Originally Posted by
Omega Alpha
Bendis' run was the first time in history in which the Avengers were actually the center of the MU as it should be; I mean, Busiek's run was great, but Ultron can wipe out an entire country and Kang literally conquer the entire world, yet outside of it nobody gives a crap and even mentions it, because the team is irrelevant and eventually everything goes back to the same old group of Avengers going to the mansion and the most relevant question is who Wanda, Tigra or Wasp is dating, with the same heroes no one cares about from the hardcore fans, if they actually do (not like everyone was a fan of Triathlon or Doctor Druid).
Then Bendis' run comes and for the first time in maybe ever it feels like you don't know what can actually happen with the group, who can be a member, and what will be the consequences of what they do (then Hickman actually does a different take on this: a situation where you do, but you know the Avengers are necessarily going to lose, rather than win the day as they usually do). Not that it didn't had MANY problems, specially after Siege, but it was certainly quite a ride like the book never really had before.
Oh, and the complain about Luke Cage not being a worthy member and Monica Rambeau being is a perfect example of the kind of fan that whines about these things: Monica came out of nowhere, took the name of a character she had no connection to, and shortly after that she became the leader of the team. If this happened today, there would be riots, but it was in the childhood of the people that usually complain about these things, so it's OK. Meanwhile, Cage had been a hero for decades before joining, stayed in the team for a while before leading, and even then he was more by elimination than anything (no one else there was a good fit at the time).
The people whining about it are the same type whining about Hickman's run today in X-men (in many cases, they are the exact same people): the "you raped my childhood" gang, where everything is bad unless it works exactly how it was in my childhood, pretending that things hadn't become stale for a looong time, and if the internet was around, you would have riots about some of the stuff being done in the "classic" age too- imagine if Marvel announced Cap's Kooky Quartet or the ANAD X-men today? It would break the internet.