Ultimately Off-Topic VII: The Miles Frontier

[SuperKdon]

I just heard the news that Snyder is heading a Superman book.

This excites me so much that I've come to tell you all how excited that I am.

Also, I finally saw that new Spider-Man flick. It's alright.

[sage6paths]

I just heard the news that Snyder is heading a Superman book.

This excites me so much that I've come to tell you all how excited that I am.

That is good news. I can't wait. Snyder is like the Hickman of the DC universe. If they ever collaborated I think the universe would collapse.

[Plawsky]

Only The Avengers wasn't a major franchise when Bendis came on. He brought it into that spotlight. Now Marvel is giving him a franchise that is already big, one that he earned from his work on The Avengers.

A) I'm not sure what you're basing that on, but the Avengers WAS a big franchise; it was right behind the Ultimate Marvel and the X-Men at that time. Within the Ultimate books, Ultimates was always on top (whenever it finally came out). The Avengers might not have been the juggernaut it eventually became, but it was consistently a top 20 book for the years preceding Bendis.

B) While Bendis is certainly a name that can sell, the Avengers franchise rise to prominence had a lot more to do with Marvel's marketing shift than anything else. Sales went up immediately starting with #500 and through the New Avengers relaunch. He wasn't a big enough name to bring in that kind of jump based solely on anticipation. And for the next 7 years, the Avengers were continually the focus of the Marvel Universe as a whole as Marvel shifted away from the X-Men, relatively speaking. The same thing would have happened with pretty much any writer at the time. That's not to discredit anything that Bendis has done, but it's worth noting.

C) With the amount of writers that Marvel has to work with, it seems absurd to keep Bendis as their main writer. Why can't he just write one big X-Book? It's not about whether or not he earned it, because a lot of other writers have earned the chance to take high profile books, too. Gillen, for instance, has only had about 30 issues on Uncanny. Uncanny X-Men has been the #1 Marvel ongoing (not counting #1s and gimmicks) every month for the past twelve with one exception, Avengers #29. So why not give him the keys to the car? Instead, he gets Young Avengers and Iron Man - which I'm sure will be great books, but he's not the head writer. I know it was part of an effort to shake things up by moving creative teams around, but it's really not much of a shakeup to say "Hey - you know how Bendis has been the main writer at Marvel for 7 years? That's not changing!"

There's a big difference between writing the flagship book and writing both flagship books. Bendis is given much more creative control of Marvel than anyone else there. You'd think they might try something new instead. Give him a smaller book like Iron Man or something that he can write without having to focus on a broad spectrum. Instead, he gets not only the top two X-Men books, but also the main cosmic book.

Granted, this is all assuming that the teaser is actually for the #2 X-men book. But either way, I'd much rather see Bendis writing books like Daredevil again, which he's much better suited for than big picture, universe changing stories.

[pinq09]

A) I'm not sure what you're basing that on, but the Avengers WAS a big franchise; it was right behind the Ultimate Marvel and the X-Men at that time. Within the Ultimate books, Ultimates was always on top (whenever it finally came out). The Avengers might not have been the juggernaut it eventually became, but it was consistently a top 20 book for the years preceding Bendis.

B) While Bendis is certainly a name that can sell, the Avengers franchise rise to prominence had a lot more to do with Marvel's marketing shift than anything else. Sales went up immediately starting with #500 and through the New Avengers relaunch. He wasn't a big enough name to bring in that kind of jump based solely on anticipation. And for the next 7 years, the Avengers were continually the focus of the Marvel Universe as a whole as Marvel shifted away from the X-Men, relatively speaking. The same thing would have happened with pretty much any writer at the time. That's not to discredit anything that Bendis has done, but it's worth noting.

C) With the amount of writers that Marvel has to work with, it seems absurd to keep Bendis as their main writer. Why can't he just write one big X-Book? It's not about whether or not he earned it, because a lot of other writers have earned the chance to take high profile books, too. Gillen, for instance, has only had about 30 issues on Uncanny. Uncanny X-Men has been the #1 Marvel ongoing (not counting #1s and gimmicks) every month for the past twelve with one exception, Avengers #29. So why not give him the keys to the car? Instead, he gets Young Avengers and Iron Man - which I'm sure will be great books, but he's not the head writer. I know it was part of an effort to shake things up by moving creative teams around, but it's really not much of a shakeup to say "Hey - you know how Bendis has been the main writer at Marvel for 7 years? That's not changing!"

