Learning more about Bendis

[Nutcase65]

For you new guys who don't know me,.. Hi.

Everybody else knows that I have been a Marvel Zombie most of my life and only recently have I moved to other realms of comic book enjoyment.
In these other books I find out more and more about the puzzle that is Bendis.
I really couldn't understand why in the world this guy came into town and Marvel heroes worlds started getting torn to hades. I didn't know why in the world our heroes would start dropping like flies.

Then I read 'Powers'.

This is a decent enough series, with some pretty good writing. That, plus the fact that an established (for that community) hero gets killed off every 2 or 3 issues.

Bendis' past success comes from series where he kills off characters. He's just dancing with the one that brought him, so to speak.

I don't say that makes all the changes that are happening good or bad. It just clears them up in my mind some.

[balok]

By most accounts, Powers is an example of what Bendis does well: stories that have little impact on continuity and that focus on crime and noir themes. Fine. Give him those kind of books to write. Giving him Avengers was like saying, "Okay, doctor, you did a pretty good job on that hangnail, I guess that qualifies you to resect a tumor from this patient's cerebral cortex!"

[thew40]

As much as I like Bendis and I've enjoyed his work on New Avengers and Mighty Avengers, I'd like to see him move on after next year's big Skrull event. His work on Daredevil, Powers, and Elektra (brief as it was) have been much better than his work on the Avengers titles.

Same goes with Ultimate Spider-Man and Secret War.

For me, it's not that he can't write a good super-hero book (and he can and has), but it's that he's better at other stuff. I'd like to see him on a more non-traditional Marvel-style books using underrated and characters stuck in limbo.

Look at New Avengers right now. One of its biggest appeals for me is that it uses somewhat B-Characters like Luge Cage, Iron Fist, and Spider-Woman; limbo characters like Dr. Strange and Hawkeye; and big names like Wolveirne and Spider-Man and puts them all on one team. It creates an interesting dynamic that I've really enjoyed.

Now . . . is it anything like the old AvengerS? No. And that hurts it for me (though it is called "New," so it makes sense). But I've grown accustomed to seeing New Avengers as the X-Factor to Mighty Avengers. Seperate, but different.

I'd love to see a team like that assembled completely fresh and new. Maybe using older characters, his own characters, and one or two A-listers . . . just not called the Avengers.

~W~