Bendis's Avengers run

SolitaireRose

It is now over.

240 - some issues and 8 years later, he has written more issues of the Avengers than anyone else in history. He brought the book to the #1 slot in sales consistently and used the book as the spine of the Marvel universe for the first time in a LONG time. There was also a huge shift in storytelling on his watch, one that was more cinematic and one that used continuity rather than being a slave to it.

There were huge shifts during his tenure and I know that some people didn't care for it, but it was a huge and important run and I really don't think we will see its like ever again.

Anyone have thoughts? Memories? Things they loved?

Brack

SolitaireRose said:

There was also a huge shift in storytelling on his watch, one that was more cinematic and one that used continuity rather than being a slave to it.

I would describe his run as being the opposite of that quote. It got less cinematic and ignored continuity to a hither to unseen degree. If anything he made comics more theatrical with lengthy talky scenes in single locations. And his books increasingly gave the impression that neither he nor his editor had read any previous or concurrent appearances of characters he was using.

The run started well and I think if he'd ended it after Secret Invasion, it would be better remembered, but after that point it got bloated and worse, stupid. The problem was it was still selling comparatively well (compared to the rest of the market, not to earlier issues of New Avengers), and so there didn't seem much impetus for change.

Chuck_Melville

While I initially hated Bendis' stories, particularly the 'Disassembled' storyline that kicked off his run, I found myself more and more intrigued with what he was doing with characters and storylines. I still have a few beefs here and there, like his disdain for story titles and thought balloons, but I thoroughly enjoyed his storylines, right up to the present. One of the best characters he wrote during this period was the Hood, some villain that I had never even heard of before Bendis' Avengers stories, which entailed one of the best portrayals of addiction (to power) that I've read in superhero comics. Loved it. I'll be sticking with the Avengers following his departure, but I have to admit to a bit of anxiety, wondering if the books will continue to be as good a read without him.

DoctorDoom

I would describe his run as being the opposite of that quote. It got less cinematic and ignored continuity to a hither to unseen degree.

I don't agree with everything @Brack said in his original quote, but he hit it on the head for me with "less cinematic".

chrisw

I eventually grew tired of his run, though it was great to see a creator spend a substantial length of time on a title. It happens so rarely these days.

My fondest memories are of the pre-Civil War and Secret Invasion days. I loved the new team, and it felt like it was building to something big. Unfortunately, Civil War ripped that team apart, and Secret Invasion didn't live up to the hype, in my opinion. I kind of wish we'd had the opportunity to see something closer to that original line-up go through the last decade of stories, and not the cluster of titles and teams that we ended up getting.

spid

I did not like his run on the Avengers. I hated Avengers: Disassembled, and his subsequent run was really bad. And for the first time in decades I stop reading the Avengers monthly around the whole stupid Hood storyline.

I did not think the run was good, and Marvel made a huge mistake putting on two books a couple of years ago when they relaunch the title.

Mr_Cosmic

I really liked the original New Avengers team but I was never a fan of the Ronin character. I thought his Mighty Avengers book was great while it lasted. The Illuminati concept was a cool thing to introduce. I don't care for The Sentry but the story where Emma Frost was in his mind trying to help him was memorable. Noh-Varr was an interesting addition that went nowhere. Lots of great stuff and it went by so fast.

Chuck_Melville

spid said:

I did not like his run on the Avengers. I hated Avengers: Disassembled, and his subsequent run was really bad. And for the first time in decades I stop reading the Avengers monthly around the whole stupid Hood storyline.

I did not think the run was good, and Marvel made a huge mistake putting on two books a couple of years ago when they relaunch the title.

Wow! I really thought the Hood storylines were among the best ones. I thought his addiction for power was a great story hook. Sorry that you didn't care for it.

Happenstance

I enjoyed a lot of Bendis' run early on but I did find myself getting a bit tired of it around Secret Invasion. What I have liked though was since it ended, looking back over everything that happened as a whole instead of just a number of events and seeing how the Marvel U has changed.

ctowner1

You know, it's odd. I enjoyed reading Avengers monthly (and more) during Bendis's run. I enjoy his writing. But looking back over that vast run, there's not all that much that really sticks out in my mind as being GREAT. I liked the issues during Civil War and Secret Invasion. I liked his development of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. But not all that much else coming to mind. Perhaps I'm forgetting some big stuff? If you were to list the top 10 memorable stories during his run, what would they be? Hard to even recall discrete stories. I can think of:

Civil War (although these were mostly vignettes of certain Avengers tying in w/the miniseries, rather than a full story)

Secret Invasion (same as Civil war)

The Ultron time Travel story that kicked of the Heroic Age Avengers

The Dr. Strange is replaced as Sorcerer Supreme by Brother Voodoo (for a while)

Some kind of Avengers go to Latveria and fight Doom story (The details of which totally escape me)

The Hood getting a lot of villains to attack the Avengers (can't for the life of me recall how that resolved).