There's a big difference between writing the flagship book and writing both flagship books. Bendis is given much more creative control of Marvel than anyone else there. You'd think they might try something new instead. Give him a smaller book like Iron Man or something that he can write without having to focus on a broad spectrum. Instead, he gets not only the top two X-Men books, but also the main cosmic book.

Granted, this is all assuming that the teaser is actually for the #2 X-men book. But either way, I'd much rather see Bendis writing books like Daredevil again, which he's much better suited for than big picture, universe changing stories.

i completely agreee, especially with the fact that gillen was short-changed. his run on uncanny was widely beloved, and he got booted to secondary franchises, just because bendis decided to/was assigned to write x-men. especially, if they are going to do another extinction team book(like uncanny teaser seems to indicate) then why cancel/reboot uncanny xmen at all, or even change a writer who was obviously doing it right (at the very least, sales-wise).

on another note, i worry whether the nature of marvel 616 is not gonna hamper the skills of the main writers on the avengers side of the universe. both hickman and remender enjoy such high stock because of thorough, long-term storytelling. i am really worried how are they going to deal with an inevitable event next summer (e.g AvX really fked both uncanny and WatXM, and Avengers books were not really worthy of being cared about anymore). Unless, editorial is confident enough to give complete control over the direction of the universe to Hickman and/or Remender, I can see major dents in their respective runs already.

[RockyBanks]

And really, no one since Claremont has really been the major driver of the X-Books. There's no need to have Bendis on two major X-Books.

I know a guy who disagrees.

[wyokid]

Scott Snyder is incredibly overrated.

A) I'm not sure what you're basing that on, but the Avengers WAS a big franchise; it was right behind the Ultimate Marvel and the X-Men at that time. Within the Ultimate books, Ultimates was always on top (whenever it finally came out). The Avengers might not have been the juggernaut it eventually became, but it was consistently a top 20 book for the years preceding Bendis.

B) While Bendis is certainly a name that can sell, the Avengers franchise rise to prominence had a lot more to do with Marvel's marketing shift than anything else. Sales went up immediately starting with #500 and through the New Avengers relaunch. He wasn't a big enough name to bring in that kind of jump based solely on anticipation. And for the next 7 years, the Avengers were continually the focus of the Marvel Universe as a whole as Marvel shifted away from the X-Men, relatively speaking. The same thing would have happened with pretty much any writer at the time. That's not to discredit anything that Bendis has done, but it's worth noting.

C) With the amount of writers that Marvel has to work with, it seems absurd to keep Bendis as their main writer. Why can't he just write one big X-Book? It's not about whether or not he earned it, because a lot of other writers have earned the chance to take high profile books, too. Gillen, for instance, has only had about 30 issues on Uncanny. Uncanny X-Men has been the #1 Marvel ongoing (not counting #1s and gimmicks) every month for the past twelve with one exception, Avengers #29. So why not give him the keys to the car? Instead, he gets Young Avengers and Iron Man - which I'm sure will be great books, but he's not the head writer. I know it was part of an effort to shake things up by moving creative teams around, but it's really not much of a shakeup to say "Hey - you know how Bendis has been the main writer at Marvel for 7 years? That's not changing!"

There's a big difference between writing the flagship book and writing both flagship books. Bendis is given much more creative control of Marvel than anyone else there. You'd think they might try something new instead. Give him a smaller book like Iron Man or something that he can write without having to focus on a broad spectrum. Instead, he gets not only the top two X-Men books, but also the main cosmic book.

Granted, this is all assuming that the teaser is actually for the #2 X-men book. But either way, I'd much rather see Bendis writing books like Daredevil again, which he's much better suited for than big picture, universe changing stories.

Sorry, but as much as I enjoyed Journey Into Mystery it proved that Gillen is better at smaller personal stories then the big flagship titles. Also Iron Man is a HUGE name.

Also, how DARE YOU not recognize Nova as the other main cosmic book!

What I'm seeing here is you not liking Bendis writing on Avengers so you don't want him doing anything else big. I'm not saying that's what you are saying, it's what I'm seeing is all.

