Can Someone Explain the Criticism of Bendis' Avengers?

[L.R Johansson]

I can't believe got away with this trashy/misogynistic level of dialogue. :smh:

We're not supposed to think that dialogue is "kewl" though, or whatever - the only one who spouted stuff like that in the story is the main villain - Dr DOOM. The intention is to show that Doom is - an utter jerk.

Which he is. The biggest misunderstanding of Dr Doom that a writer could make is that they insist on Dr Doom being noble - because he isn't. Noble compared to whom? Spider-man? Captain America? Reed Richards?
H*ll no! Compared to the likes of Carnage? Probably. But that doesn't actually make Doom noble.

He's not. Bendis take was a bit different, as it was pretty much Doom having one of the worst days of his life, up to that point - I believe what Bendis was going for here was to show a somewhat more flawed Doom, who is actually under pressure - who can't quite keep up his usual superior bravado in the face of the situation. It's different, but not entirely unreasonable.

The story of course ends with Doom humbled - defeated, dethroned, and his armour ripped apart by Sentry - revealing his face to the Avengers.

I'm going to defend bring Spider-Man in as a regular member here. They had asked several times before to join, and once he realized that there was a $1000/week stipend (thirty years ago) he wanted in to solve his poor college student problem. It didn't work because at the core of the matter, his personality doesn't fit a group setting. Over time, as his life changed and he became more of a full time hero (because having three solo series didn't quite do it....) joining the team works. Editorially it doesn't because its hard to do because of all the solo ongoings, and the mandate that he focus on Peter Parker so much. Batman doesn't have this problem.

Hmm, maybe. Why DOESN'T Batman have this problem though?

I want to jump in here better then deeper in the thread but before I say anything to it. I must say I noticed a whole while ago that Bendis and Hickman seems to work together.(really they know each other so well?!)

Yes, they do. They've both talked about it in the Wordballoon podcast - basically, Bendis has known Hickman for his entire career.

It was actually a thing at Marvel there for a while - I recall that another example is Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction - Brubaker got Fraction his first big gig in mainstream comics - writing Immortal Iron Fist with him.

[Lee Stone]

My personal opinion is that he does great with street-level characters and talking heads moments.
Both of which felt out of place in an Avengers title.

I think he'd fit better on a revival of the Marvel Knights series with Daredevil, Black Widow, Moon Knight and others.

Some writers are just best suited for certain types of stories.
Having Bendis write Avengers is like having Brian Azzarello write Justice League.
Or Frank Miller writing X-Men.

They've past their formulative stages and have developed techniques and styles that work for them, and these don't translate well to widescreen action comics.

[Johnrevenge]

We're not supposed to think that dialogue is "kewl" though, or whatever - the only one who spouted stuff like that in the story is the main villain - Dr DOOM. The intention is to show that Doom is - an utter jerk.

Which he is. The biggest misunderstanding of Dr Doom that a writer could make is that they insist on Dr Doom being noble - because he isn't. Noble compared to whom? Spider-man? Captain America? Reed Richards?
H*ll no! Compared to the likes of Carnage? Probably. But that doesn't actually make Doom noble.

He's not. Bendis take was a bit different, as it was pretty much Doom having one of the worst days of his life, up to that point - I believe what Bendis was going for here was to show a somewhat more flawed Doom, who is actually under pressure - who can't quite keep up his usual superior bravado in the face of the situation. It's different, but not entirely unreasonable.

The story of course ends with Doom humbled - defeated, dethroned, and his armour ripped apart by Sentry - revealing his face to the Avengers.


Hmm, maybe. Why DOESN'T Batman have this problem though?



Yes, they do. They've both talked about it in the Wordballoon podcast - basically, Bendis has known Hickman for his entire career.

It was actually a thing at Marvel there for a while - I recall that another example is Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction - Brubaker got Fraction his first big gig in mainstream comics - writing Immortal Iron Fist with him.

Doom can be noble on his own way. Yes, he is not like Spider-man or Captain America, but he wouldn't behave in the way that Bendis wrote him. Yes, he can be a jerk, but not in the levels that bendis wrote him (he has honor in his way, especially if it's for his own gain). What Bendis did was Out of Character. Doom have would have kept his classic attitude even in the worst odds against him, he wouldn't have been submissive even if he ended defeated.

[TakoM]

My personal opinion is that he does great with street-level characters and talking heads moments.
Both of which felt out of place in an Avengers title.

I think he'd fit better on a revival of the Marvel Knights series with Daredevil, Black Widow, Moon Knight and others.

Some writers are just best suited for certain types of stories.
Having Bendis write Avengers is like having Brian Azzarello write Justice League.
Or Frank Miller writing X-Men.

