Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis: What is your verdict?

[Lascoden]

That's what I have been saying about Bendis since Disassembled. It seems like he has good ideas, but he doesn't think them through enough. A strong editor (which is what I would have said Brevoort was until Bendis came along), would be able to tell him what changes NEED to be made so the story makes sense. I have also said that a co-writer would be best for him too, to smooth out the ticks that typify Bendis-speak, and help give the characters their own voices.

If he had had the benefit of this assistance, then I think his run would have been far less polarizing and he might have actually written some good Avengers stories.

Yeah, none of them are bad ideas, by themselves. Skrulls setting out a years long plan to replace and subvert the superhero community? A villain takes control of SHIELD? A war between SHIELD and Asgard? All terrific concepts. They just lacked the same level of execution.

[RDMacQ]

Yeah, none of them are bad ideas, by themselves. Skrulls setting out a years long plan to replace and subvert the superhero community? A villain takes control of SHIELD? A war between SHIELD and Asgard? All terrific concepts. They just lacked the same level of execution.

I think that might be more that his ideas were hijacked by tying into larger events which prevented him from following through on some of his more interesting ideas, rather than an editor not stepping in to curb his creativity. It's the editors interfering and not letting him tell his story his way, rather than the other way around.

[Lascoden]

I think that might be more that his ideas were hijacked by tying into larger events which prevented him from following through on some of his more interesting ideas, rather than an editor not stepping in to curb his creativity. It's the editors interfering and not letting him tell his story his way, rather than the other way around.

That could be a factor. I've seen that happen before. Blackest Night is my favorite DC event, but it lost a lot of steam when it became a DCU, as opposed to GL, event. Became way to decompressed. Same with Flashpoint. Something that was gonna just be an AU story was inflated to be a massive reboot.

[strathcona]

I think that might be more that his ideas were hijacked by tying into larger events which prevented him from following through on some of his more interesting ideas, rather than an editor not stepping in to curb his creativity. It's the editors interfering and not letting him tell his story his way, rather than the other way around.

Not sure I completely agree. Afterall, even the Avengers only stories I've read of his are rife with the character and continuity inaccuracies that cause me to have such problems with his work.

[Movieartman]

give your thoughts and opinions of the avengers run of one B.M. Bendis

if you care to rate the seperate arcs here is a scale i go by

5 of 5 - supurb
4 of 5 - great
3 of 5 - good
2 of 5 - ok / meh / blah
1 of 5 - bad
0 of 5 - horrible

================================================== ===================
here is my ratings for what i have read -

avengers dissasembled - 3

Secret War - 5

New Avengers - BREAKOUT - 2-3
NA - SENTRY - 3
NA - SECRETS AND LIES - 4
NA - THE COLLECTIVE - 3
NA - POWERLOSS - 4
NA - SEIGE - 3

Mighty Avengers - Ultron initiative - strong 4
MA - Venom Bomb / Doom arc - 4

SEIGE - 4

Avengers vol.1 - 2
A - vol.2 - 2
A - Fear itself - the issue with the possesd thing beating the rulk half to death was great but the rest was kinda crap so a low 2
A - Hammer war - 2
A - avx - 1
A - janets return - 2

NA - vol.1 (arc where voodoo dies) - 4
NA - vol.2 (arc with superia and the 50s avengers) - 3
NA - fear itself - 2
NA - Hammer war - 2-3
NA - AVX - 2-3

ALL of Dark Avengers - strong 4

sorry there is several arcs of NA i have not read mostly around civil war.

[StrongGuy]

Nice. THIS is how you start a "So what are your thoughts on Bendis overall? Good or bad?" type of thread. I will do the rating thing shortly...

[Nomads1]

Wouldn't a poll work better?
The last one (Bendis Avengers, what's your veridict?) is quite old and out of date.

Peace

[bebop]

I liked it, though it was boring at the end.

[Jake Fury]

Vol 1 of New Avengers was pretty outstanding except for the event tie in issues. The initial breakout/Raft arc is one of my all time favorite stories.

[Prince Of Orphans]

Overall, I'd say 2. There were many things wrong with his run, but it had some great moments. The lead-up to Secret Invasion was his best stretch imo. Everything up to that was average and everything during and after SI (except Siege, which was good) was well below average. His Dark Avengers was also good.

[DPly]

No, not his run on New Avengers. I'm talking about regular old Avengers. I picked the book up at the start of the infinity gauntlet story, which I enjoyed a lot, but after that the book kind of just became mediocre. For a while the book got sidetracked by fear itself. After that Bendis ran out of ideas, and brought back Norman Osborn for a few issues. Then AVX happened and the book got sidetracked by that as well. Finally AVX ended, the book got back to having original stories, and doing it's own thing.

[HaveAtThee]

I give Bendis credit for influencing all of Marvel comics in the last decade. I disagree with his approach of constantly bringing realism and humanism to a world where there isn't much of it.

[E. Wilson]

I drifted in and out of this title, but part of my problem is that I never felt like the book was able to develop its own identity. It had two arcs to itself, then a crossover, then it started picking up story points from New Avengers with Osborn and Hydra, then AvX...

[Prince Of Orphans]

Average up until post-Civil War, which was great. Then utterly bad post-Secret Invasion aside from Siege.

[XPac]

I didn't like his adjectiveless Avengers run as much as I liked New, Dark, or Mighty Avengers.

New Avengers to me really felt like Bendis book with Bendis crew. Avengers felt somewhat more like a "generic" Avengers book for lack of a better word. I thought the stuff with Kang and the Infinity Gems was fun, but the book didn't seem quite as personal as New Avengers felt.

Also, I agree that Fear Itself sort of took up a lot of the books time, as did AvX. So there was a bit less room for Bendis to sort of do his own thing. And that probably hurt it a bit.