Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis: What is your verdict?

[marshal99]

The entire marvel universe , not just avengers got bendised. He will leave his stain everywhere.

The mark of Bendis.

[Nomads1]

Okay, now that I brought it up, I'm actually kinda curious: would turning Hawkeye into an agent of SHIELD/black ops type character fly in the face of everything he's supposed to represent? Truth be told, he's one of my favorite characters in the UU, in large part because of his relationship with Fury and SHIELD. I thought this interpretation worked very well in the movies also. Thoughts? All I know about him is what Bendis has done with him, and apparently that's not the best benchmark .

Although he has grown and matured a lot over the years, going as far as becoming Avengers leader, Hawkeye doesn't respond well to authority. He's a rebel at heart. I don't see him very keen on becoming "The Man". Even if he does join, if well-written (as 616 Hawkeye really has very little in common with Ultimate Hawkeye), he'd probably never get that "Agent of the Year" award, as he's not very fond of playing by SHIELD's rules, and the association would be very brief. There is also that whole carny stuff that have left some people bothered by his association with the Secret Avengers and his new costume. Clint is a show-off, he's a performer at heart, and the spectale is a big part of it. It's right there in his first appearence in Iron Man. That clashes a bit with the whole covert thing. However, since he's not been writtemn quite like this in a while, it probably would take very little effort to veer him that way. Honestly, I think it would be a waste of a very unique and multi-layered character in favor of a quite boring and bi-dimensional one. Plus, there are already enough of the secret agent super-types, but ever since they killed Elongated Man, Clint was the one that represented the showman super-hero.

Peace

[deathcry]

Again, the first Sentry mini was not in mainstream continuity.

Source? Never heard this before.

It could have been ignored, but I never read anything that said it wasn't part of 'mainstream continuity'.

Either way, this wasn't Bendis creation. He did next to nothing with Sentry in the old days. WWH was probably the only story that referenced Sentry knowing everyone before, and that wasn't Bendis either.

Ah never mind... I see in a later post you wrote

I can admit the distinction is a dubious one, as the conceit of the Sentry minis was to retcon in the Sentry, and therefore Jenkins is to "blame" for that idea.
But nobody else ever used it, or referenced it in a story, which is why I believe it to not have been a "canon" 616 retcon until Bendis wrote new avengers.
At which point Jenkins retcon, as you would have it, became "canon".

It's nice to make things up... you should write comics.

[taylor51]

Although he has grown and matured a lot over the years, going as far as becoming Avengers leader, Hawkeye doesn't respond well to authority. He's a rebel at heart. I don't see him very keen on becoming "The Man". Even if he does join, if well-written (as 616 Hawkeye really has very little in common with Ultimate Hawkeye), he'd probably never get that "Agent of the Year" award, as he's not very fond of playing by SHIELD's rules, and the association would be very brief. There is also that whole carny stuff that have left some people bothered by his association with the Secret Avengers and his new costume. Clint is a show-off, he's a performer at heart, and the spectale is a big part of it. It's right there in his first appearence in Iron Man. That clashes a bit with the whole covert thing. However, since he's not been writtemn quite like this in a while, it probably would take very little effort to veer him that way. Honestly, I think it would be a waste of a very unique and multi-layered character in favor of a quite boring and bi-dimensional one. Plus, there are already enough of the secret agent super-types, but ever since they killed Elongated Man, Clint was the one that represented the showman super-hero.

Peace

What makes you say Classic and Ultimate Hawkeye have very little in common? Even when Clint's been written by non-Bendis writers (Brubaker, Remender off the top of my head), it feels like the core elements are there: he's competent/confident (maybe even a little cocky), he's kinda got the bad boy thing going for him, he's charismatic, etc. I don't think I necessarily buy into the idea that being a show-off precludes him from covert work (especially in a super hero comic lol); to say so almost discounts his achievements throughout the years as an adventurer. I feel like Hawkeye cares about saving the world over everything else, so even if he does so with a little flair, that's always going to be his focus. 616 Hawkeye may not have the military background he has in 1610 but he's still a veteran super hero who can be counted on to get the job done, and really that professionalism is what I consider to be Hawkeye's defining characteristic in either universe, my limited knowledge of 616 Avengers history permitting.

I'm not sure how Marvel would go about enlisting Clint "naturally," so this MCU/UU syncretism might be a bit of a pipe dream for me, but I think he works really well in that regard. His powerset lends itself to recon, at least.

[tommyman]

Source? Never heard this before.

It could have been ignored, but I never read anything that said it wasn't part of 'mainstream continuity'.

Either way, this wasn't Bendis creation. He did next to nothing with Sentry in the old days. WWH was probably the only story that referenced Sentry knowing everyone before, and that wasn't Bendis either.

Ah never mind... I see in a later post you wrote


It's nice to make things up... you should write comics.

I've been looking for a source that the original Sentry Mini(s) were out of continuity, but cannot find any.
Therefore, I'd like to admit that I am wrong about that.
Bendis did not retcon Sentry into the 616 if he was already there from the original minis.
Of course all the stuff Bendis added about affairs with Crystal, and adjustments to Sentry's origin are his retcons, but I'm pretty sure that everybody will just ignore those and claim it's all Busiek's or Jenkin's fault.