They've past their formulative stages and have developed techniques and styles that work for them, and these don't translate well to widescreen action comics.

Hm well Marvel Knight would be a full cyle because from my view things really started there with Joe Quesada as editor of Marvel knight. After Marvel went bankrupt he got flushed upwards and many old editors and authors left Marvel. I'm not sure but I think Quesada was the one who hired him and Miller also for the Ultimate line with the sole intention to make the Ultimate Universe more like Marvel Knights.

We know that Bendis at some point was assigned to the 616 to bring similar success to them ....

[Sighphi]

Because he spend one page of dialogue to say some one should setup a diversion by instead of using that word, diversion, he went on to explain what "looky-loo" was. Which was a diversion.

[ekrolo2]

I actually started to like his run upon re-reading it recently, the primary problem with it that ultimately lead to me dropping it is the fact Secret Invasion, the big thing he was building up to was well.... Let me just quote Cartman from that one parodying biographical nature incidents: "I'M SO FUCKING BORED!"

[TakoM]

Lets not forget how he did it.

Wasp: You used to have kids right?

Wanda: I remember now! Time to go crazy!

Everyone else: Man, bitches be crazy, no?

Regardless of how well it fit with established canon (not at all), it's completely underwhelming. Bendis wants the credit of an epic story, but without doing any of the work that's required. His spy stories lack attention to details (Secret War and Secret Invasion), his character driven stories lack logical characterization (Avengers Disassembled, Hood) and when he thinks he has a clever scene, no internal logic can stand in his way (see his recent resurrection of Dr. Samson).

More often than not, he wants the credit of writing an epic story without doing the actual work.

Bendis' style reminds me very much of a fanfiction writer. He has pet characters (Jessica and Luke) that he'll dote on but not develop, he has characters he dislikes and will take opportunities to bash (Tigra), uses semi popular characters despite having no idea how (Sentry the best example, but Hood and Marvel Boy are close seconds) and switches plot focus like he has ADD (Secret Invasion, 'built up' since Avengers Disassembled, ended in a freakin' summary page so that Dark Reign could start).

I doubt we'd even be talking about Bendis anymore if he didn't have the ability to grab popular characters to keep his titles afloat (see the end of his Avengers run)

About fanfiction it depends what kind of fanfiction there are the ones who built up on it or the once which is more like a What If story and goes wild. In the Ultimate Universe the authors could go wild as ever they wanted.

When I think of new stories I want them to built up on the old, the problem is the whole comic continuum started to be a mess to much stuff is writen which don`t fit in each other anymore. Don't get me wrong some stuff was always contradicting in the Marvel Universe like the different origin stories of the gods like Asgard and the Cosmic gods like Eternity but constantly changing personalities and characters jumping between being dead and a life with out pause while other stay dead and then major errors in the logic flow like in AXIS and the outcome of Hickman's SW are on a very different level.

On the other hand like I said people like some of this stuff because it shows heroes under a different light from my perspective mostly 'not as a hero'. Which I personally don't like I would like to read a follow up of Alex Paradise X or seeing in the 616 going deeper into the mystery of meta-humans and secrets of the universe (including the Celestials). Maybe not as a on to go book but as a title with a series, so you have also villains in it.

[sluggo]

There several issues - he had no idea how to handle Sentry, he would get interested in a character and give them a huge role (Hood, Ares, Luke Cage etc...) then seem to get bored of them, he is addicted to the "big event and fall out" etc....

But the single biggest issue was the shrinking of the marvel universe by including characters who were pillers of their own area's of the Marvel U. The issue wasn't that we had first time Avengers, Luke Cage was an Avenger for the first time during Bendis's run and you never hear any one complain about him (I believe Spider-Woman as well), the problem was that Wolverine was the center piece of the Mutant sphere (my word) of the Marvel Universe. The "mutant sphere" and "avengers sphere" were part of the same world but generally opperated independently, but when you take the biggest character in the X-men universe and stick him on the Avengers the two come crashing together. Same with Spider-Man and what I'd call "The New York sphere". Now instead of proping up other areas of the Marvel Universe characters like Spider-man and Wolverine became background players to Ironman and Captain America.

[Lee Stone]

Hm well Marvel Knight would be a full cyle because from my view things really started there with Joe Quesada as editor of Marvel knight. After Marvel went bankrupt he got flushed upwards and many old editors and authors left Marvel. I'm not sure but I think Quesada was the one who hired him and Miller also for the Ultimate line with the sole intention to make the Ultimate Universe more like Marvel Knights.

We know that Bendis at some point was assigned to the 616 to bring similar success to them ....

I was thinking of the actual Marvel Knights non-team book by Dixon.

