If the AXIS retcon is undone...

[Star_Jammer]

Hickman confirmed Bendis got tired of writing XMen because of editorial screwing the line over due to movies rights. Creators are not machines and working in an environment that dont foster creativity will mess with te quality of the work. Thats why the genral consensus is that Bendis run was good during the first year and whatever after that.

“Creativity” and “brings the O5 to the present” are two really weird things to put together.

[Whim]

The only time Bendis is decent is when he creates and uses his own characters. Then there's nothing he can mess up. So the part with the new characters was okay.

But as usual it went nowhere and a bunch of nothing happened. Battle for the Atom was really bad.

The whole O5 to the present thing sucked and went way too long. It wasn't creative and sure didn't have quality.

I mean I'm sure there's worse but just like Bendis on Guardians it was just uneventful and uninteresting for the most part.

[H-E-D]

His Uncanny book was generally good.

[Snoop Dogg]

“Creativity” and “brings the O5 to the present” are two really weird things to put together.

That's a very good idea when your status quo is that the X-Men are divided into factions.

[Star_Jammer]

That's a very good idea when your status quo is that the X-Men are divided into factions.

It’s low-hanging fruit. Hence, not very creative.

[AbnormallyNormal]

Bringing O5 to present day had a lot of possibility.

It had problems too....

Basically the creativity was "how might these jarringly different/naive/possibly reactionary versions of well-known characters cope with contemporary society and world, and the mutant history their future selves took part in"

For Jean Grey and Cyclops it was good

Iceman, controversial but pretty interesting

Angel and Beast though, they had absolutely no clue what to do with

But it was neat how we had a very sort of "take-charge" young Jean who was kinda abusing her powerset and all that. And just in general the way these characters adopted to everything. It was sort of a chance for current writers to put their spin on these characters and perhaps "update" or even "fix" a lot of how they used to be written back in the 60s.

Bendis' run was a very solid one indeed, and I agree the plots somewhat fizzled out by the end as well. But really good run for the first like half to first 2/3.

[powerpax]

I think the O5 worked for about an arc and that was it. None of the other interpersonal possibilities teased came to fruition, and Bendis was a burnt-out writer who had never been good long-term on team books to begin with. He also felt uncomfortable with the X-franchise in general IMO. Just re-ran old voices, jokes and subplots (the deathly boring triple agent Spider-Woman plotline repeats with Dazzler, etc).

As far as Uncanny, he inherited Gillen's revolutionary setup, he didn't own it himself. There were some interesting and diverse new mutants, some of whom I still like but again, as with all Bendis work, they all sounded and behaved the same. There were some fun bits and diverting stories. But ultimately the overall era came to nothing but the ghost of opportunity. Bendis was coasting by that point and had burned out at Marvel IMO.

[danielsan52]

Wanda should have been the third X-Woman

[CoCoBandz]

His Uncanny book was generally good.

That last arc invalidated his entire run imo.

I don't ever remember being upset with a book like, I was with his Uncanny run halfway through.

[powerpax]

You get used to Bendis completely dropping plotlines and characterizations after a few runs. He generally has zero editorial oversight and the attention span of a Vengaboys song.

[spirit2011]

“Creativity” and “brings the O5 to the present” are two really weird things to put together.

it was editorial idea, that is why I say that editorial also is too be blamed

That last arc invalidated his entire run imo.

I don't ever remember being upset with a book like, I was with his Uncanny run halfway through.

I wasn't even upset... I already expected it from him

[PsychoEFrost]

Bringing O5 to present day had a lot of possibility.

It had problems too....

Basically the creativity was "how might these jarringly different/naive/possibly reactionary versions of well-known characters cope with contemporary society and world, and the mutant history their future selves took part in"

For Jean Grey and Cyclops it was good

Iceman, controversial but pretty interesting

Angel and Beast though, they had absolutely no clue what to do with

But it was neat how we had a very sort of "take-charge" young Jean who was kinda abusing her powerset and all that. And just in general the way these characters adopted to everything. It was sort of a chance for current writers to put their spin on these characters and perhaps "update" or even "fix" a lot of how they used to be written back in the 60s.

Bendis' run was a very solid one indeed, and I agree the plots somewhat fizzled out by the end as well. But really good run for the first like half to first 2/3.

Good? For Cyclops it was awful. He spent his entire time in the present either being hated, being worthless, being moody and unlikeable, or in space. He had absolutely zero of the redeeming qualities of Cyclops, and showed a less than zero percent of chance of ever becoming anything like Cyclops. At least the other four you could see how they become their adult selves.

[PsychoEFrost]

That last arc invalidated his entire run imo.

I don't ever remember being upset with a book like, I was with his Uncanny run halfway through.

Was that the Matthew Malloy thing?

While that was crap, his ending for the series was super cool, and got completely ignored to setup IvX, which really sucks.

[gurkle]

Wanda should have been the third X-Woman

It's one of the big what-ifs, isn't it - Lee and Kirby obviously intended Wanda and Pietro to come over to the good guys' side, but it was decided to have them join the Avengers instead of adding them to the X-Men. (Probably because Stan Lee was known to prefer small teams.) Then a few years later they left the Avengers and there was some talk in letters columns that maybe they'd join the X-Men, but then the X-Men got canceled and the twins went back to the Avengers a year later.

Of course Wanda's "hex power" was always so poorly defined, and so poorly differentiated from magic, that she might not have fit on a team where everyone had more defined powers. I think that's one of the reasons Quicksilver has always been a better fit with X-groups. With Scarlet Witch writers are always trying to explain that her powers aren't really magic, they're a mutant power to... do... something... probability... uh... whatever.

[Londo Bellian]

Bringing her into the mix again would mean the X-Men treating her like a war criminal IMO, and they should. (In fact, I'd kill for a crossover where they abduct her to Krakoa and do "the Trial of Wanda Maximoff" a la Eichmann, perhaps behind Magneto's back until it's too late.)

Magneto: And my poor fool is hang'd! NO! No life...