What do you think of Bendis' X-Men stuff now?

[Alan2099]

Bendis is such a curious case for me and it seems readers. He has the right ideas, it's in his execution where things fall apart. I think ANXM and UXM did a lot to revitalize a plateau franchise which had a consecutive series of writers with no real plan for the property as a whole outside of a select few characters.


While the gimmick behind his run didn't and still doesn't make much sense, I think he made a number of character relevant and his run reintroduce Jean to a newer audience which as a fan I appreciated.


As a whole, I liked his run I just think towards the end of both series he didn't have a plan on how tied all the ideas he had been juggling together in a way that made sense.

I can't help but wonder if Bendis would work better in classic Stan lee style, where he gives his artists a rough idea, let's them draw it, and come back to add the dialogue later.

Of course you'd also have to team him up with an artist that's a good storyteller and those aren't as easy to find as they used to be.

[Havok83]

I liked a bit of Bendis' UNCANNY X-MEN run:
Best character work for Cyclops that I've read in an age. Scott with anti-hero qualities made him interesting. I also applaud his elevation of Illyana to the big leagues and cementing her as the breakout character that she's long deserved to be.

Can Bendis be credited for that though bc i feel its Gillen that did so by putting her on his Extinction team which consisted of the X-men's A-listers and heavily pushed mutants at the time

[FluffyCyclopsRLZ]

Can Bendis be credited for that though bc i feel its Gillen that did so by putting her on his Extinction team which consisted of the X-men's A-listers and heavily pushed mutants at the time

Bendis' Magik was basically a 99,99999% inversion of Gillen's take on the character. He absolutely should get most of the credit.

[nx01a]

Ah, Bendis...

Uncanny X-Men: Underwhelming both in terms of story and art. The high point was shockingly the Matthew Malloy arc for me, and even Bachalo's current art style was serviceable in it.

All-New X-Men: OK stories, stellar art. I hope there's an omni of it eventually so I can get all that sweet Stuart Immonen art (plus David Marquez and less so Mahmud Asrar).

Crossovers: Battle of the Atom was horrid. The Trial of Jean Grey was honestly a rehash but it was enjoyable and had great art.

Plot: Beast is tampering with his own timeline because of a non-existent mutant revolution Scott's having? The meandering from one plot to the other? The 'broken' powers of the Phoenix 5 (and Magneto) being suddenly undone by having Dark Beast randomly show up to claim responsibility then die? Jeen's psionic vampirism? Tempus having some traumatic time travel experience but ending up coming back in the same costume and looking the same despite having lived years elsewhen, plus not being drastically different in characterization?

Characterization: Cyclops/Magik is the buddy cop show I didn't know I needed. Bobby's outing was ridiculous. Cyclops and X-23's flirtation was cute but obviously done as a painfully obvious nod to Scott/Logan slash fic. Jeen was either a telepathic monster or a capable leader, neither at the same time.

I'll leave the following pics as some of his high points...

[nx01a]

...and the Bendis lows:



Let me point out that the outing is bad because of how it was handled, not because Bobby's gay. Bisexual would have worked better for me since there's so much bi-erasure but meh.

[Mike]

Since it's been nearly a decade since Bendis left X-Men, I thought it'd be good to bring it up. What do you think of Bendis's work on X-Men now?

Still hate it!

[x-mind]

Bendis' Magik was basically a 99,99999% inversion of Gillen's take on the character. He absolutely should get most of the credit.

Zeb Wells brought her back and make her an important character, and then Gillen used her and elevated her stardom.

[mbm721]

Zeb Wells brought her back and make her an important character, and then Gillen used her and elevated her stardom.

Did X-infernus (by CB Cebulski) come out before zeb wells new mutants?
And yeah bendis piggybacked off Gillens outstanding work on cyclops (especially post schism and revolutionary era) and magik. Then just meandered their plots and dialogue. Cyclops was great from Morrison-Gillen. Bendis had so much potential with cyclops but he and marvel and the inhumans blew it especially with ivx.

[Baron of Faltine]

All things considered, there were elements. Sometimes things happened. Tempus was cool. And I've seen worse - including from Bendis himself.

Aside from the stupider ideas, I try to block out, it's just kind of there for me.

Pretty much sum up my same feelings, I will add also that come out in a complicated moment in MU and suoehreor comic writing trends

[sunofdarkchild]

Zeb Wells brought her back and make her an important character, and then Gillen used her and elevated her stardom.

