The Bendis Debate

Do you like BENDIS!

  • Total voters
    51
Victor Von Doom said:
I laughed outloud in the bookstore as I looked at the panel that had Hawkeye's return.

I checked my phone to make sure the internet hadn't broken again.


The first 3 issues of the mini were incredibly strong. Then it died down in the middle. But #7 and #8 were awesome. Especially when Mags confronts Pietro and is screaming "What have you done in my name?!?!". I don't know why it gives me chills.
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That was one of the best scenes.


And I love the flashes when characters awaken and Wanda tetris attacking Hawkeye.


Plus this is where we got Layla Miller.
 
E said:
I can't speak for Houde, but that's exactly how he acts on his own site.
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I read that post of him ridiculing DSF, that's pretty much the vibe i got. If you look in the panel on page 6 of issue 3 in Secret War, you can see him drawn in the background...it's faint, but if you squint...like really squint...you'll know that i totally duped you in to thinking that he would actually be there. That doesn't change the fact he was behind secret war though. I still blame him for creating angelina hyde aka quake aka stupid. It makes me glad how Cap brought her ego down so quickly at the end of the magneto arc.

Angelina hyde: I want to be named Quake.

Cap: STFU *****!
 
I can't stomach much of Bendis' online correspondence, and I find his letters column a little too juvenile... but he's alright when he does interviews over podcasts.
 
It's that kinda nice.....but it didn't bother me so much. Mostly because I tend to think the same way.


It's not like I wanted to have chubby mulatto Jewish babies with him. :shifty:
 
Victor Von Doom said:
It's that kinda nice.....but it didn't bother me so much. Mostly because I tend to think the same way.
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I do too, which is exactly why it bothers me. I'm better than him, and therefore he has no right to act better than me. :p
 
ourchair said:
You already know I fundamentally agree with you on Bendis' inability to live up to his own build up...

"And now for the next twelve issues, we will constantly remind you through ad copy that everything is building up towards Matt Murdock confronting his inner demons... which we will inevitably resolve in eight panels."

"And now for the next four issues Detective Deena Pilgrim and Christian Walker will move towards working out their problems... and by that we mean they will explode at each other's face for two pages and then make up!"

He tends to have storytelling promises that sound like they can be reasonably fulfilled by even the most average and unremarkable writers (and therefore, readers don't feel like he's promising the moon).

The problem is that he cuts corners in fulfilling those promises. He's actually pretty alright at exploring all sides of an issue --- the socio-political relationships between various government bodies, the image dilemmas facing decisions that must be made under close media scrutiny --- and the problem is that this over analysis kills himself.

I don't mean to say that writers should write below their intelligence, but I think it would be far easier to accept Bendis concluding his stories in such a downright pat manner if he looked at his superhero stories with less complexity. It's like, all that analysis, and your resolution is "She was working for HYDRA?"

Bendis' ENTIRE writing technique is like a Woody Allen joke. He obsesses and obsesses and obsesses in the manner stereotypically attributed to neurotic Jews, and in the end he chooses a panic-driven option. If he put less thought into the story situation, then the thoughtlessness of his decisions might seem I dunno, less annoying.

Also, Bass... I just wanted to know... was there ANY work of Bendis' that you actually liked or at least found noteworthy in some positive regard? I'm just curious because as you probably figured by now, I have very complex issues with whether or not I like Bendis.
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Off the top of my head...

POWERS - Each arc works the same way: a crime is committed, it unravels into a larger story, Walker and Pilgrim get closer to solving the case - and then a superhero shows up and solves everything for them.

DAREDEVIL - The series began with a simple arc told in a complex way about how the Kingpin is removed from his mob throne. Then it dovetails into Daredevil's secret identity being revealed. And then spirals even further, with incredible grace, to Daredevil becoming Kingpin and taking over Hell's Kitchen. Things get worse and worse, he ruins his marriage, alienates his friends, and is almost killed by rival gangsters. Daredevil is then told by his friend, Ben Urich, that he's having a nervous breakdown. And then, Daredevil solves all his problems and then the story regresses to it's second stage and for some reason, just has a different ending with Murdock being arrested, something that could've happened 30 issues ago.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN - Absolutely terrific reinvention of Spider-Man that felt really unique yet quintessentially 'Spider-Man', with brilliant reimaginings and well-thought out plots. Then, Green Goblin returned and Bendis did the mistake every Spider-Man writer has done: redo the death of Gwen Stacy scene, but not kill the girlfriend. Neutering that, the series stopped being fun and exhilerating, but rather whiny, boring, and false. Brilliant set-ups are pissed away with non-plots. Spidey's secret is discovered by Gwen who hates Spider-Man for killing her dad. She tries to shoot him, fails, runs away. She then comes back, before May becomes suspicious and is now LIVING with Peter who can't do ANYTHING without revealing his secret to May. Gwen then forgives Spidey, makes peace, and then is killed in the backyard. Spidey's hated by everyone and his only friend is a single detective in the NYPD. He doesn't know she's working for the Kingpin and he's being used to take out the Kingpin's competition. Then the Punisher shoots her and says, "Oh, she was dirty, didn't you know?" And so on.