On an unrelated note, what did you think of Fantastic Four: Dark Reign? You never responded to my thoughts on it and I was hoping to discuss all of Hickman's run with you...

I know a guy who disagrees.

I just ordered his run in Omnibus. It's amazing.

[Samorai_black]

Scott Snyder is incredibly overrated.

No such thing, but you forgot your reasoning.

[Plawsky]

I know a guy who disagrees.

Right, but he was only writing New X-Men, and that was my point. He wasn't writing New AND Uncanny. He was the leader, but he wasn't doing everything.

Sorry, but as much as I enjoyed Journey Into Mystery it proved that Gillen is better at smaller personal stories then the big flagship titles. Also Iron Man is a HUGE name.

Proved how - by your opinion? You brought up sales, and as I mentioned, Gillen's run brought Uncanny to both a critical success and Marvel's #1 book. It's also interesting that you'd say that, because it's pretty much universally agreed that Bendis is much better on Daredevil and Ultimate Spider-man than on the Avengers.

While Iron Man might be a big name in the movies, he's not a major franchise when it comes to comics. It's a big book, sure, but it's a step down from Uncanny as far as that goes. You also might want to check your logic, as you said Avengers wasn't a major franchise, but now Iron Man is HUGE (note the caps). Those two statements can't coexist.

Also, how DARE YOU not recognize Nova as the other main cosmic book!

Exactly - the other. Guardians is definitely the main book.

What I'm seeing here is you not liking Bendis writing on Avengers so you don't want him doing anything else big. I'm not saying that's what you are saying, it's what I'm seeing is all.

Then you're clearly not reading my posts. I don't dislike Bendis. Sure, I'm tired of his Avengers run after over 200 issues. But I like it as a whole, despite dragging on for two years longer than it needed. And I actually think All New will be a fine book. My point, if it's not already clear somehow, is that Bendis just spent 7 years as the main voice on one of Marvel's two big franchises; he doesn't need to do the same on the other. After Hickman's Avengers run, I wouldn't pick him to switch to writing multiple X-Books. Marvel needs more than a handful of major writers.

On an unrelated note, what did you think of Fantastic Four: Dark Reign? You never responded to my thoughts on it and I was hoping to discuss all of Hickman's run with you...

To be honest, everything pre-600 runs together for me as just one big story, so I really can't call out things by arc. Dark Reign had some great setup though.

[MarvelMaster616]

A) I'm not sure what you're basing that on, but the Avengers WAS a big franchise; it was right behind the Ultimate Marvel and the X-Men at that time. Within the Ultimate books, Ultimates was always on top (whenever it finally came out). The Avengers might not have been the juggernaut it eventually became, but it was consistently a top 20 book for the years preceding Bendis.

B) While Bendis is certainly a name that can sell, the Avengers franchise rise to prominence had a lot more to do with Marvel's marketing shift than anything else. Sales went up immediately starting with #500 and through the New Avengers relaunch. He wasn't a big enough name to bring in that kind of jump based solely on anticipation. And for the next 7 years, the Avengers were continually the focus of the Marvel Universe as a whole as Marvel shifted away from the X-Men, relatively speaking. The same thing would have happened with pretty much any writer at the time. That's not to discredit anything that Bendis has done, but it's worth noting.

C) With the amount of writers that Marvel has to work with, it seems absurd to keep Bendis as their main writer. Why can't he just write one big X-Book? It's not about whether or not he earned it, because a lot of other writers have earned the chance to take high profile books, too. Gillen, for instance, has only had about 30 issues on Uncanny. Uncanny X-Men has been the #1 Marvel ongoing (not counting #1s and gimmicks) every month for the past twelve with one exception, Avengers #29. So why not give him the keys to the car? Instead, he gets Young Avengers and Iron Man - which I'm sure will be great books, but he's not the head writer. I know it was part of an effort to shake things up by moving creative teams around, but it's really not much of a shakeup to say "Hey - you know how Bendis has been the main writer at Marvel for 7 years? That's not changing!"

There's a big difference between writing the flagship book and writing both flagship books. Bendis is given much more creative control of Marvel than anyone else there. You'd think they might try something new instead. Give him a smaller book like Iron Man or something that he can write without having to focus on a broad spectrum. Instead, he gets not only the top two X-Men books, but also the main cosmic book.

