Brian Michael Bendis made me love the Avengers again. I never really stopped loving Cap, Tony, Wanda, Clint but I had stopped buying the book because the title had become tired to me.
The idea of losing something makes you realize how much you it. Avengers Disassembled rocked my world and shook the foundations of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. New Avengers made the franchise exciting again with new faces and new threats.
Eight years later and End Times are in sight as Bendis leaves the Avengers family for the Children of the Atom. I wanted to share some highlights of this Marvel.com interview about the final months of the Bendisvengers! (And new preview art!)
The fan favorite writer will leave Avengers and New Avengers with an all-star list of artists on board.
“I’m going out on a very pleasant note personally. I just finished an AVENGERS run with Walt Simonson. I’m working on NEW AVENGERS with Michael Gaydos, Michael Avon Oeming, Carlos Pacheco and Mike Deodato. The very last issue we’re doing this big jam sequence. I like to do these jam sequences every once in a while which are very difficult on editorial. I find them to be a lot of fun if you can find the right reason to do them. We found one, and me and Tom [Brevoort] are gathering together a group of very unique, very out-there artists, people who I feel have been exciting to me that are outside of the Marvel mainstream. We’re pulling them in to let them show off a little bit to the larger audiences, people whose books I’ve been buying that are very exciting. We’ll be debuting those names very soon. I feel like we’re leaving on a high note. On [the last issues of] AVENGERS, we’ve got Brandon Peterson, Terry Dodson [and] Mike Mayhew, and it’s gorgeous. It’s absolutely stunning.”
Bendis is famous or infamous for starting his Avengers run by blowing up the Avengers mansion and the team. (Jack of Hearts ran out of luck the hard way!)
“Disassembled” was this disaster movie starring the Avengers, which I thought was awesome. Other people thought it was awesome too, and other people were very, very angry at me. They’re still angry at me as if it happened yesterday.”
I think Bendis fearlessly challenged the fans and the industry to rethink status quo. Cap and Tony were joined my Spider-Man and Wolverine. My favorite part of the Bendis era was adding Luke Cage and Spider-Woman to the team. He then proceeded to put them both through hell and back. Luke became a father, husband and team leader. Luke and Jessica Jones became one of my favorite Marvel couples. Jessica Drew’s comeback (including the fake Skrull Jessica) is the stuff of comics legend all on its own. The path of Robert Reynolds/The Sentry is pure Shakespearean tragedy with a cosmic twist. Bendis is ready to shake the status quo again.
“Well, many years have gone by. This status quo has been around for eight years. It’s quite a lengthy amount of time for any status quo in any comic of any company. So it’s certainly a good time for me to wrap up certain story-lines, to make my final statement on some of these characters. Some characters will be moving on to a new chapter in their life, and other characters will be deciding what it means to be an Avenger. Not all the characters will survive this last story.
I’m losing some babies. I’m losing some characters that mean the world to me. So when you add up all the elements that I just described, that is the status quo change. A lot is going to happen in the next four issues. Some great celebratory things, some tragic things, all setting the stage for my friend Jonathan Hickman, who has his own status quo to try to achieve. I’m going to do the best I can to make that happen.”
For his entire interview here’s the Marvel.com link.
What is your favorite character, storyline or moment of the Bendisvengers era?
By Editor