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Post by brutalis on Jun 14, 2018 13:40:40 GMT -5
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. Having a power house all-star team would be fine, they just didn't have to destroy the Avenger's we had all grown up and loved to do it. Kurt Busiek managed to make the Avengers much more like the JLA and without alienating older fans. Another team of Avengers featuring the singular super-stars of the MU is a grand idea if it was done properly and without Disassembling an already great team and its history. The team never had to rely on characters like Wolverine for doing the "dirty deeds that nobody else will do" or having to utilize a Superman clone inserted simply for Marvel to show off that they can do a better Superman than DC could (which they failed miserably) at the time. And again here we can agree about character "voices" " being off as a large part of the problem. Bendis is superb at little moments and the street level hero writing. My own opinion is that he doesn't know to write the larger than life heroes/villains. Replacing heroes and villains with Skrull duplicates is stunning as a concept but should be written as a new ongoing idea setting it up slowly towards the reveal and not done as the big HEY SURPRISE start that a lot of your favorite hero/villain stories are lies now because they weren't really the hero/villain at the time. Bendis isn't strong on being subtle and tends to hit you in the face or over the head with his big ideas right at the beginning and then he tries to write out the what when where and why after he shocks you. Kind of like tabloid newspaper headlines versus real news. |
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Post by sabongero on Jun 14, 2018 13:55:27 GMT -5
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. Having a power house all-star team would be fine, they just didn't have to destroy the Avenger's we had all grown up and loved to do it. Kurt Busiek managed to make the Avengers much more like the JLA and without alienating older fans. Another team of Avengers featuring the singular super-stars of the MU is a grand idea if it was done properly and without Disassembling an already great team and its history. The team never had to rely on characters like Wolverine for doing the "dirty deeds that nobody else will do" or having to utilize a Superman clone inserted simply for Marvel to show off that they can do a better Superman than DC could (which they failed miserably) at the time. And again here we can agree about character "voices" " being off as a large part of the problem. Bendis is superb at little moments and the street level hero writing. My own opinion is that he doesn't know to write the larger than life heroes/villains. Replacing heroes and villains with Skrull duplicates is stunning as a concept but should be written as a new ongoing idea setting it up slowly towards the reveal and not done as the big HEY SURPRISE start that a lot of your favorite hero/villain stories are lies now because they weren't really the hero/villain at the time. Bendis isn't strong on being subtle and tends to hit you in the face or over the head with his big ideas right at the beginning and then he tries to write out the what when where and why after he shocks you. Kind of like tabloid newspaper headlines versus real news. I know what you mean. I had a big gap in comic book reading. I didn't read comic books from the end of 1988 up to the middle of 2006. Mostly it was Spider-Man comic books (Amazing, Peter Parker, and Web of) along with Punisher comic books (both the regular series and the War Journal volume 1). So I missed all of the 90's, I didn't even know the comic book industry bottomed out at that time. Then I happened to look up Hal Jordan in 2006 to see why it was some Kyle Rayner guy that appeared as Green Lantern on a Superman Animated series cartoon. I didn't even know they killed off Hal Jordan who went insane in the 90s, Superman in the 90's, replaced Batman, Spider-Man clone saga, and Image Comics was formed. So when I saw the comic books in its sleek format of 2006 compared to 1988, the last time I bought a comic book, I was totally blown away. But I didn't recognize the voices in some of the comic books. Anyway going back to the topic at hand, I find that Bendis's strong points are solo titles as opposed to team books. The same goes for Brubaker... solo books are his strong points. Remember his Uncanny X-Men run? |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 14, 2018 16:56:12 GMT -5
For what it's worth, I quite enjoyed Bendis's New Avengers. Hey, we all have done dumb things we regret, but you don't have to advertise it!   So, anyone who likes what you don't is dumb?!  I thought the New Avengers comics were fine, and I really liked the team line-up too. I've always been a fan of Bendis's writing and especially his dialogue: it's very naturalistic. They weren't the best comics that I've read or even the best Bendis-penned comics, but I thought they were good, solid superhero books. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 14, 2018 18:25:42 GMT -5
They were solid books and they were enhanced by top tier artists. The "Classic" Avengers had been gone for many years before Bendis came along unless you liked the Chuck Austin run...
