New Avengers in the 2000s
Then came Bendis. When Brian Michael Bendis took on the Avengers, he managed to do something that many have tried and failed to do: Do something modern with the brand and not have it fail. Kurt Busiek may have done a great job revitalizing the title, but he didn’t do much more than maintain a 40 year status quo. Bendis took the stuff, continuity laden stories of old and tossed them out the window. Favoring an action film style esthetic which made the team much more action orientated. From his indie works Jinx and Torso, Bendis made a name for himself telling cinematic tales. However, he did so in a way that respected the source material, and still managed to have a lot of character development. BMB also gave us a team of unconventional Avengers, mostly individuals with no prior membership on the team. As well as finally cement a substantial membership on the group for Spider-Man, who had been flirting with membership for decades (and briefly held it for a few issues in the 90s before everyone just kind of forgot about it). Bendis also brought in characters from his own childhood that he loved, revitalizing the likes of Luke Cage and Spider-Woman for the title. He clearly saw that everything Marvel was doing with the Spider-Woman title (constantly finding new Spider-Women and trying to reinvent the wheel) was dumb. Just bring back Jessica Drew in to the role (although not really, as you found out later on in the series). Unexpected additions were the inclusion of Wolverine, and reviving the Sentry, Marvel’s Millennial Aprils Fools gag from a few years earlier.
New Avengers also existed to lay down the groundwork for all of the events that were going to happen over the course of nearly a decade. From Civil War, to Secret Invasion, to Dark Reign, and finally Siege. Bendis spearheaded it all and a lot of the germs of these major events got their start in New Avengers.
I recall at the time that a lot of people were heavily critical of Bendis. Be it for his stylistic storytelling methods or people complaining about BMB not adhering to their incredibly rigid head cannon. A lot of particularly snide things were said over at the Unofficial Appendix that are still there to this day (real professional, guys). These attitudes were all a form of protective gatekeeping. How dare Bendis break all of these rules and ideas and decades long conventions. Why are they doing different things with characters they knew and loved? To which I say, why the fuck not? Like, I never understand the kind of people who want the by-the-numbers repetitive syndicated style storytelling where everything ends with the status quo restored. No drama, nothing changes, just endless mundanity. While comics (due to their long running serialization) does tend to do a lot of back pedaling to status quo, there still needs to be some kind of change. Why am I going to give a shit about Spider-Man if nothing in his world changes? Bendis was the anti-thesis to routine and regularity. He shook shit up. The people who had gripes about it, or nitpicked over dumb shit like which D-list supervillain was supposed to be dead, couldn’t see the forest from the trees. These are the fans that drive me fucking crazy and make me not engage with the culture very often. If these close minded rubes could immolate themselves, it would do wonders for my peace of mind, but I digress.
There was a phrenic energy to this title that hadn’t been seen in years. Bendis also deserves commendations for making mysteries interesting in the Marvel Universe again. The 1990s was rife with characters with mysterious pasts or motivations that just kind of went nowhere and soon the trope became boring due to its overuse. Bendis, on the other hand was able to tell a compelling mystery and when it came to lay all the cards out on the table he did so in a style that was unheard of at the time.
Following the Civil War event, Bendis had a sister book Mighty Avengers thrown into the mix. Presenting us with Avengers on both sides of the divide. But where he really excelled with in the following storyline. In Secret Invasion event, which was the center piece of his entire epic. What BMB excels at is telling by showing, so instead of having the characters making revelations in real time, he spent 8 whole issues (in both titles) laying out the entire Skrull invasion conspiracy. Rather than doing a between-the-panels affair that was common, he had what the Avengers were doing in real time going on in the Secret Invasion limited series while his Avengers titles detailed the Skrull conspiracy. Stories that were almost entirely bereft of the title characters.
When Dark Reign rolled around, he revived the character the Hood, who had only previously appeared in a quickly forgotten Marvel Max title. He made Parker Robbins a serious threat and I enjoyed how he spent the time to develop the character and his gangland aspirations.
My only criticism of this run is that it goes a little too fast. There are so many moving parts that they go from one thread to the next very quickly. As bigger plotlines were ramping up, other ones were quickly resolved. Maybe that’s more something of being able to binge these stories in a sitting rather. Perhaps waiting a month for each issue to come out made it seem more protracted. I can’t say for sure. Still, having re-read the entire thing, I still think a lot of the criticisms are unfair. Bendis was able to run a decade long plotline without any major gaffes or loose threads. There is an attention to detail here that I don’t think a lot of people appreciate.
