Bendis, The Avengers And The Illusion Of Change

At the end of Bendis' record-setting Avengers run, we should acknowledge the many lasting changes he brought to the team (and we also should acknowledge that, as lynchpin of the Marvel Universe and the focus of many "events," other hands also deserve a share of responsibility/blame here).

The Scarlet Witch went mad, and killed several Avengers. Then she went madder and eliminated most of the worlds' mutants. Oops, never mind, she's better now, and the mutants are back.

Scott Lang was killed. Oops, never mind, he's alive again.

Hawkeye died. Oops, never mind, he's alive now.

The Vision was destroyed. Oops, never mind, he's all fixed.

The Wasp died. Oops, never mind, she's all better now.

Wonder Man went nuts, and decided to destroy the Avengers. Oops, never mind, he just sorta snapped back to normal with no explanation. All better now.

Doctor Strange lost the title of Sorcerer Supreme, and in a very overlong story, it went to Brother Voodoo. Oops, never mind, Voodoo died, and the title went back to Strange.

Avengers Mansion and/or Tower was destroyed at least three times (four? five?), and each time Tony Stark declared he was too broke to fix it. Oops, never mind, somehow it got fixed each time.

Bendis had the Scarlet Witch turn public opinion against the Avengers. And then Tony Stark turned public opinion against (some of) the Avengers. And then Norman Osborn. And then Wonder Man. And then Norman Osborn again. Silly villains--that trick never works!

And let us not forget the massive contributions of new members such as Echo, Quake, Storm, and the Protector! The Avengers would never be the same after their legendary tenures!

Yeah, I'm being a dickweed here. The time for a real retrospective will come later. And it has to be acknowledged that, during his tenure, the Avengers grew larger as a brand than it had ever been, rivaling the weight of Marvel's X-Titles.

But for now, let's just note that Bendis basically undid every single change he had made to the Avengers as he exited. Maybe that's just being polite--putting all the toys back in the toybox so the next kid can start fresh. Or maybe that's just an acknowledgement that nothing really happened during those 9 years.

Self-Awareness Saturday--New Avengers #31

From this week's New (New) Avengers #31:

In the story, Daredevil is addressing this to Luke Cage.

But it's pretty damn hard not to read this as his questioning writer Bendis, right? Bendis moved heaven and Earth and the laws of rationality around to get DD onto the Avengers, and now Bendis is leaving the series??

Of course, foisting us with unlikely Avengers, and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing interesting with them--or anything AT ALL with them--has been one of Bendis' motifs on his Avengers titles.

Remember when Echo joined, and...? Really, she was a member--look it up!!

Or Storm? Oh, the grand adventures we had with Ororo as an Avenger, right? Right?!?

Noh-Varr, or Protector, or whatever he was called any given week? Vital member, well used...

Quake? Hello, remember Quake? Of course you don't...

Interesting but sad fact: Squirrel Girl received more time and attention than the above 5 combined.

So congratulations on your time as an Avenger, Daredevil...long will it be remembered as an obscure line in your Wikipedia entry...

Spoiler Saturday--New Avengers #24!

In the odd little version of the Marvel Universe that Bendis has created, the people worshiped and idolized the Avengers of the Heroic Age. Until Norman Osborn showed up, and gave one little speech. And suddenly, everyone turned on a dime and hated the Avengers (even though it wasn't that good a speech):

I mean, really, who needs the Purple Man or the Puppet Master or other mind control guys, when the Marvel-616 masses can be turned 180 degrees in 30 seconds by a "boo hoo, the Avengers are mean" speech from the man who launched a war with Asgard? Even the media swallowed Norman's bull hook, line and sinker.

Well, every problem has a solution. And Bendis' solution to the straw man he himself conjured up out of nowhere? Have Luke Cage talk some street sense to them:

You, know, whether this was a metaphor for the Tea Party or the Occupy movement or the anti-Ozzie Guillen protests (OK, probably not), the solution Cage proposes--everybody go home and "fix their own houses" and all of society's problems magically get better--is, well, amazingly patronizing and thunderously naive and well, just plain stupid.