I wouldn't give Gillen credit for anything to do with Magik. Of the moments from AvX that made her star rise, the only one he wrote was 'there are no snowflakes in hell,' which is the least important of all of them because it took place in Uncanny X-Men and because it had no build-up and he did nothing with her until that moment. The things that really made her star rise were her defeating Dr. Strange and Black Widow and her 'on behalf of all mutants, die' line to Scarlett Witch. Those moments brought her to the attention of non-X-Men readers because they took place in AvX and the vs tie-in series. And Bendis is more like to deserve credit for them than Gillen since he was one of the writers of the AvX series while Gillen was not. Gillen never used her for anything more than a supporting character for Colossus. At the end of his run she had no relationship with a single team member other than Colossus, not even Magneto, who she had been close with in the 80s. That's how unimportant she was under Gillen. She might as well have not been in his Uncanny run at all with how little he did with her. Bendis is the one who capitalized on how AvX suddenly made her more popular to make her into an important part of the X-Men, with a close relationship with Cyclops and Dr. Strange. Pretty much everything about Magik in the Krakoa era, from her friendship with Cyclops, her leadership and teaching roles, and her place in the mystical community, can be traced to what Bendis did with her, while Gillen's run could be skipped entirely without missing anything important to her as a character. Bendis made her a fully rounded, 3-dimensional character again with actual relationships with other people and personal struggles. Gillen used her as a supporting character for someone else before deciding she was completely crazy out of nowhere.

[sunofdarkchild]

Did X-infernus (by CB Cebulski) come out before zeb wells new mutants?
And yeah bendis piggybacked off Gillens outstanding work on cyclops (especially post schism and revolutionary era) and magik. Then just meandered their plots and dialogue. Cyclops was great from Morrison-Gillen. Bendis had so much potential with cyclops but he and marvel and the inhumans blew it especially with ivx.

Quest for Magik by Kyle and Yost was when she was brought back. Cebulski then wrote X-Infernus a year later, and then Wells had his run from 2009-2011. Since she got her soul back under Wells that entire 4-year period could be considered her return.

I agree about Cyclops, but not about Magik. Gillen did nothing for Bendis to piggyback off of with her. The only thing he did with her in his entire run was have her declare she was insane at the very end. She only existed to be a supporting character for Colossus under his pen and was wallpaper for the vast majority of the Gillen run. She did not have a relationship with a single person other than Colossus in that time, so Bendis was basically starting from scratch in creating her relationships with Cyclops, Emma, and Dr. Strange.

[x-mind]

I wouldn't give Gillen credit for anything to do with Magik. Of the moments from AvX that made her star rise, the only one he wrote was 'there are no snowflakes in hell,' which is the least important of all of them because it took place in Uncanny X-Men and because it had no build-up and he did nothing with her until that moment. The things that really made her star rise were her defeating Dr. Strange and Black Widow and her 'on behalf of all mutants, die' line to Scarlett Witch. Those moments brought her to the attention of non-X-Men readers because they took place in AvX and the vs tie-in series. And Bendis is more like to deserve credit for them than Gillen since he was one of the writers of the AvX series while Gillen was not. Gillen never used her for anything more than a supporting character for Colossus. At the end of his run she had no relationship with a single team member other than Colossus, not even Magneto, who she had been close with in the 80s. That's how unimportant she was under Gillen. She might as well have not been in his Uncanny run at all with how little he did with her. Bendis is the one who capitalized on how AvX suddenly made her more popular to make her into an important part of the X-Men, with a close relationship with Cyclops and Dr. Strange. Pretty much everything about Magik in the Krakoa era, from her friendship with Cyclops, her leadership and teaching roles, and her place in the mystical community, can be traced to what Bendis did with her, while Gillen's run could be skipped entirely without missing anything important to her as a character. Bendis made her a fully rounded, 3-dimensional character again with actual relationships with other people and personal struggles. Gillen used her as a supporting character for someone else before deciding she was completely crazy out of nowhere.

I wouldn't use the word crazy for Magic. She wanted to prove a point there.

Magic was a secondary character in the whole x-franchise (at the moment Pixie was the main X-men teleporter), and she starred in Zeb Wells' New Mutants run. Especially the storyline of the Fall and the Rise of the New Mutants is like the highlight of the title. After Zeb Wells departed from the title she was taken by Gillen to the flagship X-title, Uncanny X-men and she was elevated as an A-list character. At the end of the Well's run, she was isolated from most X-men, because of her actions. She has endangered the whole island and manipulated multiple of her former friends, just to get her revenge. At this point yes, Magik had her soul back but she wasn't the same innocent little Illyana everyone remembered from the 80s. That was the point of the New Mutants' book and the same statement was repeated once more during Gillen's run on the uncanny. She wasn't crazy. She was just a manipulative person. That didn't mean that she was crazy. The difference is that this time everything happened in a more highly prolific title. Gillen made some excellent character work in Uncanny X-men, so the audience wasn't feeling enraged with the way she was written.
In the AvsX she didn't become popular because she won Dr. Strange off-panel, she became popular off her manipulation of Colossus, which was the focal point everyone was discussing. Gillen made her a an A-lister and Bendis continued Gillen's work.

