Who Has Affected Their Respective Universe More: Johns or Bendis?
WetRats
Posts: 6,314
Not who is better, but who has added to, changed, and/or improved their company's value more?
Who Has Affected Their Respective Universe More: Johns or Bendis? 22 votes
Geoff Johns (DC)
50%
11 votes
Brian Michael Bendis (Marvel)
50%
11 votes
Comments
Any opinions? :grin:
I see his fingerprints all over the MCU.
I think Bendis was helped by having editorial (and, soon, Marvel Studios) support behind these ideas, but things like moving the Avengers to the centerpiece of the universe, and virtually all heroes that weren't already X-Men becoming Avengers happened under his watch. And the idea of SHIELD, and a near omnipresent Nick Fury as fixer, was something he was doing in his earliest issues of Ultimate Spider-Man back in 2000, at a time where, to my memory, SHIELD and Fury were barely present in the mainstream MU. And, over that next decade, that changed. Just in time for that to connect with the status quo and place of Fury and SHIELD in the movies and TV.
Also, Johns wasn't helped by the fact that all the contributions he made to the DCU from his prime years of success in the 00s then hit up against the New 52 relaunch in 2011.
Stars & Stripes
JSA
Flash
Teen Titans
Hawkman
Superman
Aquaman
Green Lantern
Booster Gold
Justice League
52
Legion of Three Worlds
Various "Events"
Bendis:
Spiderman
Daredevil
Powers
X Men
Alias
Avengers
New Avengers
Dark Avengers
Ultimate FF
Secret Warriors
Guardians of Galaxy
Spider Woman
Various "Events"
The "improved value" part is what decided my choice
I think Johns has added more overall value to the DC universe but that value only lasts as long as he is on the title. He is the master of rejuvenating characters. Nearly everything he has done however, has suffered at the end of his run or fell apart after he left.
Bendis has had very slightly less of an overall reach but "usually" when he leaves something, there is still something left for the next guy. He sustains value to the company.
So I choose Bendis.
However, I think both are past their writing peaks.
He gave us back a version of the character we didn't even know we missed.
I think fan apathy has hurt them both to a degree. They were both such a huge influence that after a time, there was a slight backlash against them and the styles in which they wrote - although both are still prominent writers when they want to be.
For as big as Bendis' comics where, there was often next to no story there. Too many events where 7/8ths of it are tease and the last eighth is a damp squib leading to the next flat event. The half formed ideas he introduced had to be salvaged by others (i.e. Layla Miller was a lazy plot device in House of M, she became a character in X-Factor). But they sold, because Marvel did a good job of selling it to you.
Whereas at DC, it was clearly Johns and Morrison leading the way pre-new52. For better or worse, you can tell their POV on superheroes and superhero comics from their work. I've read decades of Bendis and I am still none the wiser over what he thinks about superheroes, outside of the fact he thinks their comics should contain more tables to stand around and he clearly can't be arsed doing research on characters he's using. Making him the Anti-Johns, I guess.
In short, Make Mine Morrison. (Or Hickman. Or Waid. Or Gillen. Or David. Anyone but these two.)
EDIT: Wait I just figured out the answer... It's Alan Moore. It's always Alan Moore. The poor bugger.
I thought this was one of the specific instances in which "Effected" is correct.
I went back and forth.
I was wrong.
Anything but freaking "impacted".
(Plus, it kept looking like "Who Has Effed Their Respective Universe More"--also a worthy question.)
M
How long have you known me?
I could argue about 'most anything.
Most importantly though, Johns made Aquaman, a character ridiculed on national TV, into a viable property again.
One of the biggest problems I have with Bendis is that he can't write an event ending to save his life. Granted, some of that may be due to editorial demands, but his name is on it, so he gets the blame.
But yeah, dude can't write an ending to save his life. Not just with events.
Johns is close. But his work never feels like more than a fresh coat of paint on classic story beats. I think Bendis' success opened to door to books like "Hawkeye" and "Superior Foes" and even "Squirrel Girl" to be things Marvel tries, where as Johns opens the door to New 52, which wasn't nearly new enough to warrant all the changes they made.
As for turning the Avengers into Marvel’s flagship team, I think that was as much if not more Marvel editorial’s doing than Brian’s. Again, I think all of these points rely much more on editorial direction than any one writer’s work. The Ultimate Universe was as much about what Quesada (and those above him) wanted as anything. And I think Image’s success (and the creators leaving Marvel to do books at Image) is what opened the door for Hawkeye, Superior Foes..., and Squirrel Girl. And I believe that someone higher up than Johns built the door, installed the door, and then demanded the door be opened for the New 52. Just my opinion.
Two points on the Ultimate Universe. And one on Luke Cage.
First, an editorial mandate is hardly a recipe for success. The creative talent those first few years is what made those books hit. Yes, the freedom they were given certainly helped, but again, that's not necessarily a recipe for success.
Second, I wasn't really talking about the UMU at all, but rather the influence it had on the MU.
And finally, Cage may have been ripe for picking, but Bendis was the one who picked him. That does actually count for something.
I think editors have far more power in shaping the big 2 universes than the writers. But that's a different question. And I'd say Johns probably has more editorial power than Bendis. But impact on the kinds of stories you'll see from each universe, the variety and the creative risks, I think Bendis had a bigger impact.
Was it Bendis’ writing on Ultimate Spider-Man that affected how stories in the MU were told, or was it more Mark Millar’s writing on Ultimates? (Personally, I think the latter made a much larger impact.) Or was it Marvel editorial who asked for a group of books with a certain tone and approach? Obviously, it was some of all of that, but how do you divvy the credit?