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 14, 2018 20:30:05 GMT -5
Hey, we all have done dumb things we regret, but you don't have to advertise it! So, anyone who likes what you don't is dumb?! I thought the New Avengers comics were fine, and I really liked the team line-up too. I've always been a fan of Bendis's writing and especially his dialogue: it's very naturalistic. They weren't the best comics that I've read or even the best Bendis-penned comics, but I thought they were good, solid superhero books. So that's a bit of a pet peeve... "Naturalistic" dialog doesn't exist. The purpose of dialog (to relay information to an outside audience) is so different from why people actually talk to each other that naturalistic dialog would be the most excruciating thing in the world to actually see on page. Bendis stylized dialog was culled from a different set of influences (well, mostly David %^&*ing Mamet) than most comic book writers (which I view as a good thing) but it's still stylized dialog. I wouldn't go so far as to say I like Bendis' Avengers, but I certainly enjoyed it more than anything from the '90s. Or late '80s. Or the rest of the '00s. I guess I'm technically an Avengers fan but it has been a ROUGH 30-35 years for me. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2018 20:56:23 GMT -5
As others have mentioned the last Avengers run I enjoyed was the Busiek/Perez run almost 20 years ago. I get why Bendis added Spider-Man & Wolverine to the team. I like Bendis' ideas but I am just not a fan of his style of writing (especially the Marmet conversations). I did like the first arc but lost interest with the second arc focused on the Sentry.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 14, 2018 21:05:22 GMT -5
So, anyone who likes what you don't is dumb?! I thought the New Avengers comics were fine, and I really liked the team line-up too. I've always been a fan of Bendis's writing and especially his dialogue: it's very naturalistic. They weren't the best comics that I've read or even the best Bendis-penned comics, but I thought they were good, solid superhero books. So that's a bit of a pet peeve... "Naturalistic" dialog doesn't exist. The purpose of dialog (to relay information to an outside audience) is so different from why people actually talk to each other that naturalistic dialog would be the most excruciating thing in the world to actually see on page. Bendis stylized dialog was culled from a different set of influences (well, mostly David %^&*ing Mamet) than most comic book writers (which I view as a good thing) but it's still stylized dialog. I think you're misunderstanding the meaning of the word "naturalistic". If something is naturalistic it is derived from or closely related to real life (that's the definition given in the Chamber's English Dictionary I have near me right now). Naturalistic is also a synonym for realistic, so naturalistic dialogue is simply dialogue written to mimic or approximate real life conversation. Not to be exactly the same as real conversation. As you rightly point out, the primary job of Bendis's dialogue is to tell a story and impart information to the audience. But the way it mimics real life conversation -- with its meandering detours, quickly retracted mis-steps, and penchant for irrelevant asides -- is very close to how real people speak. I mean, we can all cite books, films or plays with clunky, woefully unrealistic dialogue...you know, the kind of scripting that makes you scream, "who talks like that?!!" What I'm saying is that, within the artificial environment of a fictional comic book story, Bendis writes dialogue that sounds pretty close to how people in the real world speak and therefore seems to ring truer than some other writers. You can absolutely have naturalistic dialogue in a fictional setting. I'd bet there are even classes out there you could take to learn how to write it. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 14, 2018 21:23:18 GMT -5
Shoot. I hit enter in the wrong window.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 14, 2018 21:33:42 GMT -5
They were solid books and they were enhanced by top tier artists. The "Classic" Avengers had been gone for many years before Bendis came along unless you liked the Chuck Austin run... You're certainly right about that.. the Classic Avengers were gone with the Bomber Jackets, really (or at least on life support). I like Bendis' Spidey, but he can't really do multiple voices, so when he does a team book they're ALL Spidey. That could be forgiven if the plots were great, but they really weren't. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 14, 2018 22:25:06 GMT -5
Yeah, that's the thing. Bendis uses a stylized imitation of the repetition, stops and starts, "ums" and "ahs" of actual communication but rarely differentiates his character voices. But he uses the same set of tics over and over. In ACTUAL CONVERSATION it is rare that
(A) Somebody says something
(B) The next person repeats what the first person says as a question, and
(C) The first person says "Yes" OR Repeats the first thing again.