Than again, I'm sure Bashar al-Assad is passing this exact same message on to Syrian protestors at this very moment...

Of course, Cage's magic words work, mainly because it's time for Avengers Vs. X-Men and this silly plot thread needed to be "resolved" as quickly as possible.

And, as Luke Cage's position is essentially "using your First Amendment rights is for fools, especially when you annoy us Avengers," it looks like Osborn may have been right about them after all...

Why Daredevil Needs To Check The Weather Reports Before He Goes On Patrol

In this week's New Avengers #21, there's a real head-scratcher:

Questions and comments?

A) Storm just called "dibs" on Daredevil for Avengers Vs. X-Men.

B) Whirlwind, Weather Wizard, Windshear, and every other weather or air-based villain in the comics multiverse are face-palming themselves right now..."A hero whose powers stop working in the wind? How come we can't get to fight him?!"

C) I know Daredevil's radar sense isn't literally radar, but c'mon...does that make even a lick of sense? If Daredevil fights Stilt-Man on a breezy day, game over?!?

D) Bendis wrote Daredevil for years...and he brings this up now??

Hmmm...maybe if we pull the camera back for a bit of context...

Well, that just gives me more questions and comments...

A) Shouldn't everyone not remember Thor at all, due to Tanarus' spell? How would they (or Norman Osborn, for that matter) even recognize a Thor clone? Does Bendis ever read anyone else's books?

B) Even if the spell somehow isn't affecting everyone, shouldn't these guys all believe that Thor is dead? They were just at his funeral...

C) Most of these guys have already faced Ragnarok the insane Thor clone, back in Civil War. Yes, including Daredevil (I guess the wind wasn't blowing that day...). And Spider-Man. So, if the spell ISN'T working, you'd think that maybe they'd recognize him, especially with super-senses and all. But hey, don't let that get in the way of everyone standing around bantering (and Ragnarok just sits there and let's them banter. If they'd kept quipping, maybe he'd have just gone away...)

D) This is already the 4th time Ragnarok has come back. So, enough already? But considering that this is the second time that Norman Osborn has become Lex Luthor and taken over the country, well, I guess re-runs are all we're getting until Bendis finishes his Avengers' runs.

The 1%

Right after Avengers Dissembled, in Avengers Finale, Tony Stark declares that they can't rebuild the Avengers, because he's broke.

In New Avengers #3 (2005), Stark re-iterates that point to Cap:

6 years later, in this week's Avengers #18, in the wake of the Avengers Tower being destroyed along with much of New York City:


Bendis, you've officially lapped yourself.

Now, if this were anybody but Bendis, I would note that this doesn't gibe at all with what's been going on in Iron Man's own book. Stark Resilient has been a success; Tony Stark has contracts galore coming in, and is rolling in enough dough to design new trillion dollar armors for himself and Pepper Potts and Rhodey, etc. And wasn't Avengers Tower, you know, insured? Qualify for federal disaster funds?

But of course, Bendis is notorious for not caring what's going on in the home books of the characters that he's using in Avengers.

Still, one has to ask: what's the point of having a billionaire on your team if you're constantly going to pull out the "I'm broke" card?

Of course, given that we're already recycling the Norman Osborn and H.A.M.M.E.R. and Dark Avengers storylines, I guess it's no surprise that he has needed to trot out the "feel sorry for Tony because he's broke" ploy again.

Not that I'm saying Bendis has run out of ideas, but don't be surprised if we have a massive jailbreak, a trip to the Savage Land, and the return of The Sentry in the near future of Avengers...

Take The Blue Pill

I'm sure that it's just a coincidence...

...that the captain at the Barrington, Rhode Island police precinct looks EXACTLY like Laurence Fishburne...

...but then again, if he is Morpheus, and this is really the Matrix, this would go a long way towards explaining why it's taken more than 4 months (so far) for the Avengers to deal with a bunch of H.A.M.M.E.R. goons, and why Mockingbird has been "dying" for 4 issues with at least one more to go.