Who or what really opens doors for what comes later? Does Bendis’ writing on Alias open the door for She-Hulk? I don't see it that way. The comics industry is cyclical. The Big Two will have periods of experimentation, and periods were they aren't taking as many chances. That's been the case for decades. At the same time Bendis was starting Daredevil and Alias, you had Peter Milligan writing X-Force/X-Statix, Christopher Priest writing Black Panther, etc. Yes, Bendis was at the forefront of this new writer’s bloc (pun intended), but if these other writers’ books had been failures, Bendis would be looked at as a fluke rather than the head of a movement. And doesn't some of the credit belong to Quesada and Palmiotti? Without their success with the Marvel Knights line (which they'd established before Bendis was brought in, but which Bendis certainly had a hand in cementing), Marvel might have had a very different atmosphere the past fifteen years. So, again, how do you divvy the credit for such a broad assessment?
Can we really say Bendis’ writing is directly responsible for Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, etc.? I would think Fraction’s pitch would be first on that list, followed by Wacker’s belief in the book, followed by the recent success of Image Comics and their diversity of material, etc.
And I don't want it to sound like I'm picking on Bendis. Johns has benefited in similar ways. The difference is, no one really expected Green Lantern to blow up the way it did. And even after his success there, no one expected Aquaman to become a top 10 book, even for a short period of time. Kevin Smith made Daredevil a top 10 book, but for Bendis the book stayed in the top 30, top 40. Granted Johns had the benefit of kicking off a new series, while Bendis did not, but the point remains.
For me—and this isn't a perfect analogy, but bear with me—it's like comparing the ace pitcher of the New York Yankees (Bendis) to the ace pitcher of the Boston Red Sox (Johns). The Yankees are always at the top of the division. They always seem to sign the top free agents in the offseason and to get that key player at the trading deadline, because they can. So when the Red Sox’s ace has that fantastic season that goes above and beyond everyone’s expectations, and leads his team to win the division, even if it's only for that one season and everything goes back to normal the next season, it makes what the Red Sox ace did seem all the more impressive.
What I'm getting at is I'm not giving as much credence to the speculative affects of either writers’ work, because there's no way to reasonably quantify it. If anyone else wants to do that, go right ahead. That's why I used the phrase “moved the needle more.” I think Bendis is a writer you put on a book, and you get what you expect, in terms of quality, content, and consistency, whereas Johns is more up and down in all those areas. Hence, I said he moves the needle more, both positively and negatively. I think DC is more dependent on Johns’ success as a writer than Marvel is Bendis’ as a writer, and therefore Johns has a greater affect on his respective universe. Maybe I’m focusing too much on the main question and the word “affected,” and not enough on the secondary clarifying question, but there you go.
I think both writers have done a sterling job for their respective companies, and I see them as the standard bearers for the overall creative thrusts each line has taken over the last 15 years or so.
A similar discussion could be had regarding DiDio vs. Quesada, but at the time I initially posted I was thinking particularly in terms of characters that each has created, revived or re-invigorated.
(And, of course, there are things in their narratives that might have totally been an editor's idea, or is simply their execution of someone else's mandate. But I think that could equally be said of any writer at the Big Two, so to me that is neither here nor there.)
And, to me, just to judge by what was in their stories, and the effect on the characters and the setting they share with the rest of the stewards of these characters, to my eye Bendis has had a bigger influence on the Marvel Universe in his 14 years writing there than Johns has had in his 16 years across the two DCUs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Characters_created_by_Geoff_Johns
By sheer numbers, Johns has Bendis beat.
Bendis' successes are:
Maria Hill
Jessica Jones
Miles Morales
Ultimate Nick Fury, Layla Miller, Daisy Johnson were successes only when other people (Mark Millar, Peter David, Jonathan Hickman, Joss Whedon) picked them up and fleshed them out. Bendis' Ult. Nick Fury isn't what ended up on the screen or even in The Ultimates.
And we all saw what happened to Ultimate Fantastic Four at the box office. Ultimate Reed Richards is hanging around post-Secret Wars, but again it's unrecognisable from Bendis' version, being firmly Hickman's concept of the character.
I don't think Johns is all that better though.
Most of his new characters are variations on existing tunes. Even the ones with staying power are Variant Colour Green Lanterns and a new version of the Star Spangled Kid. At least Jessica Jones was a genuinely new concept.
Where Johns has Bendis beat though is reviving and sprucing up old concepts. Bendis took Ares, The Hood, Xorn, Marvel Boy (Noh-varr) etc. and made his versions completely impossible to marry up to their previous appearances, meaning other writers had to sort that mess out later.
Johns is more line and world-building focussed than Bendis, where Bendis seems mainly concerned with his comic books and nothing else (almost wrote "his story" there, but would require his comics to have one).
Because of that I think Johns had more influence on his stagnant pond than Bendis did.
And, if we are including characters re-invigorated, rather than just created, then you can add "The Avengers" to Bendis' list. They seem to have had a pretty good decade under his watch.
A story that left an entire line of comics stuck with a storyline whose only logical conclusion was to undo that story. If we're giving him credit for stuff that should probably be credited to editorial decisions, we've got to blame him for the stuff he wrote that screwed up the X-books for years.
Like the Avengers-- it is not that the Avengers were better Avengers under his stewardship (though, personally, I dug it) but rather that in his years they went from one title to the flagship title of the MU, to a franchise of Avengers books. Which is not necessarily a measure of quality, but rather of the affect the books he was writing were having on the MU at that time, and how many characters he was getting to impact.
I took the original question as 'who has has affected the universe they wrote for more?' rather than 'affected the universe BEST?', 'who has the best track record?', or 'who has done the most things people liked?' Which are also valid ways to come at it. Just not what I thought was being asked.