That's about it - not much else comes to mind. Am I missing any really good stories?

e
L nny

Krescan

I liked just about everything Bendis did on avengers. Especially the Hood stuff, and everything with Luke Cage and Jessica. And I really enjoyed the interviews, they may have gone on too long but I enjoyed the banter that he brought with it. Never considered any of them too wordy.

I could've done with out Secret Invasion......I don't like Skrulls so it really doesn't have much to do with the story itself.

My favorite moment was when he brought in Squirrel Girl as the nanny. I say that with no irony whatsoever.

spid

Chuck_Melville said:

spid said:

I did not like his run on the Avengers. I hated Avengers: Disassembled, and his subsequent run was really bad. And for the first time in decades I stop reading the Avengers monthly around the whole stupid Hood storyline.

I did not think the run was good, and Marvel made a huge mistake putting on two books a couple of years ago when they relaunch the title.

Wow! I really thought the Hood storylines were among the best ones. I thought his addiction for power was a great story hook. Sorry that you didn't care for it.

A street thug taking on the Punisher is one thing. Remender used Hood in a effective manner as a credible threat to the Punisher. As a threat to the Avengers Hood never made sense. It just came off as Bendis trying too hard which is how I would describe the entire run, that I have read. Bendis wrote good Luke Cage stories, but they were mostly lousy Avengers stories.

Chuck_Melville

spid said:

Chuck_Melville said:

spid said:

I did not like his run on the Avengers. I hated Avengers: Disassembled, and his subsequent run was really bad. And for the first time in decades I stop reading the Avengers monthly around the whole stupid Hood storyline.

I did not think the run was good, and Marvel made a huge mistake putting on two books a couple of years ago when they relaunch the title.

Wow! I really thought the Hood storylines were among the best ones. I thought his addiction for power was a great story hook. Sorry that you didn't care for it.

A street thug taking on the Punisher is one thing. Remender used Hood in a effective manner as a credible threat to the Punisher. As a threat to the Avengers Hood never made sense. It just came off as Bendis trying too hard which is how I would describe the entire run, that I have read. Bendis wrote good Luke Cage stories, but they were mostly lousy Avengers stories.

I wouldn't know about the Punisher, since I rarely read his books. But I thought Bendis used the Hood very effectively in the Avengers stories. And yeah, he was way out of his league there, but I thought that just made him all the more credible as a street hood who was overreaching, attaining some success, but grabbing hold of something that he just wasn't suited to have: the power level of gods.

Chuck_Melville

ctowner1 said:

You know, it's odd. I enjoyed reading Avengers monthly (and more) during Bendis's run. I enjoy his writing. But looking back over that vast run, there's not all that much that really sticks out in my mind as being GREAT. I liked the issues during Civil War and Secret Invasion. I liked his development of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. But not all that much else coming to mind. Perhaps I'm forgetting some big stuff? If you were to list the top 10 memorable stories during his run, what would they be? Hard to even recall discrete stories. I can think of:

Civil War (although these were mostly vignettes of certain Avengers tying in w/the miniseries, rather than a full story)

Secret Invasion (same as Civil war)

The Ultron time Travel story that kicked of the Heroic Age Avengers

The Dr. Strange is replaced as Sorcerer Supreme by Brother Voodoo (for a while)

Some kind of Avengers go to Latveria and fight Doom story (The details of which totally escape me)

The Hood getting a lot of villains to attack the Avengers (can't for the life of me recall how that resolved).

That's about it - not much else comes to mind. Am I missing any really good stories?

e
L nny

The business with the Hood's mob of supervillains was resolved in stages. The Avengers beat them. Then there was Siege, and most of the villains got creamed again, and the Hood went into hiding after his powers deserted him and Osborn was taken down. That led into the Hood trying to collect all of the Infinity Gems.

One of the things about Bendis' run was that there were few stories -- he did mainly large story arcs, and the issues, even the few stand-alone stories, weren't much more than episodes in any given arc. There was also...

The Illuminati -- several of Marvel's heroes gather in secret to deal with the BIG problems... before they can be EVEN BIGGER problems.

Avengers Initiative -- the fallout to Civil War, with one team working in the shadows, trying to keep off of the radar of the authorized team.

Dark Reign -- where no less than three teams of Avengers had to operate while being hunted by Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers. (One team was actually authorized by an international law organization, but it still stuck in Osborn's craw.) I really enjoyed watching Osborn manipulating everybody around him, and there were a few really good individual stories that stuck out during the arc, such as the Dark Avengers taking on the Molecule Man.

Siege -- the culmination of a lot of major storylines up to that point,leading up to Asgard crashing on Earth and everybody taking on the Sentry.