I mean, that has to be an illusion, right? Bendis and Mike Deodato couldn't be padding things out that much in a real world comic book, could they?

From (New) New Avengers #12.

Spoiler Saturday--(New) New Avengers #6!!

"ONE OF THESE AVENGERS WILL DIE?!?" Oh, heavens-to-Betsy, which one could it be??

A) Could it be, oh, I don't know, maybe the one who isn't actually an Avenger?!? I'm thinking one of these guys is not like the other...

B) Since you put all the guys on the cover for the next issue, AND released that cover as a promo mini-poster to comic shoppes, it's not one of them. Of course, that's the perils of doing covers that are merely all your heroes standing around looking fierce..I'm not picking on Stuart Immomen here, because someone should have said, "Bro, we're trying to keep the events of #6 a secret...maybe we shouldn't do a 'everybody vogues' cover?"

Sigh...I mean really, what was the point of that whole "who will be the new Sorcerer Supreme" storyline if you're just going to turn around and kill him off? Why all the elaborate set-up, just to toss Brother Voodoo onto the scrap heap?

Of course, he's not really dead--dude's got a brother who's "dead," and he had more dialogue in this issue than Ben Grimm or Ms. Marvel. And Doc Strange has been "dead" more times than I can count. But still, the whole enterprise has now taken on the feel of "we have no idea what to do with this book" wheel-spinning.

Speaking of wheel-spinning:

Hmmm...don't you think you'd want to handle this question BEFORE issue #7 of a new series? Instead of wasting 6 padded issues on a "let's kill off Brother Voodoo" storyline that pretty much ignored all the alleged stars of the book? I'm just sayin'...

Marvel 2005 Week--New Avengers #10!!

Marvel 2005 Week has presented me with a challenge unlike any other I've ever faced. Namely:

Why is this one so difficult? Well, during my Marvel Weeks, I've never had to cover a story quite like this one...which is 21 pages of people just standing around talking. And of those pages, 7 are of people having extended conversations in an all-white space. Take a look at a couple of full-page scans:


Seriously, that's it, guys. The entire issue is just that.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad story. But, doing that thing I do, how exactly can I do panel excerpts and synopsis for a comic story that is essentially one long "My Dinner With Andre" done to super-hero psychobabble? Any panel I excerpt becomes pretty out of context, and hey, the entire issue synopsis is literally, "Emma Frost talks the Sentry back to sanity, and he joins the Avengers," so I'm already done before I start.

Well, I'll muddle through somehow. Who was responsible for this comic, anyway?

Now, this isn't going to be one of my trademarked anti-Bendis screeds. At this point, he hadn't succumbed to his "everybody banters ceaselessly in the same voice" phase. And this is a good story...but I question whether it was a good story for this magazine at this time.

By the way, props to Steve McNiven. Given the script requirement "Show people sitting around in someone's all-white subconscuious just talking for page after page," he does a yeoman's job of not letting it get as visually boring as the concept sounds. The choreography of the characters, the way he keeps the "camera" moving without going nuts with it, all make it an eminently readable issue.

Now, as to the Sentry...

Let's just stipulate that most people find the Sentry a generally terrible concept. I myself found it a decent enough concept for a one-off, but the insistence on making him a real, regular part of the Marvel Universe baffling.

Especially given this context: we're in the first half-year of a brand new team of Avengers, characters with diverse and conflicting personalities, and we're unclear on how they'll mesh together. And instead of putting focus on those characters, or on team-building, that's when Bendis decides to do a 4-part Sentry retcon/origin story, in which virtually none of the "New" Avengers have a single thing to do?? In this particular issue, Spider-Man has one word of dialogue, and Spider-Woman has 2 three-word sentences, while Luke Cage and Wolverine don't utter so much as a single syllable. 80% of the dialogue, and the big save, goes to someone who's not even on the team, Emma Frost!! All I'm saying is, that's a funny way to establish a new team.

