Brian Michael Bendis-Unpopular?

Sesudra

Whats the general Boards opinion on Mr Bendis?I picked up the second volume of the Powers hardcover,like his work on that.However his mainstream Marvel stuff is awful.Every character sounds the exact same and acts like a drunk fratboy.He should just stick to creator owned stuff where the characters could be expected to speak with his voice,rather than forcing his voice on characters,regardless of whether it sound silly or not

shenanigans1982

For me it seems to be that he has become over exposed in the last few years. It now seems like he writes every second Marvel book on the shelf.

Fysh

Oddly enough I don't think I've actually read anything of his; certainly I don't recall reading anything of his from Marvel, and Powers is one of those things that I keep telling myself I'll get around to reading eventually but haven't yet bothered with.

I do remember looking at a trade of some of the Disassembled stuff that he wrote for Marvel and being sufficiently unimpressed with it that it remained on the shelf, but that's about it. I get the feeling that after Secret Invasion's damp squib of an ending, a lot more people are realising they don't like his writing style all that much...

BlaasForRafa

Powers and Jinx are great but...

Bendis is entirely the wrong writer for New Avengers and Mighty Avengers. There are some writers who are suited to these types of books like Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns and there are those who are not like Brian Bendis. Secret Invasion was awful, an endless succession of waffling talking heads, big action splash pages and endless decompression, I'm glad I read it online rather than pay the exhorbitant price for it.

AngryBadger

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Powers and Jinx are great but...

Bendis is entirely the wrong writer for New Avengers and Mighty Avengers. There are some writers who are suited to these types of books like Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns and there are those who are not like Brian Bendis. Secret Invasion was awful, an endless succession of waffling talking heads, big action splash pages and endless decompression, I'm glad I read it online rather than pay the exhorbitant price for it.

Gotta disagree with everything you've said above.

I love Bendis work on Avengers, and the latest "Dark Avengers". Not getting into a big mushy "I Love Bendis!" monologue, but I think most of his work is awesome.

It would actually be cool to see Johns take a stab at avengers, but purely to see if he'd do as well in the Marvel stable not out of any dissatisfaction at bendis' work.

BlaasForRafa

AngryBadger wrote: »

Gotta disagree with everything you've said above.

I love Bendis work on Avengers, and the latest "Dark Avengers". Not getting into a big mushy "I Love Bendis!" monologue, but I think most of his work is awesome.

It would actually be cool to see Johns take a stab at avengers, but purely to see if he'd do as well in the Marvel stable not out of any dissatisfaction at bendis' work.

Johns actually did have a short run on the Avengers before he went DC exclusive between Kurt Busieks run and Bendis and I have to say it was better than Bendis. But I've been a fan of Avengers since Roger Sterns run which was probably the best of all.

Bendis isn't bad but he's not in that league imo. Every character making spidey-esque snarky comments can get a bit wearing and the "writing for the trade" decompression can make me feel like i'm not getting value for money, for example the origin of the New Avengers took 6 issues, Stan and Jack did the origin of the Avengers in 1 issue.

AngryBadger

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Bendis isn't bad but he's not in that league imo. Every character making spidey-esque snarky comments can get a bit wearing and the "writing for the trade" decompression can make me feel like i'm not getting value for money, for example the origin of the New Avengers took 6 issues, Stan and Jack did the origin of the Avengers in 1 issue.

Sorry now but you're saying you actually preferred the original by Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby? Don't misunderstand me, I love the old comics, but that's mainly because they're older comics. That kind of story-telling doesn't interest me nowadays. I love reading my old comics, but I expect a higher caliber of writing/story now. Kirby and Lee did great work, but their style does not suit the comics environment of today. So in my view, and I don't mean this insultingly, but I think the styles are so different that it's ridiculous comparing a Bendis story to a Lee/Kirby story.

I don't feel that Bendis' characters all share the same voice. Granted you do see certain patterns to his writing, but that's true of anyone not just Bendis.

To me Bendis is willing to do lots of crazy stuff! Look at the results of "House of M", and even "Secret Invasion". Things are changing all the time, but not in a ridiculous, "Hey let's create a new team and sell 20 new books based on them" way, something major happens, we have a few months/years watching the repercussions unfold, and then something else happens in a way, and at a pace that makes sense to the marvel U.

"House of M" set up all of what we've seen in "X-men" over the last 2/3 years. Since then we've had "Civil War", and "World War Hulk", (not by Bendis but both hugely relevant to the MU), which led to the Initiative, registration and so on, and eventually came full circle with "Secret Invasion" where we now have

a US authority on superhumans being run by Norman Osborn.

How can you not love that?

BlaasForRafa

I do think that Bendis could tell a story more concisely. Look at Secret Invasion, theres no way that that needed to be 8 issues long. Issues 3, 4 and 5 definitely felt padded imo.