And there's very little difference between his characters' syntax, word choice, and speech patterens/rhythms. It's just the same set of stylized tics over and over again. Real people speak very differently - they speak differently from each other, they speak differently depending on who they're talking too, and they speak differently depending on their mood, how awake/aware/attentive they are... It seems reaaaaaalllly far from naturalistic to me.
ON THE OTHER HAND...
Bendis wrote mainstream comics in a way that nobody else ever had before and completely changed their structure and form, and he should get credit for that. And Avengers is his most high-profile work.
Most mainstream comics follow a fairly simple formula. A couple pages of character introductions, a couple pages of fight scenes, some more pages of character interaction, generally in "secret identity" mode where personal stakes are raised, some MORE fight scene, and then cliffhanger.
Bendis stuff was very different stylistically and formally (and in dialog, as naturalistic as it isn't) from the traditional superhero template. Bendis thought in long term arcs where each issue was part of a larger arc and each arc was part of a long term over-arcing mega plot that lasted for years. Bendis basically invented decompression, for better or for worse. Nobody before him had the vision and the political clout to plot as long-term as Bendis did.
And he often wrote whole issues without a fight scene and how often had THAT been done in a Marvel comic. He was probably the most structurally original and influential Marvel writer since Stan Lee.
Warren Ellis' Nextwave is a formalist masterpiece. (Really!) Sadly, it wasn't a particularly influential formalist masterpiece on other writers. Claremont was a more influential writer but he stayed much closer to the traditional comic template than Bendis did. I don't think anyone was simultaneously as formally daring and as widely copied as Bendis. Now frickin' every Marvel writer has to make a long term STATEMENT about the character they are writing and they have to plot 7 years ahead.
(And most of the really influential mainstream writers from the past 35 years have done most high-profile work away from Marvel. Bendis is no Alan Moore, importance-wise.*)
Still, I agree that his style didn't really work for the Avengers a lot of the time. Quite a bit of his run could have worked as a play, which is a major waste of resources when you are writing epic sci-fi adjacent narratives where anything can happen and there are no budgetary restraints.
* ALthough Moore's Captain Britain is frelling great.
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Jun 14, 2018 23:13:53 GMT -5
Hey, we all have done dumb things we regret, but you don't have to advertise it! So, anyone who likes what you don't is dumb?! I mean, there are degrees, of course. It's like a sliding scale starting with Carmine Infantino's art on Star Wars that escalates up to Youngblood.  Anyway, I think I'm going to bow out of this thread, these comics really irritated me at the time, and I think they are objectively bad with few exceptions (those exceptions being Annual #1 and the Luke Cage spotlight issue of the Civil War tie-in). From what I saw, it did look like the series got better post-Civil War once it actually had a reason to exist, but those first two years are just dire, dire comics, and since I don't want to get in any heated arguments with anyone on this forum, I'm just going to leave it at that. |
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Post by Cheswick on Jun 15, 2018 0:55:27 GMT -5
They were solid books and they were enhanced by top tier artists. The "Classic" Avengers had been gone for many years before Bendis came along unless you liked the Chuck Austin run... You're certainly right about that.. the Classic Avengers were gone with the Bomber Jackets, really (or at least on life support). I like Bendis' Spidey, but he can't really do multiple voices, so when he does a team book they're ALL Spidey. That could be forgiven if the plots were great, but they really weren't. In that regard he was ahead of his time, considering that's the approach the Marvel movies often seem to take with many of their characters. |
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Jun 15, 2018 6:17:10 GMT -5
Frankly I enjoyed the Bendis through Hickman era way more than what preceded it. Not all of it was great, but in general I liked it, and as a whole think its better than most of the 20 years worth before it. So, yes better than Busiek, which run is vastly over-rated IMHO. Yes better than the Crossing  . Yes better than Byrne...and Yes better than Stern and Buscema. Like the way Bendis writes, though the only quarrel I have is with multiple iterations of the team. At least we never see DC do that with the JLA or Titans...o wait. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 15, 2018 8:04:56 GMT -5
I could never agree that it's better than the previous 20 years but it might edge out the busiek run. But it's just a different type is writing than those others. Before Bendis, it was a closed team but afterwards it became the LOSH. That's what ruined it a bit for me. Being an Avenger lost its special appeal.