Another reason to question why there was such a hurry to do this story is the fact that Sentry did virtually nothing in the pages of the Avengers for the next few years. Seriously...go back and look for any significant impact Sentry had on any Avengers story before Dark Reign. Even when he was in The Mighty Avengers, Sentry was used just like DC uses J'onn J'onzz--he flies in and the bad guy neutralizes him quickly so we can understand what a bad-ass the villain is. (Plus, of course, there's the "ridiculously overpowered" problem, because why would the Avengers have a problem fighting a bunch of ninjas and take three issues to wrap it up when Sentry could mop them up in three milliseconds? So they usually left him behind.) So I'm not sure what the hurry was (unless the wanted Sentry back in action in time for the new Paul Jenkins mini-series to start...). This story could have waited, and instead Bendis spent 4 issues essentially ignoring the Avengers at a time he should have been focusing on them.

But what we've got is what we've got, so on with the 20-page dangling conversation. While the combined forces of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and anybody else who happens to be hanging around tackle the Void, Bob Reynolds has retreated into his own subconscious.

In a bit of meta-self-referentiality, comic writer and Sentry creator Paul Jenkins appears in these issues as comic writer Paul Jenkins, who has unknowingly been telepathically receiving info from the Sentry in order to write the Sentry comic book. Damn, Grant Morrison doesn't get this meta...anyway, he's hanging with Bob's wife, Lindy, when he bores her to death...


Just kidding. That's when Emma Frost pulls Lindy's mind into Bob's subconscious, too, and no doubt left a hell her with a hell of a bruise from that face plant. Thanks, Emma.

So, understanding that I'm leaving out an awful lot here, we get some exposition:


Then a double-page spread of the fight that we don't actually get to see any of...

Then it's back to Whitesville:

We get a flashback to Lindy and Bob's meet-cute...well, third-date-cute...

...which is enough to stir Bob's subconscious, so the Void freezes--thus ending any hope of any action in this issue:

Then it's on with more conversations...brought to you by the color white!!


And here we see that Bendis is completely retconning the Sentry already. In the original mini-series, Reed and Doctor Strange and the Sentry willingly brainwashed everybody in the world, including themselves, to prevent the Void from escaping and destroying everything. Now, it was one of the Sentry's enemies, The General, who hired the mutant Mastermind to plant a "psychic virus" that would cause Sentry's vast psychic powers to unconsciously brainwash everyone on Earth into forgetting him.

(Someone, however, didn't get that memo, because in flashbacks during OMIT, Reed and Doctor Strange remembered what they had done for the Sentry and used that as their basis for the "make everyone forget Peter Parker is Spider-Man whatsis.")

Anyway, back to the conversation:


So...it would be wrong to put everybody's mind to the way it was before?? Because even if you were writing a wrong, doing it on purpose is bad...? And no one will remember the Sentry's past?? (But it was OK to hijack Lindy's mind into Bob's subconscious without permission??)

Question: if Bendis didn't like Sentry's origin, and didn't like the explanations from the mini-series, and didn't want to use the character's past...why the need to use that character at all?? He couldn't find someone else, or create a new character, to be the repository for the Angel of Death?? Just askin'...

Anyway, it's time to resolve this talk-fest:


And then, we learn that Bob Reynolds' situation was like constipation!



Awww, a happy ending!!

Plus--free architectural add-ons!!

Then, the Illuminati have a serious meeting:



SPOILER ALERT: He won't. Tony Stark fraks up again!

Well, I guess that wasn't so tough after all. And look--Bendis can write an entire issue of literally nothing but talking, without breaking out the "funny" constant quipping and bickering. Whatever happened to that guy?

BONUS: Coolest Halloween costume ever:

If this was in adult size, I would TOTALLY wear this!!

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Speaking of hastily-thrown-together assemblages of characters who make you go "huh?", there's this:

I enjoyed Kirkman's romp through the attic of the Marvel Universe. Both Marvel and DC really need mags like this, I would say: comics that routinely rummage through oddball pairings of characters and have fun. The Batman: Brave And The Bold show is like that. Brave & The Bold the comic is sort of like that (except that JMS doesn't do fun stories there, and B&TB is apparently coming out quarterly now, if that).

