesn't work for you on the whole.

I like Bendis' run, I find it fun and entertaining to read but when it comes to the actual plot and storylines, only a few really made an impact on me. Looking back, here's what happened:

- the breakout
- the savage land adventure to retrieve Sauron
- the sentry story arc
- facing Hand ninjas in Japan
- facing the Collective
- the super adaptoid battle
- the civil war tie-ins

Of the above, I only really liked the battle with the super-adaptoid and the Collective arc. Then followed the next incarnation of the New Avengers led by Luke Cage:

- The Revolution
- the confrontations with The Hood
- the Secret Invasion tie-ins (does this count as New Avengers storylines?)

Looking back, Bendis' run doesn't seem to have storylines that have a lasting impact on the Marvel U. At least, to me it doesn't.

I don't think that Bendis' stories neccessarily have to have a lasting impact on the entire Marvel Universe to be regarded as good or great. But so far most of his events (House of M, Secret Invasion) or usage of certain characters throughout his run (Echo, Sentry, Hood, Tigra, etc) contributed in some way to the overall Marvel Universe.

No, no, a thousand times no.

The dialog is ridiculously homogeneous, and all of the characters have been stripped away to a single base idea. Spidey tells jokes; Wolverine is gruff; Luke Cage loves his wife. They aren't characters, they're caricatures.

But even putting that aside, nothing about his team feels like The Avengers. The Avengers are, traditionally, a team full of veritable powerhouses, tasked to deal with the threats that the heroes can't deal with on their own. They fight cosmic-level threats. Under Bendis, it's a collective of street-level heroes with a powerhouse or two thrown in, albeit usually in a very restricted capacity as to not be that much more powerful than the rest of the team. (ie. Dr. Strange is a useless magician; The Void rears his head every time Sentry is about to do something useful) He keeps the tone of the book dark and edgy because, for so many writers nowadays, this seems to be equated with realism, which is apparently good. As far as I'm concerned, that's not the Avengers. Give me Dan Slott's Mighty Avengers any day of the week over New Avengers or Dark Avengers. The second one makes me a bit sad, really, because Ellis' Thunderbolts run is among my favorite superhero runs ever, and the characters are just being horribly mistreated.

I have seen this arguement used many times. 'The Kooky Quartet showed that the Avengers can be street level' or 'The Kooky Quartet showed that anyone can be an Avengers' Once again, that is not the point. The Kooky Quartet was after 16 issues... the tone of the book was still shifting and finding it's place. It is the 40 years that follows the Kooky Quartet that set the tone. The Avengers are the team that handle the threat too big for any one of them on their own. Hell, even the Kooky Quartet were taking on Doom and Kang. The New Avengers are capable of taking on these level threats in the hands of a decent writer, but in the hands of Bendis they are just fighting threats that Wolverine or Spider-Man can fight on their own.

*Bear in mind, there are some issues of NA that have them taking on Avengers-level threats, and there are some issues of Avengers in the past that had them taking on threats that are not Avengers-levels threats. But over all, Bendis has missed the point of the Avengers.

It's less that Bendis has missed the point of the Avengers and more that you guys seem to not understand the point of the New Avengers.

There is a noticeable pattern of New Avengers characters that Bendis likes to use whom he'll mix in with newer members to see how well they'll play off of each other. As mentioned by The Infected, the team will have a powerhouse character or two in their roster but the team isn't always going to be stacked with an all powerhouse team of superheroes nor is it really meant to be. When you've got the opposite of that you have Bendis' Mighty Avengers who were pretty powerful but still managed to work out pre-Invasion (at least to my mind).

The New Avengers rosters have always felt organic to me in the way in which they were formed or added new team members to their ranks. When they fight as a team they feel like they've naturally gelled as a result of their time together. The reason why I think Bendis is doing this is because he wants to spotlight certain characters and mix in the old guard with the new while not giving us the exact same lineups that we've seen time and time again which are referred to as the "classic lineups". Plus the new guard like Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, and Wolverine don't become immediately overshadowed or look as out of place by Avengers stalwarts like Thor, Wasp, Iron Man, or Hank Pym since they can work better at the forefront.

But as the current New Avengers vs Dark Avengers arc is showing, having an all powerhouse team isn't required for a book to be fun or deemed an Avengers title, at least not in my book.

Compare that to The Morgan Conquest, the last big Avengers vs Morgan le Fay storyline.

In four issues, they put together a new Avengers team, had fights with Morgan, Mordred, and many different mythological monsters, plus Whirlwind, had apperances from everyone who had ever been an Avengers up until that point, added a few new members that hadn't been Avengers, rew-rote reality, brought some people back from the dead, and brought up some new character subplots.

And Busiek's story was a fine Avengers story but the cast of characters and tone of the current Dark Avengers book is completely different from Busiek's opening Avengers salvo.

It's basically Norman and his crew of mostly villains and misfits fighting a high level Avengers threat with Dr. Doom thrown in for good measure. You may not like the style in which it's written but it was a unique and different approach at using Morgan LeFay as a villain compared to the way Busiek had done it with his Avengers run.

It's an entertaining read at times but, imho at least, it's more miss than hit.

Since Disassembled the books have been about a splintered team. An interesting concept at first but one that was overshadowed by event after event after event. While it wasn't god awful by any means his run on the Avengers will pale in comparison to the works of Roy Thomas, Walt Simonson and others.

Walt Simonson's Avengers run?

I love the guy's work and all but his Avengers run hasn't had any impact on me or the book on the whole whatsoever save for a pretty bad line up in transitioning from Stern to Macchio to him.