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Post by String on Jun 15, 2018 10:18:41 GMT -5
Well, I won't deny that this series was a popular success and helped propel the Avengers into becoming the mammoth franchise that it is today. Also, I won't begrudge any fan who views this series (or it's lineup) as being 'their' Avengers if it helped draw them into the fold.
However for this longtime Avengers fan, Bendis' decade-long turn at the helm nearly destroyed this franchise and it's taken nearly as long after his departure for the series to recover from his machinations for me to truly enjoy it again. There are, of course, a few reasons why.
First off, the inclusion of Spider-Man and Wolverine as members. For me, this was nothing more than a pure unadulterated cash grab move by Marvel. You include arguably your two most popular characters in a front-line mainstream team book written by arguably your most popular writer at that time. A straight up cash grab and in a way I can't fault Marvel for such a move for they have never been ones to be misleading about wanting your money.
However, as for the in-story reasons for their inclusions, I have no problem with Spider-Man finally becoming an Avenger. One of my favorite Avengers stories from my youth is Stern's two-part story guest-staring Spider-Man in #236-237 where Peter flirts with joining (and the reasons why he eventually doesn't, as provided by Stern, makes sense. Imagine that). So, Peter finally joins, Yay.
Wolverine, on the other hand, has no business whatsoever being an Avenger, especially given the express reason why he was invited to join. It completely contradicts and derides everything the Avengers have valued for years (which makes it all the more unbelievable given that it was Steve who gave him that reason if memory serves). It made no sense then and makes even less sense now.
Second, beyond that, Bendis' rosters held little interest to me. I do agree, he does better with solo books rather than with large team books. Since he seems more comfortable with street-level characters, that may be one of the reasons behind his inclusion of those characters here in his run but I really don't care for Luke Cage nor Iron Fist (and please, no Jessica Jones either). I was pleased though when Daredevil became a member but it should have generated more hoopla and noise than what it did.
Third, Bendis' run helped perpetuate the motif of hero vs hero that gripped and stagnated Marvel for over a decade. If Civil War had been one-shot deal of heroes dealing with their moral choices, that would have been fine. But Bendis continued this motif beginning with the Initiative, Secret Invasion, and all these Big Idea story events featuring our heroes in-fighting which, as others have pointed out, may have started out strong but ended meekly. This culminated in the rightfully maligned Avengers vs X-Men maxi-series (or by that point, the New Guard vs the Old Guard) in which the Avengers' dominance and superiority were all but assured. They took an interesting story perception dealing with morality and consequence and successfully ran it into the ground.
Fourth, look, now everyone is an Avenger. Wait, what? The unique status and appeal quickly evaporated under this approach. (And yes, I loved the old 'Who's-going-to-be-on-the-new-roster?' issues. They were great fun but alas that charm since vanished).
Last, Bendis' typical writing idiosyncrasies that I find (and found here) highly annoying.
During this period, I was an Avengers fan looking for a decent Avengers read and not finding it in Bendis. I tried too, I tried reading his issues but ended up feeling frustrated and angry. When Slott took over Mighty Avengers from him, that was a favorable boost but when you turning to the all-ages Avengers title in hopes of finding something good, then you're struggling. As much as Bendis ignores previous canon in his work, I ignore his section of Avengers history equally.
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. Yes better than Byrne...and Yes better than Stern and Buscema.