SECRET WAR - When Nick Fury claims in the first issue that The Shocker is an international terrorist, I gave up. It's a stupid idea. Gadget-villains almost always explain why they're robbing a bank - to keep their machinery working. Bendis made up a connection so he could take all these simple, gimmicky villains and then mass murder them in a 'dark' story which they have no place in being.

AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED - Out of nowhere, all of the Avengers greatest enemies show up, for no reason, and begin killing all the Avengers, who are incapable of fighting back in any meaningful way. The series ends with Doctor Strange telling the Avengers it's all Scarlet Witch and then taking her away. The title is AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED not DOCTOR STRANGE AND SOME OTHER GUYS.

HOUSE OF M - Bendis copies AGE OF APOCALYPSE but gets rid of all the time-travel stuff and instead, makes it all a dream.

NEW AVENGERS - Bendis just turns the comic into a "Best of the Marvel Universe" title but forgets Thor, has two Spider-people, and Wolverine. As a result, it feels more like a less grandiose version of JLA.

MIGHTY AVENGERS - There's no thought to this comic, ironic considering the thought bubbles. It's just random fights for no reason or story plot. It feels like one of those dumb *** summer blockbusters that Bendis has his characters rip the piss out of.

ALIAS - See POWERS.

GOLDFISH & JINX - I remember liking them and haven't read them in years because I'm worried I'll hate them.

To sum up - I think Bendis has done some brilliant comics, and I think he's capable of creating more brilliant comics. I think the reason I find him so dreadful now is because no one is editing this guy, and he does every title he can. No one seems to be saying, when a Bendis script comes past them, "Dude - this doesn't work". But then, maybe it does and I'm very much in the wrong.

I think, now, he's dreadful. Once, he was pretty damned good - which is no wonder why he's such a bigwig in Marvel.
 
Bass said:
Off the top of my head...

POWERS - Each arc works the same way: a crime is committed, it unravels into a larger story, Walker and Pilgrim get closer to solving the case - and then a superhero shows up and solves everything for them.
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I hate Powers. There are some parts of it that are really likeable, but overall it's trash.

The detectives do very little detective work at all and Bendis excuses this every time by showing how every problem is TOO superhuman for their small detective ways. This would be perfectly fine if Bendis DIDN'T call it a police procedural, but he DOES, so he's obligated to at least try.

Bendis should be showing how police procedure can be refit to bring down superhuman threat, but instead he cops out with the whole "Everything is bigger than us, this is way out of our league". Several arcs are filled with characters WHINING about how this is too BIG OMG DEATH RAYS AND BULLETPROOF SKIN!

Okay, to be fair, that IS a valid excuse for why cops can't deal with superhuman issues, but if that's the case, then you shouldn't design a series premise like Powers' in the first place, if that's the kind of attitude you're going to take for 30 issues before you start using monkey sex to fill an issue.

Simply put, the first three issues of Stormwatch: PHD show more imagination in creative low-budget superhuman takedown than all 40+ issues of Powers.

Bass said:
DAREDEVIL - The series began with a simple arc told in a complex way about how the Kingpin is removed from his mob throne. Then it dovetails into Daredevil's secret identity being revealed. And then spirals even further, with incredible grace, to Daredevil becoming Kingpin and taking over Hell's Kitchen. Things get worse and worse, he ruins his marriage, alienates his friends, and is almost killed by rival gangsters. Daredevil is then told by his friend, Ben Urich, that he's having a nervous breakdown. And then, Daredevil solves all his problems and then the story regresses to it's second stage and for some reason, just has a different ending with Murdock being arrested, something that could've happened 30 issues ago.
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I pretty much liked Daredevil up until Murdock Papers.

