Is the Bendis Era of Avengers Worth Reading?

[Alex_Of_X]

It's mixed bag.

This, but the good really does outshine the bad.

Rule of thumb for Bendis's Avengers: the first two arcs of "Insert Series Here" are dynamite, rest varies. If you wanna read the creme de la creme, I'd reccomend:

Avengers Disassembled
New Avengers until it hits House of M, Civil War
First Arc of Mighty Avengers and New Avengers after CW
Secret Invasion
Dark Avengers
Siege
First Two Arcs of Heroic Age's Avengers\New Avengers
AvX

[Triniking1234]

Breakout to Siege are pretty good then it goes more basic adventures for the relaunches of New Avengers and Avengers. Bendis legit made Norman Osborn a Doom-level threat and he threats his characters well unlike Aaron who mostly simps Echo and Jane Foster.

[maryjane]

I think that Bendis is a terrible writer for marvel comics. He does what he want, creating big problems with past continuity. Every story has a prologue, an axecution and an epilogue. He's quite good in the prologues, when he creates the situations, the mysteries, he creates good expectations in the readers... but he's terrible in the other 2, resolving them too quickly, often contradicting his own bases, in total anticlimax... so his stories are not at all beautiful or memorable. A pity, because some of the ideas where good, and the art of Deodato Jr, often the artist that works with Bendis, is absolutely one of the all-times best.

[Alan2099]

Bendis often has some interesting ideas and usually some snappy dialogue and he tends to get good artists assigned to his work but that's about all I can give him.

He's horrible with continuity, sometimes even ignoring his own ideas.
He's tend to have really obvious pet characters that he favors beyond all reason.
He's bad at pacing.
He can't write interesting fights scenes.
He frequently ends his plot with dues ex machina endings.

[Triniking1234]

Bendis doing whatever he wants and getting away with it should be put on the editors. I'm still mad at him making Wonder Man evil and then he just hand waves it away cuz he's leaving the title.

[Oberon]

Well, he certainly had a bold, new approach to Avengers. It wasn't for me, but it was probably necessary to revive the franchise which had admittedly gotten a little moldy. I hate what he did to Wanda, and he did some shitty stuff with Tigra as well. For me, the best thing he did was get Jessica Drew back as Spider-Woman. Of all his stories, Secret Invasion was his best idea -- but it was also a slow burn. The Dark Avengers period is also interesting. Most of his run featured very good artwork -- so that certainly helped.

Maybe his stuff reads better in trades. I do feel he's a frustrated sitcom writer -- and would rather be doing that than writing comics.

The beautiful and wonderful character that was Wanda, was never able to recover from her assassination of character - by Bendis.

There is nothing more for me to say. It went on for years, with various writers trying to redeem or move her beyond what he had done, but to me none of it could undo what he did.

So in the end, she had to be murdered and then resurrected to make her character lose her stains. Rubbish.

[Jabare]

So while I think AvX is trash, and even if someone thinks it's good, we shouldn't say it was just his doing on the writing department.

fair enough, but I don't just him blame AvX. I blame everyone involved. I was just trying to be diplomatic, and frankly I think I was a little too nice. I hated AvX with a passion. I actually took a hiatus form Marvel after that event. It damaged my perception of certain characters even to this day.

[Golden_Guardian]

I am and always will be a huge Sentry fan, so from New to Dark Avengers, it was really the only game in town for me. Also my first real exposure to Avengers stories.

Wasn't best pleased with how it turned out in that regard, but you cannot deny the impact Bendis had during his tenure, for good or ill.

[Witchfan]

I hate Disassembled and House of M. I like the first 20 issues of New Avengers. I hate Civil War and most of the New Avengers issues that follow it. I liked Secret Invasion and the tie-in issues for it from New and Mighty Avengers. Mighty Avengers was disappointing. Dark Avengers was good. Siege was OK.

[your_name_here]

Ignore the naysayers.

Read everything through from Disassembled and stop after Siege/New Avengers: Finale and you’ve got a fantastic run.

[Omega Alpha]

As you can see from the replies, it's a very controversial run, so you should read for yourself and see if you enjoy it.

[davetvs]

I loved it. It's the first time the Avengers were ever interesting to me.

[Steroid]

In all fairness I will say that Bendis did wonders for Luke Cage and Spider-Woman.

[Vegeta]

In all fairness I will say that Bendis did wonders for Luke Cage and Spider-Woman.

Yes, if you are a fan of Luke, Spider-Woman or Jessica Jones then you might really enjoy the run. The rest of the cast is more or less window dressing, when not being straight up character assassinated. Wolverine and Spider-man in particular were just there to pose on the covers and increase sales.

[Jely4me]

Siege, Norman Osborn and the heroes on the lam were the best parts of Bendis. I’m an Avengers traditionalist, quinjets, the mansion etc. I hated Disassembled and everything after it, the death of Hawkeye, Wanda, the Vision, Scott Lang. I appreciate the exposure for Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Drew. I admit to dipping in and out over the runs, mostly through spoilers and word of mouth, but I had a tough time with the endless word balloons, and sitting around the lunch table trying to emulate Tarantino with the snappy dialogue, so I never collected it. Enjoyed Daredevil though.