[Thirteen]

I wouldn't use the word crazy for Magic. She wanted to prove a point there.

Magic was a secondary character in the whole x-franchise (at the moment Pixie was the main X-men teleporter), and she starred in Zeb Wells' New Mutants run.
-edit-
Gillen made her a an A-lister and Bendis continued Gillen's work.

Bachalo made Magik an A-lister by putting her in hot pants and giving her an anime soul sword! :-P #compromise

[sunofdarkchild]

I wouldn't use the word crazy for Magic. She wanted to prove a point there.

Magic was a secondary character in the whole x-franchise (at the moment Pixie was the main X-men teleporter), and she starred in Zeb Wells' New Mutants run. Especially the storyline of the Fall and the Rise of the New Mutants is like the highlight of the title. After Zeb Wells departed from the title she was taken by Gillen to the flagship X-title, Uncanny X-men and she was elevated as an A-list character. At the end of the Well's run, she was isolated from most X-men, because of her actions. She has endangered the whole island and manipulated multiple of her former friends, just to get her revenge. At this point yes, Magik had her soul back but she wasn't the same innocent little Illyana everyone remembered from the 80s. That was the point of the New Mutants' book and the same statement was repeated once more during Gillen's run on the uncanny. She wasn't crazy. She was just a manipulative person. That didn't mean that she was crazy. The difference is that this time everything happened in a more highly prolific title. Gillen made some excellent character work in Uncanny X-men, so the audience wasn't feeling enraged with the way she was written.
In the AvsX she didn't become popular because she won Dr. Strange off-panel, she became popular off her manipulation of Colossus, which was the focal point everyone was discussing. Gillen made her a an A-lister and Bendis continued Gillen's work.

Being on the main X-Men book is not what makes someone an a-lister. If it was, the franchise would be filled with a thousand a-listers. And again, she didn't do anything in the main book before 'there are no snowflakes in hell.' She was a background character under Gillen, who served no purpose other than to be a supporting character for Colossus and teleport the X-Men where they needed to go. He did not do any character work with her whatsoever until her speech to Colossus about how 'there are no snowflakes in hell. He didn't delve into her psyche or feelings, he didn't have her interacting with other people. She was the least important part of the team and the cast member who got the least development.

What truly made her star rise was that the fans of 2 large franchises were reading the same story, and she was one of the only bright spots in that story. That she had good moments like her line to Scarlett Witch stood out because AvX was largely hated, and non-X-men readers took notice of her for the first time. With Gillen's one moment with her, there was a divide among people who had started to like her because of AvX, and those who were fans of her from beforehand. The former who didn't know her history and hadn't been reading Uncanny enjoyed it, and the old fans were disappointed that Gillen was doubling down on making her insane and in fact making her more insane than she had been while she was missing her soul, after doing nothing at all with her for the previous 17 issues. The closest he ever came to doing something with her in the entire series before that was having Danger think about how it doesn't make sense to keep her locked up because with her soul back she wasn't the same person who committed the crime, but he never even attempted to explore that idea beyond having the robot think about it once. He never explored any ideas with her or gave her a single character moment besides 'there are no snowflakes in hell. That's not good character work. That's not even bad character work. That's the absence of character work. Her actions in AvX did more to build up to the one moment he gave her than he ever did. She might as well have not been in the book from the moment the Fear Itself story ended until her crowning moment of crazy.

Magik was only innocent when she was 6. That's the point of her origin story, that her soul was corrupted, she was forced to learn dark magic and do horrible things to survive, and she would be forced to live with an evil side of herself that could cause the death or corruption of everyone she cared about and the entire world if she couldn't keep it in check. With the Elder Gods, the Project Purgatory soldiers were going to release them irrespective of anything she did. Her way of stopping them was manipulative and risky, but had she done nothing the world would have been destroyed. Her motivation also included getting the bloodstones back which would restore her soul, so it was about more than just revenge. Her story is about trying to be more than Belasco made her, which is something she struggled with under pretty much every writer except Gillen. That's why she wanted her soul back in the first place. That's how other writers after Zeb Wells in New Mutants treated her imprisonment and her desire to regain the trust of her old friends, such as being why she refused to be rescued by her demon servants. Gillen ignored that entirely to use her as a prop for Colossus for 17 issues and then have her suddenly declare how broken she was.

Gillen did great work with other characters, especially Cyclops. The fact that I started to like Cyclops even a little bit under Gillengives me enormous respect for the man. But with Magik, he didn't do anything at all, and saying that her being on the main X-Men team is what elevated her is just giving both him and her a participation award for showing up. Pretty much any other writer would have done more with her in 1 issue than he did in 20.

[sunofdarkchild]

Bachalo made Magik an A-lister by putting her in hot pants and giving her an anime soul sword! :-P #compromise

In all seriousness, much as I hate that costume, it does deserve more credit more making Magik popular than Gillen does.