Granted, this is all assuming that the teaser is actually for the #2 X-men book. But either way, I'd much rather see Bendis writing books like Daredevil again, which he's much better suited for than big picture, universe changing stories.

Well said. I agree with most of your points, but I'm of the opinion that Bendis can do much better with X-men than he did with Avengers. I concede that he's not the best when it comes to big, universe-changing stories. He's not Mark Millar in that sense. But I think the style of X-men fits what he does well. One of Bendis's best strengths in Ultimate Spider-Man was his ability to write teen drama and focus on more personal stories. The Avengers was a big team book of Marvel's heavy hitters. You don't get much opportunity to write drama like that. X-men is different because it's always had a different style of drama between characters. And bringing teenage X-men from the past into the picture definitely plays to Bendis's strengths. I'm not trying to be too optimistic, but I like what Bendis has shown thus far for All New X-men. He seems to be more passionate about it than he was with Avengers. And in writing, passion definitely goes a long ways towards making a story awesome.

[Plawsky]

Only The Avengers wasn't a major franchise when Bendis came on. He brought it into that spotlight. Now Marvel is giving him a franchise that is already big, one that he earned from his work on The Avengers.

Well said. I agree with most of your points, but I'm of the opinion that Bendis can do much better with X-men than he did with Avengers. I concede that he's not the best when it comes to big, universe-changing stories. He's not Mark Millar in that sense. But I think the style of X-men fits what he does well. One of Bendis's best strengths in Ultimate Spider-Man was his ability to write teen drama and focus on more personal stories. The Avengers was a big team book of Marvel's heavy hitters. You don't get much opportunity to write drama like that. X-men is different because it's always had a different style of drama between characters. And bringing teenage X-men from the past into the picture definitely plays to Bendis's strengths. I'm not trying to be too optimistic, but I like what Bendis has shown thus far for All New X-men. He seems to be more passionate about it than he was with Avengers. And in writing, passion definitely goes a long ways towards making a story awesome.

Yeah, I agree. And that's why I think he should just stick with All-New for now. With Uncanny added, that's several more characters to add, and there's also a likely chance that he'll be telling bigger stories by coordinating the books, like when he started writing Mighty Avengers. Now, that seems good in theory, but when that happens, plot often takes over characterization.

Also, while I liked his Ultimate X-Men run, it doesn't really give me any faith for his longterm X-Men tenure. The first arc was just a very safe Wolverine-Spidey-Daredevil story. The second was much more an introduction for characters than a team book; #41 didn't even have the X-Men in it, save Wolverine. Don't get me wrong - I love his New Mutants arc, it's one of my favorite on the book. But it doesn't really show how he can write the X-Men as a team.

Long story short - I think he should just take it slow. He spent the first two or three years of his Avengers run just writing New Avengers. I think he should focus on All-New to prove he can do it before given another book. Jonathan Hickman didn't have two Fantastic Four books until after ~35 issues; it's something you should have to build towards.

[wyokid]

Proved how - by your opinion? You brought up sales, and as I mentioned, Gillen's run brought Uncanny to both a critical success and Marvel's #1 book. It's also interesting that you'd say that, because it's pretty much universally agreed that Bendis is much better on Daredevil and Ultimate Spider-man than on the Avengers.

I've only read the AvX part of his run on X-Men and I was severally unimpressed.

While Iron Man might be a big name in the movies, he's not a major franchise when it comes to comics. It's a big book, sure, but it's a step down from Uncanny as far as that goes. You also might want to check your logic, as you said Avengers wasn't a major franchise, but now Iron Man is HUGE (note the caps). Those two statements can't coexist.

It's a bigger name in society. Avengers has one book when Bendis came on board, Iron Man still has one but due to the movies he's on almost every team and ANYONE can walk into a store and immediately recognize him.

Exactly - the other. Guardians is definitely the main book.

Please, we all know that Jeph and Ed are leading this :P

Then you're clearly not reading my posts. I don't dislike Bendis. Sure, I'm tired of his Avengers run after over 200 issues. But I like it as a whole, despite dragging on for two years longer than it needed. And I actually think All New will be a fine book. My point, if it's not already clear somehow, is that Bendis just spent 7 years as the main voice on one of Marvel's two big franchises; he doesn't need to do the same on the other. After Hickman's Avengers run, I wouldn't pick him to switch to writing multiple X-Books. Marvel needs more than a handful of major writers.