I hated the fact that Bendis was *****footing the entire time before getting to where he really wanted to go. The goodbye note says that he wanted to put Matt in jail but he was too afraid, so he waited years and years until Brubaker came in before he did it.

It doesn't mean that everything he did is somehow lessened because of that (stupid "you have a problem Matt, and my telling you means that problem is solved" nonsense notwithstanding). But let's face it, the whole jail thing was something he should've had the balls to tackle all his own.

But that's not the first BIG IDEA that has been brought up and then thrown out like so much scrap paper. How about Foggy chews out Matt for messing up his own life (#32) and then changing his mind later and taking it all back? How about Agent Driver being killed for no good reason? How about a major trial versus Mr. Rosenthal, owner of the Daily Globe that would've been really interesting until the Kingpin ripped his head off?

Bendis? Wimp.

Bass said:
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN - Absolutely terrific reinvention of Spider-Man that felt really unique yet quintessentially 'Spider-Man', with brilliant reimaginings and well-thought out plots. Then, Green Goblin returned and Bendis did the mistake every Spider-Man writer has done: redo the death of Gwen Stacy scene, but not kill the girlfriend. Neutering that, the series stopped being fun and exhilerating, but rather whiny, boring, and false. Brilliant set-ups are pissed away with non-plots. Spidey's secret is discovered by Gwen who hates Spider-Man for killing her dad. She tries to shoot him, fails, runs away. She then comes back, before May becomes suspicious and is now LIVING with Peter who can't do ANYTHING without revealing his secret to May. Gwen then forgives Spidey, makes peace, and then is killed in the backyard. Spidey's hated by everyone and his only friend is a single detective in the NYPD. He doesn't know she's working for the Kingpin and he's being used to take out the Kingpin's competition. Then the Punisher shoots her and says, "Oh, she was dirty, didn't you know?" And so on.

To sum up - I think Bendis has done some brilliant comics, and I think he's capable of creating more brilliant comics. I think the reason I find him so dreadful now is because no one is editing this guy, and he does every title he can. No one seems to be saying, when a Bendis script comes past them, "Dude - this doesn't work". But then, maybe it does and I'm very much in the wrong.
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This kind of reminds me of an argument Scott Kurtz once made about George Lucas, saying that the daughter of Gary Kurtz --- producer of ANH and ESB, no relation to Scott --- implied heavily that he was the last person willing to tell Lucas, "No." and he wasn't on Jedi.

I believe somewhere between the cool USM and the lousy USM, Bill Jemas left Marvel. Remember that Jemas and Bendis co-wrote the first arc of USM, and I believe that he had his hands in everything up to at least the Venom arc.

Yes, I have a borderline irrational belief in that Bill Jemas is tied to everything GOOD at Marvel from 2000 onwards. Which isn't to say he's responsible for those things, but his mere presence makes possible.

This is the crazy guy who says, "Let's make the Goblin formula into some really CRAAAAZY Gatorade!!!" and Bendis says, "Uh, right." This is the guy who brought in the alien suit and says, "Let's make it into sentient daddy-spunk!" and Bendis says, "No."

Basically Bill Jemas was the last guy to put any amount of ambition and imagination in the USM books, and Bendis' role was to restrain it. The problem we're having is that the No-Guy is still around, but there's no Imagination Guy.

Bass said:
GOLDFISH & JINX - I remember liking them and haven't read them in years because I'm worried I'll hate them.
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Can't blame the logic in that.
 
ourchair said:
Basically Bill Jemas was the last guy to put any amount of ambition and imagination in the USM books, and Bendis' role was to restrain it. The problem we're having is that the No-Guy is still around, but there's no Imagination Guy.
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Hmm, here I was thinking that Bendis needed a No-guy to say "Gwen Carnage? NO. Wolfman-MJ? NO. Magnetoctopus? Are you high?"
 
ourchair said:
I hate Powers. There are some parts of it that are really likeable, but overall it's trash.

The detectives do very little detective work at all and Bendis excuses this every time by showing how every problem is TOO superhuman for their small detective ways. This would be perfectly fine if Bendis DIDN'T call it a police procedural, but he DOES, so he's obligated to at least try.

Bendis should be showing how police procedure can be refit to bring down superhuman threat, but instead he cops out with the whole "Everything is bigger than us, this is way out of our league". Several arcs are filled with characters WHINING about how this is too BIG OMG DEATH RAYS AND BULLETPROOF SKIN!

