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  1. #16
    Latverian ambassador Iron Maiden's Avatar
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    Thanks Johnrevenge, I was going to add the complaint about his treatment of the female heroes, most glaringly Wanda and Jan. The thing that annoyed me most was that what was done with Wanda has been done too many times with powerful female characters....they end up going off the deep end because of their lack of control of their powers. This happened to Jean and partly with Susan Richards when it manifested as Malice. Jan he just decided to get rid of for a while even though she was one of the best female leads of the Avengers back in Roger Stern's day. Add She Hulk to the mix, another female character he got rid of via Disassembled.

    To top if off it Bendis appears not to have read the "Darker than Scarlet" arc all the way to it's conclusion in West Coast Avengers and instead has Wanda's power up in Disassembled come out of nowhere. Well anyway, now it's been decided it was all Doom's doing even though he wasn't even on around at the time.
    Last edited by Iron Maiden; 05-17-2016 at 10:47 AM.

  2. #17
    Mighty Member tg1982's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Iron Maiden View Post
    Bendis is very hit or miss for me. His dialogue ticks can be annoying and are became popularly parodied around the 'net. I liked Dark Avengers and Mighty Avengers but New Avengers not so much. Another thing was the overuse of the Hood did not exactly excite the readership. I liked his concept of the Cabal in Dark Reign but he really didn't exploit it very well. They never really did anything of much importance as a group.

    But it's the padding that really gets old after a while. Take Invincible Iron Man for example. There are some plot elements that he has been teasing for 9 issues with no new developments. IMO that is far too slow in this day and age.

    Then there is this hilariously bad dialogue...

    What the hell is Doom saying? Bendis had to be trolling when he wrote that. I generally like Bendis' work. But jeez that is some, "triggered, internet fanboy, nerdrage" that Doom is spouting right there. LOL.
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  3. #18
    Astonishing Member Johnrevenge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Iron Maiden View Post
    Thanks Johnrevenge, I was going to add the complaint about his treatment of the female heroes, most glaringly Wanda and Jan. The thing that annoyed me most was that what was done with Wanda has been done too many times with powerful female characters....they end up going off the deep end because of their lack of control of their powers. This happened to Jean and partly with Susan Richards when it manifested as Malice. Jan he just decided to get rid of for a while even though she was one of the best female leads of the Avengers back in Roger Stern's day. Add She Hulk to the mix, another female character he got rid of via Disassembled.

    To top if off it Bendis appears not to have read the "Darker than Scarlet" arc all the way to it's conclusion in West Coast Avengers and instead has Wanda's power up in Disassembled come out of nowhere. Well anyway, now it's been decided it was all Doom's doing even though he wasn't even on around at the time.
    Yeah it was one of the things that angered me from Bendis' work. And if you have read Guardians of the Galaxy, you can also see that in the way he write Gamora. In all the fights she takes part, she ended nearly all the time beaten up and must be saved by the rest of her male teammates.

  4. #19
    Astonishing Member chamber-music's Avatar
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    I don't mind changing up the roster. The Avengers has always had a ever evolving roster. I do think besides popularity Spider-Man and Wolverine don't really offer much to the Avengers. The best and most interesting stories involving those characters are usually not going to be found in Avengers books.

    Some people also think Bendis best fit is street level heroes like Daredevil, Luke Cage and Moon Knight. Bendis has a unique writing 'voice' that doesn't always work with the different types of characters he writes.

  5. #20
    Astonishing Member Johnrevenge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chamber-music View Post
    I don't mind changing up the roster. The Avengers has always had a ever evolving roster. I do think besides popularity Spider-Man and Wolverine don't really offer much to the Avengers. The best and most interesting stories involving those characters are usually not going to be found in Avengers books.

    Some people also think Bendis best fit is street level heroes like Daredevil, Luke Cage and Moon Knight.
    As I said before, Bendis is an absolute and total disaster writing team books. But when he writes solo characters, especially street heroes, the thing changed and he is actually good and he does a good job developing those individual stories.