I guess I'm just not seeing the problem. He can obviously run a franchise incredibly well so why wouldn't they want him to run the one he hasn't run?

To be honest, everything pre-600 runs together for me as just one big story, so I really can't call out things by arc. Dark Reign had some great setup though.

Alright, I'll get back to you once I read to #600.

[Robbie_Jee]

Yeah, I agree. And that's why I think he should just stick with All-New for now. With Uncanny added, that's several more characters to add, and there's also a likely chance that he'll be telling bigger stories by coordinating the books, like when he started writing Mighty Avengers. Now, that seems good in theory, but when that happens, plot often takes over characterisation.

I don't think Bendis will sacrifice characterisation for plot just because he's writing two books. He didn't really do that on his Avengers run, as you've mentioned before, Bendis added a lot of character interactions and conversation pieces during his time on the Avengers. I think the 'talky' style of his writing will fit nicely with an X-Men book much better than Avengers, considering the academy/school-like setting of some X-books and the type of stuff he's likely to delve into. And with two books, he has a lot of room to fit a lot character stuff and story stuff in it, no problem.

What is it about the characterisation in his upcoming X-books that you're worried about. I'm not heavily doubting you here, you've read more of his 616 books than me so I'm asking out of curiosity.

[Plawsky]

It's a bigger name in society. Avengers has one book when Bendis came on board, Iron Man still has one but due to the movies he's on almost every team and ANYONE can walk into a store and immediately recognize him.

Almost any major character for Marvel or DC is immediately recognizable by someone who would consider walking into a comic store, so that's completely irrelevant. I'm not saying that writing Iron Man isn't a big deal, because it is, but it's not the same as writing one of the books that drives the Marvel Universe. And to imply that Iron Man now (in the comics world) is a bigger deal than Avengers was pre-Bendis is simply false. Avengers was a top 20 book when Bendis took it over; Iron Man's most recent issue was #68 in sales, behind both Captain America and Hulk, as far as cast of the Avengers goes. Hawkeye too, but that's only on the second issue.

So if you really want to compare how big these things are, you should look into the sales numbers.

And the Avengers franchise growing has little to do with Bendis, and everything to do with Marvel. Within the first few months of his run, Marvel started putting out Young Avengers and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes; they weren't ongoings, but they were 13 and 16 issues, respectively, over the next few years. After they were done, Civil War had happened, and Marvel went full blown Avengers.

I guess I'm just not seeing the problem. He can obviously run a franchise incredibly well so why wouldn't they want him to run the one he hasn't run?

Because it's good to change things up. Sure, moving Bendis from two (or more) major Avengers books to two major X-Men books is still two major books written by Bendis. It's just more of the same. When Marvel decided to focus on the Avengers, they went with Bendis. And now that they're wanting to put more focus back on the X-Men, they're using Bendis again. It's safe, and it seems to contradict the entire Marvel Now strategy. It would make more sense to give him a second cosmic book instead and let him build that franchise up. Marvel has a bunch of great writers who haven't had a chance to really shine, and Gillen is one of those. They found out how big Bendis could be by giving him the keys to the Avengers; try that with someone else. They're doing it with Hickman and Remender on the Avengers, so why not give someone else the same opportunity on the X-Men?

I'd much rather see Bendis do something completely different than the Avengers. The X-Men is just another major team book (yes, I know it's not the same as the Avengers, but that's not what I'm saying). Get him to do a big run on a solo character like he did on Daredevil. His last solo books weren't even a dozen issues - let him have 30 on Dr. Strange or something. Let someone else be the world shaping writer. Even beyond who would do a better job, it just makes sense that they would try something new.

Basically, it all comes down to - why two books? Grant Morrison didn't need two books when he was the X-Men writer. Or when he was on Batman or Superman.

[sage6paths]

Hey Plawksy can you delete the off-topic posts in Ultimates X-Men 18. It's kind of embarrassing to know that Brian Wood is reading that stuff and we don't have anything better to talk about. Also delete some of your privates messages apparently I can't send any too you because your inbox is full lol.

[Sinx]

Scott Snyder is incredibly overrated.