And I understand why, from an economic standpoint, editorial would insist that you have one popular anchor character, who can sell the book.

But come on...when you can have an issue like this...

...which features Daredevil and Luke Cage teaming up to fight the Stilt-Man, as well as Sleepwalker stopping Black Cat during a burglary, and cameoes by the Punisher, Blade and Sunfire--well, why can't we have more?

The Big Two need to release more writers to go crazy frolicking through the vast, vast, vast supply of un- or underused characters. You guys have entire Universes at your disposal--USE THEM!!

I Am Part Of The Problem, Not Part Of The Solution

CBR earlier this week presented a series of quotes from Bendis on Twitter bemoaning the lack of "thoughtful longform investigative journalism and and critique" from the comics press, and especially blogs.

He is, of course, entitled to his opinion on such matters.

But what really caught my eye was this particular quote:

you’ll forgive me but I think that a snarky pseudo-hip attitude towards mainstream comics is uninteresting.

Wow. Have you ever read any of your own Avengers scripts, bro? Because they're pretty much the epitome of "snarky pseudo-hip attitude towards mainstream comics."




So, we're supposed to react to your snarky, pseudo-hip dialogue and plotting with thoughtful longform journalism.

OK, here's a few "journalistic" questions: why are you padding out a 2 issue storyline to six issues? Are you really just writing for the trades? Shouldn't we expect more for a comic you're charging us $3.99 for? Is this the reason New Avengers sales have dropped by almost 50,000 from issue #1--because you're boring the audience with the glacial pacing? Or because you snarky, pseudo-hip attitude towards mainstream comics is grating to the reader?

You say "comics as an art form is in fantastic shape." Isn't artificially padding out stories to better market them in other media actually harming it? Are you capable of writing a tighter story anymore, or is this "write everything in 6-issue arcs for the trades" practice being dictated to you by corporate?

What's your obsession with Doctor Strange? Why do we keep resolving issues of who is the Sorcerer Supreme and other mystical matters of the Marvel Universe in New Avengers, as opposed to giving Strange or Brother Voodoo their own mags? Speaking of character obsessions, what's so special about Luke Cage, Spider-Man, and Wolverine? Is there a reason they're in every incarnation of the Avengers you write? Or is that mandated by corporate, as well?

Wow, what do you know, that was fun...

Look, Kids--The Heroic Age!!

When you see a banner like this on the cover:

You know you're going to get amazing acts of heroism like this on the inside:



Yes, at least when Bendis is writing, heroic="cowering inside a deli while Thor does all the work outside." Heroic=arguing about when you met, or "clever quipping" about cliches, while New Yorkers are dying outside.

And I mean--Killraven, for heaven's sake--his raison d'etre is fighting Martians, going up against those awful tripods. And now that he's got some actual super-heroes with him, he's content with "let's hide and shoot the breeze with Spider-Man."

Sigh.

Bendis aside, am I allowed to point out that there hasn't been all that much heroic about The Heroic Age so far?

Obviously, a big part of that is the continuing splintering of Marvel into self-contained Balkanized camps who, outside of spin-off mini-series, never ever seem to even be taking place in the same universe. Quick, name one impact that we've seen in a regular Marvel mag of World War Hulks, or any of the recent X-Men business...just one...

But even within the titles bearing The Heroic Age banner...has their been anything particularly heroic going on? The New Avengers and the Adjectiveless Avengers are both still in the midst of their initial and ridiculously padded storylines where they're merely responding to being attacked. The Fantastic Four is pretty much doing the same stuff they did under Hickman before the banner was slapped on their cover. Avengers Academy isn't much different than the stories we had with Avengers: Initiative. The short stories we've had in The Age Of Heroes mini, while entertaining, haven't been anything to make you sit up and go, "Wow, that was heroic!!" It feels more like leftovers from inventory stories that were just laying around.

Not that I object to Marvel not having a particular theme going for the first time in half a decade...but if you're going to throw that banner on your covers, shouldn't it actually mean something? Because so far we haven't seen anything that resonates as particularly heroic.

