As a follow up to a post I made several months ago, I reread Bendis' run on New Avengers, specifically during the time of Secret Invasion and Dark Reign:
At the time, I didn't like the series. There were all of the Bendis tropes that bugged me, like the "real" dialogue, decompressed storytelling, and characters not acting like they were supposed to act. I didn't like the line up at the time which seemed weak at the time. Also, with this occurring during the time of OMD/BND, Spider-Man's inclusion on the team triggered me to no end.
However, after all of these years, after different changes, and letting go of certain hang-up's, I found myself REALLY enjoying Bendis' run on New Avengers. Yes the storytelling was decompressed, but that allowed the story to take its time. The dialogue could be a little too "real" but there was still some authenticity. It didn't sound as dramatic as previous comics (though when Bendis wrote the Skrulls, he showed he could go into that territory). Were there times when heroes didn't act like themselves? Sometimes, but there were also moments when the heroes drew limits. No, we wouldn't act in this way. (I wonder how some of us felt about Clint attempting to kill Norman Osborn, considering in the past Clint was adamant that Avengers didn't kill. The story seemed to indicate that Clint was driven to an extreme, but is that a legitimate excuse?) Furthermore, I really appreciated how the New Avengers found themselves in such a weak position. Constantly hiding, the threat of capture ever present, these New Avengers were the underdogs. In a way, it reminded me of Kang Dynasty.
Honesty one of the stand out moments for me was the appearance of Damian Hellstrom:
The "I don't give a f" attitude, I was marking out hard during his fight against Dormmamu. I don't know how Bendis got me to care about a B-lister like Damian Hellstrom, but he did.
So yes, I dug this little stretch of Bendis' work on the New Avengers. Highly recommended.