What is The General Consensus on Bendis' X-Men ?

[Anchorsify]

Bendis is another Ellis-esque "lets totally change Kitty's personality and who she is dating so that she can date my self insert".

Also the O5 could have been good as a temporary thing, but much like with most of what Bending does, he overstayed his welcome and it ended up being a pointless inclusion with no clear end or real growth for either the original or the current version.

He's probably tolerable for minis and clearly defined ending shorts, but as the author of an endless ongoing narrative he's awful. Which isn't unique to him among marvel writers lately but is still true.

[Grey]

I loved Bendis’s run but as a jean fan I check my bias at the door.

Here’s my most objective analysis I can give on his run:

1.) it was great popcorn drama but not a ton of consequential stuff from
His run
2.) if you were a jean fan you pretty much enjoyed it because if was the only jean we had in a long time
3.) he leaned more into the soap opera stuff which is fun to chat about but it didn’t really move the franchise forward (side note- I’m fine with that. I just want to be entertained sometimes and don’t always need this colossal paradigm
Shift)
4.) most of his dialogue read like petty teen shade drama, which again was entertaining but not really a mature x book.


I’ll be honest though it’s my favorite of all time just because of teen jean. If I wasn’t a fan of hers I could see Bendis run as pretty junky. Not a lot happened and she fi most of the spotlight and development

[Askani's Flame]

There were some great ideas and elements that Bendis brought in which was refreshing and exciting! He hit the ground running at a time when Marvel's investment of the X-Line was low/negligible, and overall morale for X-fans was low due to AvX. I agree with a lot of you on your points. Here are my highlights and issues with his run:

Highlights:
- Jean Grey returns to the comics. Bringing the teen O5 to the future was a great way to re-engage the audience with her.
- The issues with messed up powers. It made no sense why some of the P5 were affected with power issues and some weren't. or why Magneto was. It was a nice touch to fix that.
- Kitty mentoring the O5. I liked it, with the exception of Jeen in telepathy, and it felt really nice to show that her taking that role with them.
- Gay popsicle. While I disliked the manor of him being outed, it was nice to see what had been hinted or joked about for years come to fruition.
- The new mutants to join Cyclops' bunker. I enjoyed most of them and it was refreshing.
- Jeen calling out Wanda.
- Kitty knocking Alex.

Issues:
- The O5 overstayed their welcome. They should have left after BoTA, but alas.
- New abilities or physical changes to the O5. With no plan on ending their stay, the dramatic changes to Jeen and Warren felt problematic. Jeen's new abilities were something she had never ever displayed before. While great, as an adult Jean has never used them. And Warren's cosmic wings just left an issue that was punted to other writers. I will say that Brisson managed to fix it (thankfully).
- The drama in the books amongst the characters felt contrived and SUPER soap opera-y. Especially when dealing with existing X-Men who have unique ties to the O5 but not allowed to interact with them.
- Kitty's retconned history of being taught in telepathic attacks by Jean, and therefore taught Jeen how to use telepathy. It made no sense especially but given...
- His hatred of Rachel. Granted it's likely just me, but I say this because having an immensely powerful telepath at the school when they arrived, Rachel was not allowed to interact with Jeen which was glaring as she needed a tp mentor. Kitty made no sense. And Rachel was conveniently shipped out of WaTX, her book, when the O5 were at the school to avoid any interactions. I heard Bendis wanted to avoid any use of Rachel with Jeen and Tyke to create "new stories" not focused on her past, but it was silly especially when...
- He poorly retread on existing stories. While I enjoyed the new abilities Jeen gained, the entire "Trial of Jean Grey" story felt contrived and ignored key elements of the "End of Greys" to which it was drawn from. Also I didn't care about the Black Vortex or Guardians stuff.
- Battle of the Atom
- Matthew Mallory

Was he awful? No. I think he was dynamic and great when first started. But he didn't like (and likely didn't expect) editorial interference and it showed as we moved further into his tenure. I'd give him a 5/10 overall.

[cc008]

Mostly a waste of time, wheel spinning, talking heads and caricatures of most X-Men, and incredibly drawn out. And Battle of the Atom was an absolute whimper.