Okay, to be fair, that IS a valid excuse for why cops can't deal with superhuman issues, but if that's the case, then you shouldn't design a series premise like Powers' in the first place, if that's the kind of attitude you're going to take for 30 issues before you start using monkey sex to fill an issue.

Simply put, the first three issues of Stormwatch: PHD show more imagination in creative low-budget superhuman takedown than all 40+ issues of Powers.

I pretty much liked Daredevil up until Murdock Papers.

I hated the fact that Bendis was *****footing the entire time before getting to where he really wanted to go. The goodbye note says that he wanted to put Matt in jail but he was too afraid, so he waited years and years until Brubaker came in before he did it.

It doesn't mean that everything he did is somehow lessened because of that (stupid "you have a problem Matt, and my telling you means that problem is solved" nonsense notwithstanding). But let's face it, the whole jail thing was something he should've had the balls to tackle all his own.

But that's not the first BIG IDEA that has been brought up and then thrown out like so much scrap paper. How about Foggy chews out Matt for messing up his own life (#32) and then changing his mind later and taking it all back? How about Agent Driver being killed for no good reason? How about a major trial versus Mr. Rosenthal, owner of the Daily Globe that would've been really interesting until the Kingpin ripped his head off?

Bendis? Wimp.

This kind of reminds me of an argument Scott Kurtz once made about George Lucas, saying that the daughter of Gary Kurtz --- producer of ANH and ESB, no relation to Scott --- implied heavily that he was the last person willing to tell Lucas, "No." and he wasn't on Jedi.

I believe somewhere between the cool USM and the lousy USM, Bill Jemas left Marvel. Remember that Jemas and Bendis co-wrote the first arc of USM, and I believe that he had his hands in everything up to at least the Venom arc.

Yes, I have a borderline irrational belief in that Bill Jemas is tied to everything GOOD at Marvel from 2000 onwards. Which isn't to say he's responsible for those things, but his mere presence makes possible.

This is the crazy guy who says, "Let's make the Goblin formula into some really CRAAAAZY Gatorade!!!" and Bendis says, "Uh, right." This is the guy who brought in the alien suit and says, "Let's make it into sentient daddy-spunk!" and Bendis says, "No."

Basically Bill Jemas was the last guy to put any amount of ambition and imagination in the USM books, and Bendis' role was to restrain it. The problem we're having is that the No-Guy is still around, but there's no Imagination Guy.

Can't blame the logic in that.
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I have to say I agree with pretty much everything you've said, especially the "wimp" bit. While "wimp" is a very disparaging word to use, in my mind, "wimp" is apt because Bendis goes in with big guns, acting tough and hardcore, that this story will matter and then quickly cops out with the "people are tougher/crazier/better than you" so he never has to write an ending.

Endings are hard. It's easy to write a beginning. How many tv shows have you seen where the first episode of a two-parter was awesome but the second part was a big let down? Pretty much every two-parter ever made. Endings are hard. The reason to write longer and longer stories is to stave off that ending, to stave off that creative hardship - which is why, I think, films are getting longer and longer, and yet, no better.

I digress. But Bendis' works seem to smack of that unwillingness to end something well due to the difficulty involved. Now, I'm not saying Bendis is lazy. The man writes a lot. He does the work. But my thinking is - with creativity, it's got to be hard. It's the only way to improve, to get the best you can do out of you. Bendis spends a lot of his time on his stories - but I don't think he does anything hard. Anything hard comes along, and he sidesteps it. And I suppose, if I were writing a dozen comic titles a month, I'd do the same.

Random said:
Hmm, here I was thinking that Bendis needed a No-guy to say "Gwen Carnage? NO. Wolfman-MJ? NO. Magnetoctopus? Are you high?"
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Yeah, this is what I think. I don't think, like Ourchair does, that Mr Imagination is gone, I think Mr No is gone. No one seems to be saying, "Hey, that's ****ing stupid" - but then they're all friends and so I suppose everyone knows where everyone is coming from.

I dunno. And I don't know what Bill Jemas did to Marvel, I don't know if it was all him or the combination of him and Joe Q and the rest, I don't know - but when Jemas left, all the exhilaration Marvel had at the turn of the century just disappeared and has yet to come back.
 
Joe Kalicki is your enemy now, because he thinks Jemas ruined Marvel, but I agree with you, Jemas revitalized Marvel, then left all to quickly, for political reasons I hear.

