Avengers Disassembled Part 1

[informationgeek]

Avengers: Disassembled is controversial, even years after it was originally published. Truth be told, it probably will remain divisive for years to come. Still, I think it represents a turning point for the franchise, and it’s a bold ambitious and daring piece of work. Any comic that celebrates its five hundredth issue by mercilessly deconstructing its central team deserves a large amount of respect. Bendis’ work on Avengers might have its share of detractors, and I’m hard-pressed to argue it’s his best work, but I still think it’s a very challenging and breathtaking attempt to help rework a franchise that struggled to find its footing.” - Darren

Story By: Brian Michael Bendis
Art By: David Finch

Like with Civil War, we'll just be looking at random scenes from each issue.



And so it all begins with Avengers #500.





BBBBOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM! Both ded.








Then Vision shows up at the Mansion and blows s**t up with a quinjet.




He then pukes out Ultron metal balls and Ultron things attack!












And She-Hulk smashes Steve with a truck. We then wrap with this...




Brian Michael Bendis doesn't like She-Hulk, does he?

Comments

[scorntx]

To quote another of Bendis' works:
"That was just awful."

This isn't deconstruction, it's just savagery. It's madness.
It's dropping a nuke in the middle of the table.
Who at Marvel honestly thought the best idea for a milestone celebration was to do something like this?

-"Brian Michael Bendis doesn't like She-Hulk, does he?"-
Going by the tenor of his writing and his treatment of them, he also doesn't like Hawkeye, Wasp, the Vision, or the Scarlet Witch.
And that's just the characters who show up here.

[trooper924]

I agree. This only counts as a deconstruction in the most literal interpretation of the term.

[thanekos]

Life as the Latverian ambassador to the UN: having to tell people repeatedly that no, you are not a Doombot with skin.

[beyondthefringe]

"NOT LIKE THIS!"

Truer words, my friend.

[mastermahan]

In retrospect, Ultimatum doesn't seem as bad as it used to. It's still crap, but Loeb was clearly just aping this earlier random event plot slaughterfest, right down to getting the same artist as Disassembled.

[scorntx]

I...
I'd say Ultimatum is probably worse.
It scuppered the Ultimate universe, pointlessly killed several characters, had a nonsensical "reveal" that didn't make a damn lick of sense, meaningless side-plots and moments that just didn't go anywhere...
And Disassembled did all that too, while performing the equivalent of tossing a bomb into the face of several characters, but..
For one, it's more self-contained. Two, no-one eats Wasp's suddenly and inexplicably Caucasian corpse. And three, it's shorter.

Though it's not really a competition. They're both awful anyway.
Just different categories of awful.

[mastermahan]

Ultimatum is definitely worse. Bendis and the other powers that be actually had something of a plan for where to go after breaking things, for one, nor did Disassembled have such an absurdly high death count.

I can see why they thought Ultimatum would work, though.

[cyberghostface]

Not a fan of Bendis's Avengers work but there's really no comparison. Loeb derailed the UU to the point where it never recovered whereas Bendis made Avengers a-list.

[thehood]

That wasn't the problem, the problem was that Loeb didn't remember he was writting the UU. And the senseless deaths, that too.

[stacyhd]

*heavy sigh*
Look, I know it's de rigueur to go after creators and tear them down but I want to make this clear: I -don't- hate Brian Michael Bendis. The artist himself seems to be a reasonably nice enough guy and his work on FORTUNE & GLORY and POWERS is legitimately great.

But stuff like this. . .it -baffles- me. Much like David S. Goyer proclaiming how big of a fan of comics he is while simultaneously making Superman all but unrecognizable and making Batman a murderous sociopath. And he's the guy who helped co-write STARMAN near the end and JSA! It's maddening. The paradox inherent in these creators and their respective works would make a computer on Star Trek start to spit smoke from the paradoxes.

But yeah, AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED was a dumpster fire of a comic. The only one I found in any way palatable was THOR DISASSEMBLED. It was a bad time for the character but it was a well-crafted bad time for the character.

[scorntx]

General rule of thumb with creators who say they're "oh, I'm such a big fan of X" is to be wary at best, ready to run at worst.

Just because someone's a fan of something doesn't necessarily mean they're good at writing for that thing.
They're a fan, yeah, but look at the average fanbase of a thing. Would you want one of them writing official material?
Y'know, unless you want a Star Trek film where Kirk and Spock quit Starfleet and retire to some moon to raise a bunch of kids.
(*cough*)

Okay, yeah, unfair generalisation. There are a lot of people in comics who are fans of them and are genuinely fond of the characters and do good works.
But...
If they say they're a big fan, best to have a grain of salt nearby.
(As a bonus, it wards off demons / magical irritants. Won't ward off cat-ghosts, though.)

[bruinsfan]

I agree, while I have very little respect for Bendis' work outside of the street level adventures that he writes well, the man himself seems fairly nice. I certainly don't get a whiff of the douchiness that surrounds Millar and Ennis like a cloud of Axe body spray.

[stacyhd]

See, I think Ennis and I would get along fine as long as we kept the topics confined to Westerns and Superman. Bringing up THE BOYS might lead to us dying at each other's hands, but I'd steer clear of it.

With Millar, it depends on whether or not you're dealing with Mark Millar (co-creator of AZTEK: THE ULTIMATE MAN, SUPERMAN: RED SON, SUPERMAN ADVENTURES, STARLIGHT, etc) or Mark Mil-Lar (writer of WANTED, his run on THE AUTHORITY, NEMESIS, KICK-ASS, etc). It'd be like a discussion with Harvey Dent.

