Right..I always felt like that was one of those things where they changed the plot because fans guessed the 'surprise'.

Yep, like you I started but dropped quickly. And I think you hit part of the thing about Bendis in that he has great initial story ideas but then they quickly fall apart or become lessened in the telling. I like that he restored the Cage/Rand PM/IF team and strengthened their bond in friendship making them a true family. But many other things he did along the way just never did much for me. Part of why he may be so liked by current fans is that his writing reflects the modern generation: grab me with something big and bold because my attention span is short and I won't care about the details as long as it "pop's". He is the typical summer movie: big, bold, expansive and great as long as you don't mind the missing details or misfires in the story which don't ring true.

I just deleted a massive rant - I don't want to argue about this too much, I did that enough at the time. But briefly:





For me personally, it's a combination of three things:

1. I thought the stories were really bad.

2. At the same time, the fan community was constantly telling us how good the stories were, and anyone who thought otherwise was a laughable fool.

3. And Bendis himself came across as extremely unlikable, smug, and arrogant, both in his interviews and in his writing style.


Plus, the fan community around this was really toxic. It all added up to a really unpleasant experience for me first as a reader, and second as a comic book fan. The only plus side for me is that between this and Civil War - which is when I finally dropped Avengers after more than 20 years as a faithful reader - I finally realized I didn't need to care at all about Marvel Comics. So it helped save me a lot of money, and a lot of wasted time reading bad comics over the past decade.




Hey, we all have done dumb things we regret, but you don't have to advertise it!

Personally, I liked this Avengers line up. It was populated with the popular single superheroes of the Marvel Universe. However, I liked Brian Michael Bendis's Mighty Avengers series which was launched about a year and a half after the New Avengers relaunch.

The thing I didn't like in the New Avengers as much was like for some reason, at times, the "voices" of the characters didn't somehow match, with the exception of Spider-Man. At the same time, perhaps I am a bit biased on this, I'd rather have powerhouses as part of the team so they can take on "Unearthly Dangers." But eventually, this would grow on me after the Civil War mini series. Because then you have two sets of Avengers (Mighty vs New) that are on opposing sides of the Civil War, and since Bendis wrote both, it made for a very interesting interaction between some of the team members, and I liked the cat and mouse game played between the two teams after Captain America's "death" in 2007.

I remember this series was a fan favorite, along with Astonishing X-Men, All Star Batman and Robin, when those would come out. 

Haha. I loved Herc and Black Knight and Captain Marvel on the team. Dr. Druid... I guess I don't know him much. I liked some of the issues that had Hercules and Sub-Mariner in the team. I was impressed with Captain Marvel because there was no female superhero other than Storm. Other than Wasp, you don't see a regular female member on the Avengers. Maybe She-Hulk in later years... The Geoff Johns Avengers years.