Bendis On War Machine's Death, She-Hulk's Fate & Raising the "Civil War II" Stakes

[CBR News]

Brian Michael Bendis joins CBR for an in-depth discussion of the pivotal players, twists, and turns in the first two issues of the Marvel event series.


Full article here.

[Ravin' Ray]

I'm going to address the green elephant in the room right away because it's a very contentious topic for several people. So Bendis is still mum on how exactly She-Hulk was severely injured and remains so, even comatose thus far. This seems to contradict his statement that:

I love She-Hulk! And I know she's beloved. She's also beloved by different pockets of fandom. Some characters have one pocket of fandom, but she has a few. She's an empowerment figure, and she's a classic figure now. She's been around for decades. There's a lot to her, plus she's had some substantially excellent recent runs. It's not just, "Remember John Byrne's 'She-Hulk?'" It's, "Remember Dan Slott's 'She-Hulk?' And Charles Soule's 'She-Hulk?'" Those were fantastic, recent runs.


We knew going in, but there's always a plan.

So, sit tight, wait, and see.

[Ambaryerno]

I'm going to address the green elephant in the room right away because it's a very contentious topic for several people. So Bendis is still mum on how exactly She-Hulk was severely injured and remains so, even comatose thus far. This seems to contradict his statement that:

So, sit tight, wait, and see.

It's Bendis. He may have a plan, but it's usually had about as much thought put into it as the Underpants Gnomes.

[Johnrevenge]

The biggest insult is that he openly lies by saying that he loves She-hulk. Nearly every time he wrote her, she always ended suffering a lot (Avengers Dissambled, Age of Ultron, the Secret wars tie-in of Old Man Logan where an alternate version of She-hulk ended killed off). It's a total insult to all of Jennifer's fans.

[Park Slope Pixie]

Sounds like this whole CW2 debacle needed an old school editor like Ralph Macchio.

[Ravin' Ray]

In fairness to Bendis, he wrote that Vision spotlight in Avengers #24.1 where he reunited with She-Hulk and they had a touching, conciliatory conversation.

[XPac]

The biggest insult is that he openly lies by saying that he loves She-hulk. Nearly every time he wrote her, she always ended suffering a lot (Avengers Dissambled, Age of Ultron, the Secret wars tie-in of Old Man Logan where an alternate version of She-hulk ended killed off). It's a total insult to all of Jennifer's fans.

A writer can like a character and still have them suffer. Plenty of writer pit their characters through the ringer to tell stories.

[Johnrevenge]

A writer can like a character and still have them suffer. Plenty of writer pit their characters through the ringer to tell stories.

But bendis hadn't make his pet characters suffer the same amount of crap that Jennifer had suffered when he writes her.

[Supermutant2099]

Yeah bendis keeping telling us to read your trash and deflect the questions. Deflect the issues and lie. You wrote a character put into a coma who should not be. You say you like she-hulk then treat her like garbage from the moment you wrote her. You blacklist from the avengers. You barley use her crossover events you write. I think Age Of Ultron was most he wrote her in one she died in brutal fashion in that. We are suppose to believe that is going to be resolved properly? It won't and marvel or bendis giving me less then 0% confidence that it will. Deflecting and trying to lie to us about liking the character doesn't help.

[Ravin' Ray]

Just a mod reminder, seeing as how polarizing a writer Bendis is, let's keep criticism to his work and not to his person. Personally I won't label him a "liar" because as pointed out, She-Hulk's story is far from finished here.

[Moral_Gutpunch]

Anyone notice her only responded to ONE reaction about how he dealt with these characters? Is no one else asking any of these questions:
"Why did they act stupid?" (I feel this is the most important so far)

"Why hurt Carol emotionally and not physically?"

"Why are you using their deaths as a cliffhanger to sell comicbooks while saying you're using them to create emotional drama? How do you plan to actually combine those two? ARE you combining those two?"

"If you wanted to hurt Carol, why did you not hurt Kamala in a fight? She IS a inhuman and would be more affected by fellow inhumans fucking up with powers, and idolizes Carol so much she named herself after Carol. Plus, unlike Carol and her friends, she has no experience with future-seeing stuff. Put this at a finale of Kamala's series and it'll work better as emotional drama and a cliffhanger, as well as potentially offing a minority character. Am I the only one who sees this as a more obvious way to go?"

"Why is no one addressing Minority Report, Legal Issues, Madame Web, Professor X, the super computer Tony built to predict crime, or other future-seeing people or things?"

[Frontier]

I know it would never happen, but somebody should ban Bendis from using classic Avengers. Especially the ladies.

A writer can like a character and still have them suffer. Plenty of writer pit their characters through the ringer to tell stories.

I think the issue with Bendis is that, the degree he makes them suffer often ends up being damaging for the character and unnecessary in the end, and even outside of making his characters suffer he often doesn't portray them well.

[Supermutant2099]

Just a mod reminder, seeing as how polarizing a writer Bendis is, let's keep criticism to his work and not to his person. Personally I won't label him a "liar" because as pointed out, She-Hulk's story is far from finished here.

I was talking about him liking she-hulk. As other people said his writing her most of the time shown that highly doubtable. One thing to put character through ringer but another thing like bendis does who put her through torture rack. But even if I was talking about she-hulk fate not like marvel giving us any reason to believe him. I mean if you listen to enough interviews and then read comics long enough you ended up really jaded to believe them.

[Johnrevenge]

I know it would never happen, but somebody should ban Bendis from using classic Avengers. Especially the ladies.


I think the issue with Bendis is that, the degree he makes them suffer often ends up being damaging for the character and unnecessary in the end, and even outside of making his characters suffer he often doesn't portray them well.

I would vote for that.

I still believe that another writer would have been more fit for the event (Ewing, for example, in his tie-ins of the event is doing a marvelous job, especially dealing with the Ultimates' reactions after the mess of Free Comic Book Day).

Also it's also true, when Bendis makes characters suffer, it's too extreme that they it's very hard to redeem them or save them (look at the Scarlet Witch for example)

[Wiccan]

"If you wanted to hurt Carol, why did you not hurt Kamala in a fight? She IS a inhuman and would be more affected by fellow inhumans fucking up with powers, and idolizes Carol so much she named herself after Carol. Plus, unlike Carol and her friends, she has no experience with future-seeing stuff. Put this at a finale of Kamala's series and it'll work better as emotional drama and a cliffhanger, as well as potentially offing a minority character. Am I the only one who sees this as a more obvious way to go?"

Err... Do you really know enough about Carol and Kamala? They don't know each other that well, the only time they met was when they teamed up on the Last Days before Secret Wars, and now in Kamala's book from last month. Kamala is a big fangirl who absolutely loves and worships Carol, but for Carol, Kamala's just a nice kid doing what she can to be a good hero. Rhodey though? They've been hooking up since KSD's run.