Yah, what would the Eisner Awards know.

As I see it:

-the comment about Morrison is bang on.
-no, not everything that effects me affects EVERY day that follows. Of course, I'm also not a superhero where within the realm of reason ANYTHING could happen on a given day. Actually, some of the things that happen in my life also happen to have closure. I guess since life can, I expect art to as well since art imitates life.

I've enjoyed Blackest Night. That's essentially 4 years in the making. Difference, is, that was well known around Sinestro War. So there was definite advance notice. So, I don't have problems with longterm planning and stories. I have a problem with, "We're Shaking Up The Marvel Universe!!!!!"...and then doing it again six months later.

Plus, with Bendis...if it was really "shaking up the universe" he'd spend more time rolling with his stories instead of using a scapegoat to undo each event he does. Then again, Quesadilla Joe has as much to do with that as anyone else.

Daredevil has only gotten better from Kevin Smith onward. Bendis, Brubaker, and now Diggle is promising good things. Of course Miller is classic, but in the absense of Miller's Daredevil, should we all sit around and compare new work to Miller's old stuff? Or should we enjoy adding new, great stories to sit alongside Miller's?

They needed an event to rip apart the Tony Stark SHIELD and send him into a tailspin. This accomplished that and gave us the amazing series Invincible Iron Man.

The overall feeling of confusion and mistrust was very well done, with many heroes turning out to be Skrulls. I also enjoy the aftermath of the heroes who were swapped out trying to find their way. (Pym, Spiderwoman)

The fact that Bendis hid Skrulls in 5 years worth of comics to unveil during this event still sits as one of the coolest things in modern comics.

Norman Osborn, pure gold spinning out of Secret Invasion.

All of the modern major events probably went a month or two longer than they should have, that is the only real beef I had with Secret Invasion.

Besides, no matter how long an event goes on these days, nothing can ever compare to the event milking that was the Clone Saga.

Well put and monster rep to you for saying it.

Or you could compare new stuff to Miller's new stuff (which makes anything look good).

What do you mean "was" ???
There is a 6 part mini-series out, "Spider-Man-The Clone Saga".
I believe issue number 4 is out this week and this mini will include new bits, seeing as how somethings need to be retcon'd in (since OMD and BND)..

This is really an interesting thread to sift through. I agree and disagree with a lot of posts and opinions.

Saturnflight makes a lot of good points - Bendis made Avengers relevent again. Even if he had to burn the house down to do it. Including Wolverine on the team was a good idea. I've always felt like the Avengers should be like a mini-marvel Illuminati, with representitives of each corner of the Marvel U on the team, as a way to cross promote their own books (which I believe they started out as to a certain degree).

In this article Bendis sort of addressed the one thing I've never understood about comic writing, and that is why, when a writer is given a title to play with, they feel the need to take a character they don't like and completely wreck them. Like they have a vendetta or score to settle. I wasn't fond of some of the characters paved over in disassembled, but I don't know that they deserved that kind of a fate.

Deaths in comics, IMO - shouldn't be meaningless. They also shouldn't be off panel a'la Alpha Flight. It's not limited to Bendis. I've seen writers come and go off titles leaving a body count because they didn't think characters were "cool" or needed a body for a story they were telling and didn't really care who it was or what history the character had (something Chuck Austen is guilty of as well). If nothing else you'd think a writer would respect another writer's creation out of respect.

As far as continuity goes, I can deal with sloppy continuity more than I can deal with sloppy characterization. In terms of artwork, I wouldn't want to read a title where I couldn't tell the difference in the artwork between Captain America and Hawkeye, and that applies to dialogue as well.

That's why I love writers like Gail Simone and John Ostrander. I could probably listen to an audio recording of the issue and know for the most part who had what lines. Bendis, like Tarantino has strong dialgoue, but suffers when it comes to telling a cohesive, compelling story.

Well, in theory the current Clone Saga is telling the story in the form it was originally intended. Which is technically a 'retelling' rather than a painful extension of the original.

That was a pretty impressive feat to pull off. Shame the pay off didn't amount to anything near what it could have. Or even become what it should have.

Has anyone else taken time to read the other two articles attached to the linked one? Some more interesting stuff is in those as well. It's a very nice read all together.

Eh, okay...here goes:

1) You say they "NEEDED" an event to rip Tony Stark and SHIELD up. That right there pretty much screams "we need sales, let's make up an event." Bendis does not get credit for any subsequent good writing on Invincible Iron Man. SI was not needed, sales were.

2) There was a bunch of dialogue in New Avengers about who to trust...........and that's all. No other books incorporated this at all, and only one book did it from a fresh angle, that being INITIATIVE, that already had a Skrull in their midst. And it does not take a fresh mind to retroactively make characters clones, skrull, robots, etc. Tell me how hard it would have been to make any non-self title character (Wolverine, Spider-Man) a skrull and write around it? Zero points here as well.....NO BIG REVEALS AT ALL. I know there are fans, but Hank Pym and Spider-woman? Really? If it weren't for Bendis pushing SW through the roof, no one would give a damn.

3) He never hid any characters. None. He ret-conned them, that's all. ANYONE could have done this. How was Elektra "hid"? Did you follow stories about Elektra before the reveal? Didn't think so...


4) Norman Osborn.....they could have picked ANYONE to put the bullet in her head, and I'll grant you that they probably thought up the "cabal" sometime through the series, but that only served to drum up ANOTHER big event for them to sell us. A FOURTH (count 'em, FOUR) Avenger title.

Completely useless...and please keep in mind the opening story from SIEGE has a mass murder due to the good intentions of a super-hero.....does that sound familiar? Hackish, maybe?

Secret Invasion was the worst kind of filler.....no substance at all. And we killed the only remaining character that might have had a connection with older fans in an attempt to make is somewhat important.

Luke B. hatin' on that stupid, over-indulgent, slap in the face to fans called "Secret Invasion".

OOoooooohhh, Alfred is a Skrull! WOW!

I never said it wasn't.
I'm merely pointing out that the storyline is still being milked. It may have some differances to the original telling, but it's still the basic story and the dead horse is still being beaten.

Quoted for agreement. Continuity can be fixed retroactively, if necessary. Characterization...well, it can, too. But it could take something like a Crisis or a Heroes Reborn/Return thing to do it.

Bendis is like a strong spice. In some foods, it may be absolutely wonderful. Other times it overpowers and ruins a dish. And in still others it takes a long period of marination to truly do its work.

That's how I feel about Bendis' Avengers. The dialogue is usually quite good (except when Bendis' voice and speech patterns override the characters', as happened way too often with his Steve Rogers) but, yeah, the stories never quite added up to the sum of the little gems.

But what he's done with the slow-burn events building up to Dark Reign is pretty much genius.

Bendis remains a spice I don't really prefer in my comics dish. But in the right dish, with the right ingredients and with the right preparation time, he can be rather fantastic.

There's no phrase like 'a slap in the face to fans'. I can't keep a straight face after reading that familiar trope. I pretty much blame Print 'n Play, but Galactus, Foom, and Mighty Thor did their share too.