Anyways, endings are difficult, and when someone writes in a comic book setting, where they seem to think stories never need an ending, it gets even worse to do. For a comparison, look at your own ending to the UCFF issues you wrote. It took nine months, and I'm sure lots of time and effort on your part to get it the way you want. In Blairwood, I'm heading towards the ending now, and I'm facing the same issues on how to end it. I want to wrap things up, but not too quickly, but also in the same vein, I don't want to wrap everything up in the last five minutes like comics do these days.
 
Bass said:
I dunno. And I don't know what Bill Jemas did to Marvel, I don't know if it was all him or the combination of him and Joe Q and the rest, I don't know - but when Jemas left, all the exhilaration Marvel had at the turn of the century just disappeared and has yet to come back.
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I've hated just about EVERY idea that Jemas has ever come up with his own when it comes to stories and plotting, don't get me wrong.

His Namor title on Tsunami sucked, his support of Ron Zimmerman on Marville (and other books) was inane.

And therefore I agree with you. I absolutely do NOT believe that Jemas was DIRECTLY responsible for making Marvel Comics good, but the moment he disappeared was the moment Joe Quesada decided to go back to the 90s, which incidentally happens to be the era that Quesada made his name as an artist.

Removing Jemas destroyed that alchemical perfection.

The whole nonsense I wrote about Mr Imagination, that's just thinking out loud poofery.
 
I missed this but I voted yes as in the poll it was "yes" or "The bass option" to "Do you like BENDIS!" and my answer wasn't there


my answer? OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL YEAH!
 
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Ultimate Houde said:
Joe Kalicki is your enemy now, because he thinks Jemas ruined Marvel, but I agree with you, Jemas revitalized Marvel, then left all to quickly, for political reasons I hear.

Anyways, endings are difficult, and when someone writes in a comic book setting, where they seem to think stories never need an ending, it gets even worse to do. For a comparison, look at your own ending to the UCFF issues you wrote. It took nine months, and I'm sure lots of time and effort on your part to get it the way you want. In Blairwood, I'm heading towards the ending now, and I'm facing the same issues on how to end it. I want to wrap things up, but not too quickly, but also in the same vein, I don't want to wrap everything up in the last five minutes like comics do these days.
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Actually - the ending wasn't the problem. Everything else was. I had that ending in place before I did the first issue. There were a few things not specifically set out (like DJF smashing a mooninite into the African Citadel), but pretty much it was all there. The problem was the sheer amount of time it took to get done. It was 107 pages - the most I've ever written, and the beginning and middle took ages.

But I completely understand what you mean and agree. It's hard to write for franchises. I was talking to one of my friends in the comics business (I won't say who - and I still find it weird I can actually say that now) who was telling me how working on Superman is a horror. The editor comes in and says, "This is the story for the next two months - Superman has a cold" and then the writer of ACTION COMICS writes the second and sixth parts of the story - and that's it. When something like that is written by committee - I don't get how it can be done at all.

ourchair said:
I've hated just about EVERY idea that Jemas has ever come up with his own when it comes to stories and plotting, don't get me wrong.

His Namor title on Tsunami sucked, his support of Ron Zimmerman on Marville (and other books) was inane.

And therefore I agree with you. I absolutely do NOT believe that Jemas was DIRECTLY responsible for making Marvel Comics good, but the moment he disappeared was the moment Joe Quesada decided to go back to the 90s, which incidentally happens to be the era that Quesada made his name as an artist.

Removing Jemas destroyed that alchemical perfection.

The whole nonsense I wrote about Mr Imagination, that's just thinking out loud poofery.
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Heh. Poofery.

And I'm watching the second season of THE WEST WING at the moment and I realised that it's as if it's written by Bendis. Total cop out all the time. Second season ends with the promise of an entrenched political battle over the President's possibility of having committed fraud to win the presedential election. What came of it? Nothing. What about all those fantastic trial scenes Babbage alluded to? Nothing. Zoe gets kidnapped - then rescued because the kidnappers get drunk. Mandy just disappears. Ugh.
 
I can't for the life of me understand why people enjoy New Avengers.

The team is godawful. Bendis throws together a few characters he likes, Wolverine and Spider-Man to bring in the dollars, and a couple of old Avengers to keep the fans from getting too pissed. It's like he dug out a wet dream Avengers lineup from when he was 13 and decided to make a comic out of it.

The characterizations are one-dimensional, the pacing is unbearably slow, and the whole thing is just ridiculous.
 
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