I can imagine how the conversations went at the Marvel offices:

JQ: Well, after Civil War, The Initiative, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and The Siege, what's next?

BMB: Well, we don't particularly have anything, boss.

JQ: Well, we have to have something!

FVL: Why?

JQ: How can we get the suckers readers to buy these books without a brand slapped on 'em? How can we market the trade paperbacks--"come read a bunch of unrelated stories?!?" No, we need a theme, a brand.

TB: Everyone's kind of burned out on events, boss.

JQ: I don't care if it's an actual event...we just need a marketing name so people think it's an event.

BMB: Will that work??

JQ: Works for Spider-Man...we're still calling it "Brand New Day" two years later, right?

GP: Hey, I know...let's call it "The Heroic Age."

BMB: Great, that means I have to make my characters act all heroic and stuff, right?

GP: No, that's the beauty part--we're already publishing magazines about heroes. We don't have to do anything--by definition, it's already "Heroic!"

JQ: An event where nothing different actually goes on...just a banner with literally no meaning, but still an obvious sales incentive to saps retailers and customers--I LOVE IT!!

JP: Hey, could we re-launch my pet book with that banner on it?? I just know that will save Agents of Atlas!!

JQ: Sure kid, whatever you say. Keep on dreaming....

A Shtick Intervention

SPOILER ALERT--I've tried to make this as spoiler free as possible for this week's New (New) Avengers #3--but if you haven't read it yet and want to be virgin for it, come back in a few days for this post. Don't worry, we'll be here when you're ready, Tiger.

Look, it's been a running joke in the industry for years now that Bendis writes everyone's dialogue--everyone's--as if they were Spider-Man. In his Marvel work, he's apparently incapable of giving anyone an individual voice (unless it's Luke Cage, and Bendis just throws in a bunch of cuss words, because that's how "urban" heroes talk).

At best, it comes off sounding like a warmed-over-but-still-kinda-stale rehash of Justice League International (but never anywhere as good).

At worst--and it's been getting much, much worse recently--it ruins the story, making the dialogue well-nigh unreadable while destroying any chance of actual characterization going on. It's gone from a shtick to a nervous tick, and I think the guy needs help.

Take, for example, this scene from this week's New (New) Avengers #3. Iron Fist, holding the Eye of Agamotto, has been whisked off to some other-dimensional limbo by unknown powerful beings who want the Eye for their own nefarious purposes. Let's listen in:



BWAHAHA..oh, wait, that isn't funny. And that isn't Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. Really, Bendis expects us to take these higher beings seriously when they constantly bicker like this, like a (very) bad sitcom. And when we get the big reveal at the end about the identity of one of these characters, well, sorry, but there's no way this particular entity is going to be going through the "who's on first" routine.

This is also the issue where, in the midst of a pitched battle they know they can't win, Spider-Man and the Thing spend over a page kvetching because Ms. Marvel hasn't seen Ghostbusters. And a full page--with 19 word balloons, and well over 120 words worth of dialogue--consisting of nothing but Spider-Man whining that Ben Grimm won't say "it's clobbering time!" Seriously. It's stupefying.

Now, Bendis is capable of writing better than this. Heck, I loves me some Powers. But his attempt to turn every issue of Avengers into Laugh-In fails utterly, in large part because he's just not that good at writing that kind of comedy. Lord knows, HE thinks he is. But he's not.

Maybe it's just me--maybe this is really popular with the rest of the fans, and I'm the outlier.

But I don't think Bendis can help himself. It's a compulsion. So we need an intervention. Someone needs to sit him down for a "Dude..." talk. Someone needs to give him a couple of JLI trades and say, "Bro, you're no DeMatteis or Giffen. And even their stuff got old." Someone needs to give him a bit of reality therapy.

And get him off the Avengers. Maybe the Great Lake Avengers--they're supposed to be a joke. Or, since he writes everybody like Spider-Man, just take him off of team books, and give him Spider-Man.

But New Avengers is a book that really has no reason to exist at the moment. And Bendis' increasing unreadability only makes matters worse.