[The Cool Thatguy]

About fanfiction it depends what kind of fanfiction there are the ones who built up on it or the once which is more like a What If story and goes wild. In the Ultimate Universe the authors could go wild as ever they wanted..

When I say fanfiction with regards to Bendis, what I mean to say is that he puts little forethought into his stories, into his themes and characters.

He dislikes Tigra, so he had Jarvis (and then The Hood) bash her.

When he used the Hood as the main villain, Hood's hook was that his organization would avoid the pitfalls that befell villains before them, like holding grudges. Yet that's all his people do, fighting the New Avengers.

During Secret Invasion, he established that death was the only way to reveal the new skrulls...yet that's how he brought back Mockingbird (yes, I know later writers explained it)

He used Sentry and Ares poorly, but I'd also bring up his use of Wolverine. He was brought onto the team to be the killer...yet that never happened, did it?

His writing ability is best described as ADD. If he focuses, it can be okay. But he often loses focus, and his writing suffers

[TakoM]

When I say fanfiction with regards to Bendis, what I mean to say is that he puts little forethought into his stories, into his themes and characters.

He dislikes Tigra, so he had Jarvis (and then The Hood) bash her.

When he used the Hood as the main villain, Hood's hook was that his organization would avoid the pitfalls that befell villains before them, like holding grudges. Yet that's all his people do, fighting the New Avengers.

During Secret Invasion, he established that death was the only way to reveal the new skrulls...yet that's how he brought back Mockingbird (yes, I know later writers explained it)

He used Sentry and Ares poorly, but I'd also bring up his use of Wolverine. He was brought onto the team to be the killer...yet that never happened, did it?

His writing ability is best described as ADD. If he focuses, it can be okay. But he often loses focus, and his writing suffers

Well it fits with what they say about that his street level hero titles are better because they don't need great stories beforehand because they are essentially sitcoms.(mix)

On the other hand all big stories of hero team which have re-readability have a longer built up which result then into an event. I think Marvels schedules are awfully tight for this in the recent years. Only Hickman had this much time in all this time.

[charliehustle415]

I am now at Age of Ultron and just finished The Heroic Age. I really like how the two books feel new yet familiar, unlike ANAD. I really enjoyed the return of the Illuminati and now I finally know how and why Captain America joined the Illuminati.

[hobo]

Bendis style is one thing, bendis tics are a whole other level. He repeats himself constantly, like the Greg Land of writing. I can see why both of them sell. I don't understand how either of them can't annoy the crap out of people after a while. I can make a checklist of scenes I'm going to see in a bendis arc, and check them off one by one. Granted I've only really read his team books and a few USM arcs, but what I read in the team books led me to avoid him like the plague.

I don't like his style much either, but that's a matter of taste. One thing I will agree with from people who praise his style, is he writes comics with sitcom-like rhythm. I agree, but sitcoms are the lowest form of tv entertainment outside of reality shows, so I could have done without that innovation.

As far as continuity goes, im not sure he even follows his own. That line in avengers about red hulk never being seen again is still one of the biggest had scratchers I've ever seen. He will casually toss out huge changes like the Vishanti "disassembling", Agamotto going apeshit, the eye being destroyed, but then these things either never get traction, are basically ignored, or the resolution is not interesting enough to remember.

I get the impression he would probably work best in his own universe, creating his own characters who all happen to be teenagers born in the 90s, following his own continuity, and never ever creating earth shattering events.

[Icefalcon]

Quite a lot of my thoughts on Brian Bendis Avengers (and a lot of his other stuff) have been previously mentioned by others so I won't repeat them, but the one thing that does still stick out is the disappointment.
Here comes Brian with a great idea and I read the preview and the first issue and think "this will be way cool", but by the end I'm usually left with a more "oh" feeling on the actual execution of his ideas.

[Wellman]

My issues with Bendis run.

- Throughout the entire run, the only characters I can think of that got any sort of real development are Luke Cage, Norman Osborn and just maybe Spider-Woman. Maybe it was due too many of big heavies being in other books but every other character got maybe a shallow perspective glance or a Sentry style deconstruction/tear down in an attempt to make them interesting but none of it worked or got he forgot to build them back up.

- Way to easy to tell when he just stops caring. That is when crossovers, team ups, events and reoccurring villains he really liked (Osborn and the Hood the like fill the pages more then the main cast that is supposed to star in the book. His Avengers run is full of such arcs.


Those are my reasons for disliking his Avengers run, swap out Luke Cage and etc in the first reasoning and replace them with Star Lord and Kitty Pride and you also have the reasons why I dislike his Guardians of the Galaxy run. That being said, I loved his Uncanny X-Men run.