And of course the recent Avengers vs X-Men fracas.

fredzilla

A good writer, as I love much of his stuff, but he can't write an ending to save his life ("That's the point," said Marvel's marketing department $-) ).

Brack

After reading some of the other posts, I may have been too kind in my original post. He really did fail to understand a lot of characters over the years and leave them worse than when he got hold of them.

Dr Strange, Loki, Phobos, Sentry, The Hood, Noh-Varr spring to mind as being the major offences. The last four are especially bewildering as they all had very limited appearances beforehand that it's astonishing he got them so wrong.

Often you had to rely on other writers in spin off books to make sense of Bendis character and continuity mangling (i.e. Jeff Parker for The Hood during Dark Reign and Kieron Gillen for Loki during Siege).

I guess if all you read were Bendis' Avengers books you'd be fine, but as part of the grand tapestry of Marvel continuity both current and past, they were hard going at times.

ctowner1

I really liked the issue where Luke Cage met his dad.

DennisCuzinski

I, for one, am glad he is done with it. I read a few issues in the beginning and did not enjoy it. I have been mostly Avengers free since. Now maybe I'll check something out

DoctorDoom

spid said:

I did not like his run on the Avengers. I hated Avengers: Disassembled, and his subsequent run was really bad.

I enjoyed the story at the time, but to this day, I can't stand the "no such thing as Chaos Magic" thing.

Hell, I enjoyed the What If that had Dr. Strange say: "Does that sound like something I would say?"

DoctorDoom

Some kind of Avengers go to Latveria and fight Doom story (The details of which totally escape me)

Symbiote bomb. Which was a total accident.

And Doctor Doom called Ms. Marvel a cow.

(the story was a guilty pleasure for me, but I think you can add Doom to the list of voices Bendis doesn't necessarily have a grasp for)

Mr_Cosmic

This deserves to be an episode for the show. There is so much for the guys to go over...though I'd bet only Jamie has read most of it.

spid

ctowner1 said:

I really liked the issue where Luke Cage met his dad.

I thought it was a good story too, but it was a Luke Cage story not really an Avenger's story.

SolitaireRose

spid said:

ctowner1 said:

I really liked the issue where Luke Cage met his dad.

I thought it was a good story too, but it was a Luke Cage story not really an Avenger's story.

A lot of classic Avengers stories have been solo spotlights, including my favorite "Even An Android Can Cry." A good Avengers run has a strong focus on the characters without their own books, and the Big Three there to make the story seem important.

Greg

I never read a Bendis book until Avengers and New Avengers relaunched in 2010. I enjoyed what he did with both titles, and I really liked New Avengers more than the flagship Avengers book. It was good but nothing stands out as great or memorable.

spid

SolitaireRose said:

spid said:

ctowner1 said:

I really liked the issue where Luke Cage met his dad.

I thought it was a good story too, but it was a Luke Cage story not really an Avenger's story.

A lot of classic Avengers stories have been solo spotlights, including my favorite "Even An Android Can Cry." A good Avengers run has a strong focus on the characters without their own books, and the Big Three there to make the story seem important.


I would say that having a couple of good solo spotlights in the midst of mediocre to bad "Avengers" stories does not equal a good run on Avengers.

Chuck_Melville

spid said:

SolitaireRose said:

spid said:

ctowner1 said:

I really liked the issue where Luke Cage met his dad.

I thought it was a good story too, but it was a Luke Cage story not really an Avenger's story.

A lot of classic Avengers stories have been solo spotlights, including my favorite "Even An Android Can Cry." A good Avengers run has a strong focus on the characters without their own books, and the Big Three there to make the story seem important.

I would say that having a couple of good solo spotlights in the midst of mediocre to bad "Avengers" stories does not equal a good run on Avengers.

I guess that whether or not those stories were mediocre or worse depends upon your perception. I thought the run was fine, if not terrific. Come to think of it, I thought it was terrific.

SolitaireRose

spid said:

I would say that having a couple of good solo spotlights in the midst of mediocre to bad "Avengers" stories does not equal a good run on Avengers.

I will disagree. I liked the run, and felt it was one of the better long runs on ANY comic, let alone the Avengers. The Avengers fell on very hard times for a long time, what with Bob Harris's disastrous (and seemingly endless) run taking up most of the 90's as it became a Nth rate X-Men style book. Other than the Busiek run at the beginning of Heroes Return, it was an awful mess.

Bendis made the book matter again, and while you didn't like it, it was Marvel's best-selling comic for most of his run, something it hadn't been since the 70's and that in itself was a major accomplishment.

Different strokes.

spid

SolitaireRose said:

spid said:

I would say that having a couple of good solo spotlights in the midst of mediocre to bad "Avengers" stories does not equal a good run on Avengers.