    But there should exist a law that must ban Bendis from writing team books.

  6. #21
    CBR's Good Fairy Kieran_Frost's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Johnrevenge View Post
    Bendis doesn't know how to write team books. Nearly all the characters in his Avengers run sounded practically the same all the time, and he didn't treat well the female characters (his run in Mighty Avengers proved that as Carol, Janet and Natasha were wallpaller and Out of character all the time). In his team books female characters tend to be useless wallpaller characters that must be rescued by their male teammates, or annoying Mary Sues, he never knew how to write female characters in team books (look at jessica Jones for example. In her solo run, she was a likable character...but when she started to appear in the Avengers book, she became a wallpaller character who only talked to complain about Luke Cage's parenting skills).
    I love Dark Avengers and Uncanny X-men, both team books were wonderful and full of awesome females (Victoria Hand, Emma Frost, Magik, Jean Grey, Moonstone). I do agree Jessica Jones was very unlikeable in New Avengers, and Carol got screwed over in Mighty Avengers (sadly).
    "We are Shakespeare. We are Michelangelo. We are Tchaikovsky. We are Turing. We are Mercury. We are Wilde. We are Lincoln, Lorca, Leonardo da Vinci. We are Alexander the Great. We are Fredrick the Great. We are Rustin. We are Addams. We are Marsha! Marsha Marsha Marsha! We so generous, we DeGeneres. We are Ziggy Stardust hooked to the silver screen. Controversially we are Malcolm X. We are Plato. We are Aristotle. We are RuPaul, god dammit! And yes, we are Woolf."

  7. #22
    Astonishing Member Johnrevenge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kieran_Frost View Post
    I love Dark Avengers and Uncanny X-men, both team books were wonderful and full of awesome females (Victoria Hand, Emma Frost, Magik, Jean Grey, Moonstone). I do agree Jessica Jones was very unlikeable in New Avengers, and Carol got screwed over in Mighty Avengers (sadly).
    As I said before, Bendis only knows to write two kind of characters: Useless Wallpallers or Mary Sues. And all the ladies you mentioned were Mary Sues the instant that Bendis wrote them (although he turned Victoria Hand into wallpaller during heroes reborn and ended killing her off for a sad attempt of drama factor).

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by tg1982 View Post
    What the hell is Doom saying? Bendis had to be trolling when he wrote that. I generally like Bendis' work. But jeez that is some, "triggered, internet fanboy, nerdrage" that Doom is spouting right there. LOL.
    Bendis was trying to find a new way to write the kind of traditional villain dialogue he's uncomfortable with - so he gave Doom stylized misogynistic dialogue in place of the general "I'm evil" monologues he usually gets. Like his attempt to find a new way to write thought balloons, it didn't really work. There are some things he's good at, but writing un-ironic hammy world-conquering supervillains is not one of them.

  9. #24
    Mighty Member L.R Johansson's Avatar
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    I actually loved his run - it's what got me into the Avengers! = ) Having read his Ultimate Spider-man and his Daredevil before, he's what brought me into being a really, really big Avengers-fan.

    Regarding the criticisms, most of what can be said has already been said - I would say most of it is exaggerated and uncalled for - while a certain part is probably correct - towards the end, he wrote like, 20 issues that really didn't have much purpose - he was done with the team - his run ended with Dark Avengers and Siege - that was the story he wanted to tell, and towards the end, he ACTUALLY LEAVES the Avengers looking very, very similar to what they were before his start on the book.

    That's something which I'm not sure all of the fans are aware of - he's actually got a philosophy when writing these iconic characters, which he mentions on the podcast Wordballoon: "I try to put the toys back in the box like I found them. The trick is to not break the toys - 'cause it's the best damn toy-box in the world". (or something to that effect)

    And his writing-style is his writing-style - it's very unusual in mainstream comics, so either you love it, or you hate it.

