CBR: When Words Collide - May 24, 2010

[CBR News]

Staring down the Heroic Age, Tim takes a look at two recent comic series reboots - Bendis's "Avengers" and Levitz's "Legion of Super-Heroes" - and explores how they intersect both with each other and the past.


Full article here.

[Mart]

Very nice piece, you make some interesting points, Tim. I enjoyed the Legion much more than the Avengers book, it plays more to my sensibility - I appreciate what Brian Bendis does, and I enjoy individual scenes, but the wholes rarely sit well with me. Paul Levitz on the Legion, though, that sings.

The biggest disappointment with Avengers for me was the Romita pencils - the couple of action sequences were terrific but other than that I don't feel the book played to his strengths at all.

I won't go on, though - I've blethered on at length about both (and Teenagers from the Future!) at my blog thing, whose link is likely below!

Comic reviews from the UK (which doesn't actually improve them any ...): http://dangermart.blogspot.com/

[Comics Ninja]

Couldn't agree more with your points accept one. When it came to the Avengers I personally couldnt' stand the artwork of Romita, Jr. It was so kiddish I had to check three times to make sure I hadn't picked up some juvenile version of the book. If the the new Avengers series is geared towards five years olds there is nothing wrong with that, it just means I'll have to read something else. By and large most of the Ninja Nation over at www.comicsninja.com, that I spoke with felt the same way.

The Comics Ninja

[DestructionOfTheUniverse]

I liked the mentioning of the fact that alternate realities and alien invasions are more realistic than time travel. Seconded.

[connor_kent]

i would have to disagree with you on one point. LSH #1 requires pretty much that new readers only pick up 1 story to get caught up. (Superman and the LSH by Geoff Johns) Avengers however u gotta go back and read Siege. then back to Secet Invasion. then back to Civil War. so in terms of accessibility I would have to give it to Legion of Super heroes.

[rev sully]

Yet to get both, but only will get one.
I Choose Legion. I love Bendis, don't get me wrong...but I think I've been waiting for this LSH since I was a kid. By pick up I do mean follow for 1 year. I just can't get into this new Heroic Age thing. I didn't dig the JRJr art either. Since his ASM run with JMS & WOLVERINE with Millar inked by Klaus Jansen, I've been "meh" on him. I picked up ASM: New Ways To Die and it made my eyes hurt but iDigress...^_~
I liked SIEGE but hated that last splash page. It didn't sit well. I loved the last splash of NEW AVENGERS FINALE which really was the SIEGE pay-off...and I was disappointed that SIEGE#4 wasn't the Siege Pay-Off....

And I am an Huge Green Lantern Fan. And I've yet to be spoiled. As Lisa Simpson & Paul Anka advised..."just don't look, just don't look". So, LSH is on my horizon then. In the deluge of potentially good AVENGER franchise titles, I'm staying clear. Still my only monthly MARVEL mag for years since CIVIL WAR ended and I stopped buying MARVEL...Bendis' ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN. This is the first time I've NOT referred to it as ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN anywhere (and I thought ruining Planet X by Grant/X-Men Reload by Chuck Austen was where I got off the Boat...).

[elikal]

Interesting read, and somewhat bizarre than Marvel now seems to go back to classic goodness while the main DC league, the JL, seems to DROWN in rape, hero-butchering and gore. While I appreciate the idea to make the Legion more brighter and that surely is what I like, I never could find the fascination for any of the Legion's heros. I tried, but they are just not as cool as those of JLA or Avengers. *shrug*

[arrow41]

I love LOSH #1. I have only been reading comics for about 6 years now and the only thing I know about this legion is what happened in the Superman and the LOSH story and everything since then. I followed it just fine. I've stayed away from Marvel after Civil War except for Cap and Daredevil but I wanted to start reading avengers again and wanted to like this. I just could not and I think that had nothing to do with the writing and everything to do with the art. I don't get why so many folks love JRJR art. I can't stand it. The big block people with not enough detail work. Hate it. I will not pick this up again until a new art team comes on.

[Steven R. Stahl]

Bendis has played with international conspiracies, and alternate realities, and alien invasions, but time travel is a particularly unrealistic sci-fi notion that he's largely avoided.

Since he launched DARK AVENGERS with a time travel storyline and had a time travel storyline in MIGHTY AVENGERS, that's a questionable statement.

AVENGERS #1 was far worse than one would think from your assessment of it. Having Spider-Man ask about his future, supposing that Stark has to create a doomsday device, and making the future of the other Avengers plot material raised the issue of predestination, and the (dire?) consequences of changing their minds. If the Avengers' futures arem't already known, then why have Stark argue the point? His dialogue, which likened time and space to "organisms," was easily the weakest part of the story.

Aside from the question of whether Bendis's Avengers stories actually worked as stories, what were their themes? They don't seem to have had any. SIEGE was a failure from the moment it was conceived, in that respect.

SRS

[kaw26]

I love JRJR, but he is a poor fit for drawing the new, streamlined Iron Man suit, which is a liquid that can be stored inside his bones.