[halloweenjack]

Same thing with Brad Meltzer. Guy's got some serious cred as a writer, but Identity Crisis is just a shitstorm from stem to stern.

[mrstatham]

I still have to imagine that elements of Identity Crisis were editorially mandated (hence the infamous 'we need a rape' quote), but.. Yeah. Definite equivalent right there, because elements of Meltzer's later Justice League run were fine. Nothing amazing, but fine.

[stacyhd]

Ohhhhhh yeah. IDENTITY CRISIS. There is no curse in Entish, Elvish, or the tongues of Men for -that- treachery.

[mrstatham]

I like Bendis. I really do. I've read Powers from start to finish, bought the new editions of Alias, liked most of his X-Men work even though I get the feeling he knew he was just a placeholder and wasn't allowed to do much of consequence.. I like most of his stuff overall. People mock his writing style, but.. I've actually seen conversations like the ones he writes. I've been in them. I think we all have, really.

But.. Team books are not his strong suit. He's best when he can focus on a specific character, or is doing a solo book. Alias. Parts of Moon Knight. Scarlet. Ultimate Spider-Man. And while Ultimate Spider-Man in particular developed a very large ensemble cast, Peter was still one of the strongest points.

So.. Yeah. His Avengers work was not the best. He clearly had characters he didn't like - although to give him credit, he did bring them back in time; he put most, if not all, of the toys he had used back in the box when he was done - or during his tenure, characters were brought back anyway. At the same time, I think every writer has characters they prefer at the expense of others, and it was just more notable because he was in the spotlight. He also had villains he seemed to want to push who were occasionally unfathomable, to me - like the Hood. The Hood's gimmick, to be, is like that of Spider-Man; he should be something of a perpetual loser with his own 'Parker Luck', and escalating him to the big time was, to me, a mistake.

But.. Everyone has hits and misses, I just think it's easier to target him due to his stature within Marvel. He does however, deserve real credit for making the Avengers genuinely A-list as a book and a team. There's a reason they succeeded the X-Men as Marvel's top-selling franchise, and while the quality was most likely better under say, Busiek, and might be better now under Waid, he did that. So.. Yeah. He's made some flubs, and it's easy to peg him as a bad writer for his more prominent work, but.. I like him.

[informationgeek]

I like a lot of Bendis' work as well. Powers is in my Top 10 favorite comics of all time alongside Bone, The Unwritten, and Fables to me. Ultimate Spider-Man is a great ride and Alias was quite enjoyable. Nothing wrong with liking him, especially since I like a great deal of his works as well.

I only really posted this because I heard Avengers Disassembled was bad and man is it bad. It definitely one of the worst things Bendis wrote (just slightly behind Civil War II.8 Final Chapter Prologue) and there a lot of familiar things people like ragging on him for nowadays in this comic.


Lastly, speaking of team books, he'll be writing the new Defenders comic that made of the Netflix stars. Think it'll be better than most of his team books?

[mrstatham]

I totally get it, and as I say, most team books are not his strong suit. Event books neither, although I think Secret Invasion was interesting enough (just not needing the, what, two years of build-up?), and I actually really liked Siege; that, to me, was short, punchy and did what it needed to. Norman Osborn lost it, got battered, and the Sentry's ongoing stuff was finally resolved. Lovely Coipel art, too.

But.. Yeah. 'Civil War II: Thank You Carol, Goodbye Tony, and to all the precogs: Congratulations'? Super-not good.

I'm looking forward to the Defenders, though. Danny is like, the only real unknown quantity in Bendis' hands. Otherwise? He made contemporary Daredevil and Luke Cage what they are, and Jess is just about the smartest, most careful insertion of a character into existing continuity that I've seen. And it's a good creative team, too; Bendis really gets a good pick of artists, be it Pichelli, Marquez, Maleev, and Gaydos. So I'm really hyped he's taking a good artist with him to the Defenders. I'm also glad it's not yet another iteration of 'Heroes For Hire', since he'd suggested that before when wrapping up the Avengers, and it never seems to go anywhere.

[thehood]

Technically it did, since his new Heroes for Hire was seen and mentioned in Ewing's Mighty Avengers.

[mrstatham]

Oh, no, Bendis actively stated he wanted to do a Heroes for Hire book around the time he was finishing up the Avengers; that was kind-of hinted at with Luke and Jess, and part of the reason they were barely used for a period. So.. Technically, yeah, but it never came to pass with Bendis, and I'm glad of that, in some ways.

[thehood]

Right, but Ewing ended up being the one that picked up on that.

[zylly]

I'm cautiously optimistic about the Defenders series as well.

But I'm also terrified it's going to kill Walker's extremely good Power Man and Iron Fist series.

[mrstatham]

I think it'll be okay. If we can have a Jessica Jones and a Daredevil series running at the same time as the Defenders, I'm sure we can have Power Man/Iron Fist.

[thehood]

Well, his Defenders is only four characters and characters he does seem to have affinity found.

Plus, his Avengers run that i did enjoy did have Luke, Danny and Jessica.

[lyricalswagger]

I really don't like this comic. Anything about it. I tried to find some redeeming point but I can't.

[gnarll]

Its interesting that he brings up Hanks spousal abuse issue just as Wanda passes him by a mile.

[thehood]

I don't think he dislikes She-Hulk. I mean, i doubt he takes it that personally. Which might be an issue in of itself.

[mrstatham]

I don't think he particularly dislikes any character - even with the Wasp, he used her later on. In fact his 'killing off' the Wasp was more notable by the fact that Gail Simone, of all people, declared she was glad the character was gone. That was incredibly jarring.