    That's actually something he's got in common with Jonathan Hickman - which, I'm guessing you're not aware, is actually one of Bendis PROTEGÉS! He's a mentor and friend to him, and he pretty much got him into mainstream comics when they co-wrote Secret Warriors. Hickman is also that way, that since his writing is fairly unique and unusual, it becomes something of a shock for some fans, so they hate it - "too complicated!" "too drawn out!", etc. But the fans that actually enjoy it - they enjoy it a lot. They re-read his comics three times, they make their own notes to follow the storylines, they study his extra-material meticulously... like me.


    Quote Originally Posted by chamber-music View Post
    I don't mind changing up the roster. The Avengers has always had a ever evolving roster. I do think besides popularity Spider-Man and Wolverine don't really offer much to the Avengers. The best and most interesting stories involving those characters are usually not going to be found in Avengers books.

    Some people also think Bendis best fit is street level heroes like Daredevil, Luke Cage and Moon Knight. Bendis has a unique writing 'voice' that doesn't always work with the different types of characters he writes.
    Moon Knight is actually one of the few books of his that I haven't quite enjoyed... And definitely the only solo-book he's written that I didn't love. It's a bit of an odd misfire from him - and to this day, I think it might be because he never actually intended to write MK, it was just because his pal Joe Quesada is a really big fan of the character, and he had wanted him to do MK for YEARS - going on about it.

    His heart was never quite in it...

    Regarding the thing with Joe Q (which I actually think is among the top 3 EiC's in Marvel's history) I believe he pretty much actually sad it outright in the interviews for the launch of the series.

  10. #25

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    my personal experience with his writing is that he has decent ideas and poor execution. bringing Luke Cage, Spider-man, and Wolverine into the Avengers fold is a no-brainer; for strengthening the Avengers/Marvel brand. but I didn't enjoy the characters after Bendis started writing them. Dark Avengers is one of my favorite concepts. but I thought that his handling of the individual characters was pretty lousy. thankfully, he wasn't the only writer who got to play with Daken or Karla Sofen. but can someone explain to me why it was a good idea to have Mac Gargan suddenly start acting really emotional and reluctant to fight? talk about wasting your evil spider-man. Moonstone's only contribution to the series was sleeping with everyone. his Osborn was decent but not as good as Ellis' take on the character, though.

  11. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by Johnrevenge View Post
    He hadn't done favors to Carol either...during the Mighty Avengers run she was practically useless and during his New Avengers run during the dark reign and heroes reborn, she was only there for the wallpaller factor...
    she also cried in front of Norman Osborn. I might be overthinking things. but that seems really out of character for Carol. she, generally, has a hard time admitting weakness to other Avengers. I could see her flying into a rage after Osborn claimed Avengers tower. but quivering and tearing up? I don't see it happening.

  12. #27
    Moderator Frontier's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Iron Maiden View Post
    Thanks Johnrevenge, I was going to add the complaint about his treatment of the female heroes, most glaringly Wanda and Jan. The thing that annoyed me most was that what was done with Wanda has been done too many times with powerful female characters....they end up going off the deep end because of their lack of control of their powers. This happened to Jean and partly with Susan Richards when it manifested as Malice. Jan he just decided to get rid of for a while even though she was one of the best female leads of the Avengers back in Roger Stern's day. Add She Hulk to the mix, another female character he got rid of via Disassembled.

    To top if off it Bendis appears not to have read the "Darker than Scarlet" arc all the way to it's conclusion in West Coast Avengers and instead has Wanda's power up in Disassembled come out of nowhere. Well anyway, now it's been decided it was all Doom's doing even though he wasn't even on around at the time.
    Let's look at what Bendis did to Wanda, Janet, and Jennifer:

    He had Wanda lose control over her powers and go crazy, eventually causing The Avengers to break up and the Decimation of the Mutant Race, all of which still hangs over her head even now.

    The biggest thing Bendis did with Janet was killing her off and then bringing her back. And there was that Might Avengers Secret Invasion tie-in where he portrayed her as a drunk who left Hank.

    He had She-Hulk destroy Vision in Disassembled and now he's apparently killed her in Civil War II.