House of M was the most interesting of the 3 but that too felt padded out. The premise didn't have an interesting follow up imo, Whedon and Brubaker pretty much ignored it with Astonishing and the Rise and Fall of the Shiar Empire respectively (both great books too). Endangered species was ok but I didn't like them trying to force people to buy titles they wouldn't normally get like X-Factor.

Civil War I thought was pretty awful, Mark Millars writing was certainly awful but the premise itself wasn't great. I tried to reread part 1 a few weeks ago and Millars writing in it is just so bad. The Death of Captain America was the best story to come from it but again that was Brubaker. Avengers:The Initiative was a good book but again because Christos Gage was writing it.

Secret Invasion had some good moments but a lot of tedium in between. And looking back at the New Avengers run from 1-49 I'm stuck to think of that many good moments, indeed the Avengers didn't feature much in a significant number of those issues, the Civil war and Secret Invasion tie-ins especially.

Don't get me wrong, Powers is one of my favourite works of all time in comics and is completely genius and different people have different tastes in comics and both points of view are legitimate, I just think he was the wrong writer for the Avengers. Compared to Busieks run which was brilliant, Bendis's was a disappointment for me.

AngryBadger

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I do think that Bendis could tell a story more concisely. Look at Secret Invasion, theres no way that that needed to be 8 issues long. Issues 3, 4 and 5 definitely felt padded imo.

I don't think it's fair to blame Bendis for that, Marvel marketing knows a limited series like "Secret Invasion" is going to sell a lot of copies, so they're obviously going to want to stretch it out as much as they can. Not saying that bendis couldn't have trimmed some fat, but it's not as straight forward as "Oh he padded that series as much as he possibly could".

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

House of M was the most interesting of the 3 but that too felt padded out. The premise didn't have an interesting follow up imo, Whedon and Brubaker pretty much ignored it with Astonishing and the Rise and Fall of the Shiar Empire respectively (both great books too). Endangered species was ok but I didn't like them trying to force people to buy titles they wouldn't normally get like X-Factor.

I take your point about other writers not following up on "House of M" and the like, but again, it's hardly fair to blame bendis for that.

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Civil War I thought was pretty awful, Mark Millars writing was certainly awful but the premise itself wasn't great. I tried to reread part 1 a few weeks ago and Millars writing in it is just so bad. The Death of Captain America was the best story to come from it but again that was Brubaker. Avengers:The Initiative was a good book but again because Christos Gage was writing it.

Again, Millars/Gage writing has nothing to do with bendis.

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Secret Invasion had some good moments but a lot of tedium in between. And looking back at the New Avengers run from 1-49 I'm stuck to think of that many good moments, indeed the Avengers didn't feature much in a significant number of those issues, the Civil war and Secret Invasion tie-ins especially.

In general I think tie-ins can be a very mixed bag, but with Marvel I find the main event takes place in the mini-series, you have the option of reading the tie-ins or not. If you don't you still get the full story from the mini, and if you do read the tie-ins (or some of them anyway) I find it adds a lot to the story. Granted some tie-ins are just BS, but again, I don't think you can blame Bendis for that.

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, Powers is one of my favourite works of all time in comics and is completely genius and different people have different tastes in comics and both points of view are legitimate, I just think he was the wrong writer for the Avengers. Compared to Busieks run which was brilliant, Bendis's was a disappointment for me.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree

Mr. K

I notice Ultimate Spidey hasn't been mentioned! What's the feeling towards that? I've read most of it so far, I think it's really good. Its existence also makes the BND stuff in 616 completely pointless, unless they intended to end it (like they are most of the Ultimate universe).

His retellings have been pretty fun, I especially enjoyed Ultimate Venom and Clone Saga.

Sesudra

I enjoy Ultimate Spidey,but I think thats more because the Ultimate versions of those characters,who he's written from the beginning,have his "sound" or whatever you want to call it,so it doesn't bother me.Same as Powers,they're his characters.But I think when someone takes on writing a mainstream character or team,their voice and writing style should adapt to that character or team,not the other way around.It just sounds wrong when everyone in a book is making wisecracks and pop culture references

BlaasForRafa

Sesudra wrote: »

I enjoy Ultimate Spidey,but I think thats more because the Ultimate versions of those characters,who he's written from the beginning,have his "sound" or whatever you want to call it,so it doesn't bother me.Same as Powers,they're his characters.But I think when someone takes on writing a mainstream character or team,their voice and writing style should adapt to that character or team,not the other way around.It just sounds wrong when everyone in a book is making wisecracks and pop culture references

You've hit the nail on the head there Sesudra, thats something that annoyed me about New Avengers.