I will disagree. I liked the run, and felt it was one of the better long runs on ANY comic, let alone the Avengers. The Avengers fell on very hard times for a long time, what with Bob Harris's disastrous (and seemingly endless) run taking up most of the 90's as it became a Nth rate X-Men style book. Other than the Busiek run at the beginning of Heroes Return, it was an awful mess.

Bendis made the book matter again, and while you didn't like it, it was Marvel's best-selling comic for most of his run, something it hadn't been since the 70's and that in itself was a major accomplishment.

Different strokes.

I would say it was the best-selling comic for most of his run because Marvel decided to make that book their main priority. If you build a universe around one book or title it is bound to be the biggest book in the company.

As we all know quality does not always sales.

ctowner1

Mr_Cosmic said:

This deserves to be an episode for the show. There is so much for the guys to go over...though I'd bet only Jamie has read most of it.

Agreed! Those are some of my favorite types of shows anyway - retrospectives of long comic runs. This would be perfect.

e
L nny

SolitaireRose

spid said:

I would say it was the best-selling comic for most of his run because Marvel decided to make that book their main priority. If you build a universe around one book or title it is bound to be the biggest book in the company.

As we all know quality does not always sales.

Again, I disagree, and I wonder if we were even reading the same comic. Quesada's editorial plan was to go through each of Marvel's "Franchises" and fix them. He started with the X-Men (which pissed off John Byrne and brought sales up by about 50%), then moved to Spider-Man (which again pissed off John Byrne and doubled sales) and then moved to the Avengers.

I LIKE Bendis's storytelling style. I thought it brought a cohesion to the book that had gotten lost in the endless soap opera with "mysterious overlords" combined with 3rd rate characters (Sersi and the Black Knight as the main Avengers? REALLY???) and brought it back to being the top gun in the Marvel Universe facing down the top threats to the Marvel Universe.

The Avengers SHOULD be the hub of the super-hero world. They are the team that takes on the threats that are too big for the rest of the heroes to take on alone. They SHOULD be where the big stories come from, because it's the big team: Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and a crew of characters that the writer feels fits. In the 70's, when I started reading comics, The Avengers WAS the hub of the Marvel Universe.

As for quality not equaling sales, I agree with you, but not in this case. The Avengers books were usually the first ones I read because I had to know what was going to happen next...and that's why I read super-hero comics. It's fine if they aren't your cup of tea, everyone has different tastes, but I disagree with you on the function of the book and I firmly believe it was a high quality series. Bendis changed the book for the better.

Answer me this, would you rather have read more of Chuck Austin's Avengers run? How about Bob Harris's? Even Geoff Johns couldn't do a good Avengers story (and in a lot of ways, his were extra creepy, sex-wise.).

spid

SolitaireRose said:

spid said:

I would say it was the best-selling comic for most of his run because Marvel decided to make that book their main priority. If you build a universe around one book or title it is bound to be the biggest book in the company.

As we all know quality does not always sales.

Again, I disagree, and I wonder if we were even reading the same comic. Quesada's editorial plan was to go through each of Marvel's "Franchises" and fix them. He started with the X-Men (which pissed off John Byrne and brought sales up by about 50%), then moved to Spider-Man (which again pissed off John Byrne and doubled sales) and then moved to the Avengers.

I LIKE Bendis's storytelling style. I thought it brought a cohesion to the book that had gotten lost in the endless soap opera with "mysterious overlords" combined with 3rd rate characters (Sersi and the Black Knight as the main Avengers? REALLY???) and brought it back to being the top gun in the Marvel Universe facing down the top threats to the Marvel Universe.

The Avengers SHOULD be the hub of the super-hero world. They are the team that takes on the threats that are too big for the rest of the heroes to take on alone. They SHOULD be where the big stories come from, because it's the big team: Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and a crew of characters that the writer feels fits. In the 70's, when I started reading comics, The Avengers WAS the hub of the Marvel Universe.

As for quality not equaling sales, I agree with you, but not in this case. The Avengers books were usually the first ones I read because I had to know what was going to happen next...and that's why I read super-hero comics. It's fine if they aren't your cup of tea, everyone has different tastes, but I disagree with you on the function of the book and I firmly believe it was a high quality series. Bendis changed the book for the better.

Answer me this, would you rather have read more of Chuck Austin's Avengers run? How about Bob Harris's? Even Geoff Johns couldn't do a good Avengers story (and in a lot of ways, his were extra creepy, sex-wise.).

0

I did not stop reading the Avengers monthly until the Bendis run. So yes, I did prefer those runs over Bendis. I also preferred Brubaker's Secret Avengers, Slott's Mighty Avengers, Slott/Gage's Academy/Initiative runs. I thought they were all much better books. If Marvel had built the universe around any of their runs the results would have been the same.

I much prefer Sersi and Black Knight over Luke Cage and Daredevil on the team. And the Bendis run is full of mysterious people who come out of no where to threaten the team, the collective or The Hood story lines are the exact same story technique.