    Quote Originally Posted by chamber-music View Post
    I don't mind changing up the roster. The Avengers has always had a ever evolving roster. I do think besides popularity Spider-Man and Wolverine don't really offer much to the Avengers. The best and most interesting stories involving those characters are usually not going to be found in Avengers books.

    Some people also think Bendis best fit is street level heroes like Daredevil, Luke Cage and Moon Knight. Bendis has a unique writing 'voice' that doesn't always work with the different types of characters he writes.
    The only major contribution Spider-Man made to The Avengers was quips. That's usually all he was there for.

  13. #28
    Incredible Member Haquim's Avatar
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    Bendis is someone who could write street level heroes but utterly fails at doing anything else. He always tries to tell the same story with the same type of cliche villain (more or less all elaborations of gangster types, there's a reason he tried to ship the Hood as an Avengers villain). Besides that he uses all the dirtiest tricks in the book for shock value and short term gains (deaths of beloved heroes, face-heel turns, controversial relationships) and worse, he does so in graceless fashion.
    Besides that he doesn't care about characters' estabilished personalities, power levels, continuity or anything that doesn't work into the stories he wants to tell. For some reason he also seems to hate secret identities. And all this without considering some of his favoured tropes like talking heads and panels upon panels of heroes discussing things while eating.

    As for his Avengers run I found it completely shallow, badly written and executed with no planning at all involved (I point you at the debacle Secret Invasion was and dare you to compare it with Secret Wars).

    To me it seems Bendis writes with the bottom line in mind: he crams something controversial in the first issues of his runs to lure readers, increases sales on the short term, then when things start to crumble he bolts and moves to some new series repeating exactly the same formula again and again.

    There's nothing inventive or surprising in what Bendis wrotes, and his treatment of the characters he's entrusted with is exploiting and shameful imo.
    Last edited by Haquim; 05-17-2016 at 11:49 AM.

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by charliehustle415 View Post
    Wow, thank you for the thoughtful response. I completely missed out on this era of Marvel so it's weird to me that people would be against a changing of the guard. Now you can't even think about the Avengers without Spider-Man or Wolverine and Scarlet Witch has become such a dynamic and interesting character. I just think about how the X-Men line was revitalized and how the Avengers became a franchise with multiple titles. We had the introduction of the Illuminati which was awesome and revitalized the Hulk line. We also got Norman Osborn become a Marvel wide threat, humanized Thor and literally brought him to Earth.

    I also can't understand how some criticize of his dialogue though, I mean the entirety of the MCU is that, isn't that why people fell in love with a one time B-List hero like Iron Man?

    I do agree on the event fatigue though, man, just looking at all of the crossovers gave me hot sweats. How can any reasonable person even afford to buy all of the event books and tie ins that he wrote. And I do think he was the origin of annualized major events that hi-jack a lot of books (*cough* Civil War II *cough*), I mean when you only get 12 books a year and 4 of them become entangled in a line wide crossover does suck.

    Is there anything I should look out for while I am reading his run? I really like getting other peoples perspective on important runs.

    Thanks
    Although is either of the two actually members right now? Logan is dead and although there is a spider-man on a team it is not Peter.

    I do think to you should remember that some of those Things you mention really had nothing to do with Bendis. Like Thor changes these last few years.

    The criticism of his dialogue is the fact that it can feel VERT VERY VERY VERY VERY stretched to many readers.

    Dont get me wrong I like a lot of his Work, Ultimate Spider-man is one of my favorite long runs ever, but there are some issues that are just to much. But considering how many issues of various titles he has been on that is not really that strange.

  15. #30
    Mighty Member tg1982's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gurkle View Post
    Bendis was trying to find a new way to write the kind of traditional villain dialogue he's uncomfortable with - so he gave Doom stylized misogynistic dialogue in place of the general "I'm evil" monologues he usually gets. Like his attempt to find a new way to write thought balloons, it didn't really work. There are some things he's good at, but writing un-ironic hammy world-conquering supervillains is not one of them.
    I'll give him an A for effort, at least at least he tried for something a little different.
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