[CTpitch]

The entire marvel universe , not just avengers got bendised. He will leave his stain everywhere.

The mark of Bendis.

*shudders...

[Ziggy Stardust]

I could car eless if Sentry was in continuity or not.

My question is WHY was he an Avengers when there are so many more interesting characters that could have been in there instead?

[deathcry]

I've been looking for a source that the original Sentry Mini(s) were out of continuity, but cannot find any.
Therefore, I'd like to admit that I am wrong about that.
Bendis did not retcon Sentry into the 616 if he was already there from the original minis.
Of course all the stuff Bendis added about affairs with Crystal, and adjustments to Sentry's origin are his retcons, but I'm pretty sure that everybody will just ignore those and claim it's all Busiek's or Jenkin's fault.

Yea the Crystal thing was a retcon he threw in there.... but I don't think anyone was claiming he didn't retcon anything...
this discussion went from Nomads wanting to basically retcon almost everything Bendis wrote to someone (perhaps you) claiming Bendis retconned the previous 35, and 42 years. Adding in some things, which almost ALL writers do is not re-writing all those years. It's supposedly adding to it. Nomads list is pretty much the "Dallas solution" to everything Bendis wrote. I think that was the crux of the conversations.
Peace

[Nomads1]

Yea the Crystal thing was a retcon he threw in there.... but I don't think anyone was claiming he didn't retcon anything...
this discussion went from Nomads wanting to basically retcon almost everything Bendis wrote to someone (perhaps you) claiming Bendis retconned the previous 35, and 42 years. Adding in some things, which almost ALL writers do is not re-writing all those years. It's supposedly adding to it. Nomads list is pretty much the "Dallas solution" to everything Bendis wrote. I think that was the crux of the conversations.
Peace

Oh, come on, it was 16 itens! I didn't even go back to add a seventeenth I remembered later on. It can't be almost EVERYTHING he wrote in 8 years. Not even Bendis uses THAT much decompression.

"Dallas Sollution". Heh, heh. That's a good one.

Peace

[RDMacQ]

I've been looking for a source that the original Sentry Mini(s) were out of continuity, but cannot find any.
Therefore, I'd like to admit that I am wrong about that.
Bendis did not retcon Sentry into the 616 if he was already there from the original minis.
Of course all the stuff Bendis added about affairs with Crystal, and adjustments to Sentry's origin are his retcons, but I'm pretty sure that everybody will just ignore those and claim it's all Busiek's or Jenkin's fault.

So, we'll accept those are retcons because that's what they are. We'll just not get our knickers in a twist over it since it's not anything that any other writer HASN'T done before as well.

[Burnsie1984]

My thoughts are that regardless of whether you hold Bendis responsible for the success of the franchise in the real world, its hard to overstate the importance of what Bendis has done for the Avengers in the Marvel universe.

Before Disassembled, the Fantastic Four were the definitive team of the Marvel universe. Always had been, and despite the growth and expansion of the Avengers' ranks, they were the team to measure up to, and that was stated many times by different characters. Bendis managed to change this, he made the Avengers the centre of the universe, because he dismantled the old ways and actually created a team that really consisted of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Nay, forget that, he assembled numerous teams!

[deathcry]

Oh, come on, it was 16 itens! I didn't even go back to add a seventeenth I remembered later on. It can't be almost EVERYTHING he wrote in 8 years. Not even Bendis uses THAT much decompression.

"Dallas Sollution". Heh, heh. That's a good one.

Peace

it's pretty close

[Frank]

Although he has grown and matured a lot over the years, going as far as becoming Avengers leader, Hawkeye doesn't respond well to authority. He's a rebel at heart. I don't see him very keen on becoming "The Man". Even if he does join, if well-written (as 616 Hawkeye really has very little in common with Ultimate Hawkeye), he'd probably never get that "Agent of the Year" award, as he's not very fond of playing by SHIELD's rules, and the association would be very brief. There is also that whole carny stuff that have left some people bothered by his association with the Secret Avengers and his new costume. Clint is a show-off, he's a performer at heart, and the spectale is a big part of it. It's right there in his first appearence in Iron Man. That clashes a bit with the whole covert thing. However, since he's not been writtemn quite like this in a while, it probably would take very little effort to veer him that way. Honestly, I think it would be a waste of a very unique and multi-layered character in favor of a quite boring and bi-dimensional one. Plus, there are already enough of the secret agent super-types, but ever since they killed Elongated Man, Clint was the one that represented the showman super-hero.

Peace

You must not like movie Hawkeye.

[XPac]

Wow... we're on 128 pages.

I wonder if any other comic book writer in the internet era would even get half the number of posts in a thread of this nature.

[Lascoden]

Wow... we're on 128 pages.

I wonder if any other comic book writer in the internet era would even get half the number of posts in a thread of this nature.

Geoff Johns?

Edit: Or Loeb, but that would not be as...balanced,