Who should Marvel push to replace Bendis

[Username taken]

For starters, I'm a massive Bendis fan. I started reading Avengers after disassembled (and I suspect that's the case with many readers because that book and Dark Avengers were massive sellers for a very, very long time) and I actually got back into Marvel comics with his work alongside the likes of Millar, Brubaker, Morrison and JMS (on Supreme Power, I disliked JMS on Spider-man).

Without doubt, Bendis shaped modern Marvel and influenced the larger industry as a whole with his "de-compressed" story telling which has pretty much become a staple of superhero comics today. The impact of Bendis leaving Marvel can't be understated because this means the biggest name draw writers and artists in comics today are at DC (Snyder and Johns are guys that can pull sales on name recognition alone and artists like Finch, Daniels, Lee, Hitch can move sales). In recent times though, Bendis seemed to be experiencing some creative burn out and he doesn't have the spark he used to have. His recent Marvel work hasn't been like his earlier work and a lot of it has been pretty "slow". His moving to DC is probably best for him as it presents a new challenge.

However, this kind of leaves a vacuum at Marvel and I'm curious who you guys would like to see be an "architect" at Marvel. Bendis wasn't yet a big name writer when he started his amazing run on Daredevil before Avengers and i would love to see Marvel give another writer a big push. Right now, it seems Jason Aaron is playing that architect role (but I strongly suspect that Aaron will jump ship to DC sometime in the future because he's always stated he's a life long DC fan and he actually got his break there). Personally, I would love to see Saladin Ahmed get a high profile book at Marvel. Black Bolt has been amazing and is Marvel's best book at the moment. Another guy I would love to see get a higher profile is Charles Soule, his work thus far has largely been excellent (although Astonishing X-men is slowing down) and he's a guy that could do some amazing work on an Avengers title.

[Tiamatty]

Kelly Thompson deserves a bigger role. Jem & the Holograms was a critical darling and a brilliant series (and the Misfits mini was outstanding even by those standards), and her run on Hawkeye has been very well-received. She's got the chops. Marvel needs to give her more opportunities to show them off.

Saladin Ahmed's been killing it on Black Bolt, so I'd definitely be down with him getting a bigger project, too.

[Tofali]

Whoever it is better have an exclusive contract with Marvel and has stayed with the company for a couple of years.

[Charlie_1981]

Whoever it is better have an exclusive contract with Marvel and has stayed with the company for a couple of years.

Dan Slott?

[Star Saber]

It certainly feels like Jason Aaron is their man right now, he's certainly graduated from doing fringe titles like Ghost Rider and random specials/minis to writing several of Marvel's key titles such as the X-Men, Wolverine, Doctor Strange and Thor.

While Slott has been a mainstay - it certainly seems he's content just doing Spidey. Marvel hasn't let him run any of their Marvel Universe event books from what I recall, something they've let Aaron do twice now with Original Sin and Marvel Legacy.

[Cowtools]

Jason Aaron seems like an obvious choice, given that he's already written some events for Marvel, and his books are decent sellers. The fact that he's actually good at balancing character, continuity and spectacle is a bonus for us readers.

If Secret Empire had been as good as it could have been, and hadn't garnered such a negative response from casual readers, I would have picked Nick Spencer as someone to take over Bendis' role as overseer of street level and 'kooky' comics. Now I don't force much of a role for him at Marvel unfortunately...

[Shinglepants]

I think there is a potential problem in that a lot of the writers left at Marvel are not "comic book" writers per se. It seems like a side gig for many. For example, Coates Black Panther book has been well received and I bet Marvel would like to chuck more at him but he’s never going to commit to a Bendis/Aaron/Hickman Work load.

For me, outside of Aaron who is undisputedly the top guy now, I think Duggan and Spencer will be at the forefront of Marvels thinking.

I’m a big fan of both Al Ewing and Hopeless and I hope to see them get a push and more important books.

Also, let’s hope Donny Cates delivers the goods!

[Cowtools]

I’m a big fan of both Al Ewing and Hopeless and I hope to see them get a push and more important books.

Yes to Ewing and Hopeless!
Their books have consistently been great, but unfortunately not big sellers

[mugiwara]

My first choice would be Al Ewing, because I'd like the Marvel universe to go in a direction he generally gives to his comics: full exploitation of the shared universe and history, characters not limited to the iconic old guard and legacy darlings, crazy super hero stuff.
Then I guess Bunn, Robinson (if he is still available) or maybe Ahmed (need to see what he can do on other titles) would be nice too. Writers who want to write about the Marvel Universe, not just about what is popular right now.

(But while I think Ewing deserves to write big iconic titles, as a reader, I feel he'd be "wasted" on them.
There will always be writers wanting to tell Hulk, Thor, Wolverine stories. If Ewing doesn't write them, there will be somebody else to take care of them.
But there are almost no writer who'd want to give a chance to characters like Sunspot, Songbird or Power Man (Alvarez). So, Ewing on Fantastic Four (like a lot of people seem to wish) would mean less Ewing for the underexposed characters.)

[Mike_Murdock]

I don't think Bendis has been an architect at all for years. Arguably the "big name" they're using for major things is Jason Aaron. Either way, with their 18 month hiatus on line-wide crossover events, it doesn't seem like they need anyone to create a line-wide direction. When they do, I suspect they'll go with Aaron, although I would love it if they got Al Ewing to do it instead.

[UltimateTy]

I don't think Bendis has been an architect at all for years. Arguably the "big name" they're using for major things is Jason Aaron. Either way, with their 18 month hiatus on line-wide crossover events, it doesn't seem like they need anyone to create a line-wide direction. When they do, I suspect they'll go with Aaron, although I would love it if they got Al Ewing to do it instead.

Exactly, I don't think Bendis has been an "architect" since he left the Avengers

[Triniking1234]

Give Jason Aaron Captain Marvel with the current Uncanny Avengers artist.

Two problems solved.

[Mr MajestiK]

Al Ewing.

End of.

[KOSLOX]

Honestly I think Al Ewing would serve Marvel better as an editor. I enjoy his books but they never seem to light the sales chart up. Al does have an immense amount of continuity knowledge and is great at weaving existing storylines in and out of events.

He'd be a tremendous asset if he was playing in a "surveying from 10,000 feet" type role.

[Mr MajestiK]

Honestly I think Al Ewing would serve Marvel better as an editor. I enjoy his books but they never seem to light the sales chart up. Al does have an immense amount of continuity knowledge and is great at weaving existing storylines in and out of events.

He'd be a tremendous asset if he was playing in a "surveying from 10,000 feet" type role.

If Ewing had the kind of support Bendis has enjoyed for years at Marvel, his sakes would have been much better.